TURKEY: Divorced

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Louis XIV, paragon of despots, silenced the first signs of remonstrance against his wishes by the ever-effective reply : "Tel est noire plaisir."

Despots and dictators are formed in the same mould; last week, "Ghazi" Mustafa Kemal Pasha, President of the Turkish Republic, announced that it was his pleasure to divorce his wife, Latife Hanoum. And with no more formality, except the possible signing of a document, she was divorced.

Accounts disagreed widely as to the reason of the nuptial cleavage. Some said that Mme. Kemal, ardent feminist, mixed in matters that did not concern her and was apt to treat her spouse with high-handed masterfulness. Other accounts said that the wife had found the husband unbearable, had decided to live with him no longer, had herself sought the divorce. Official statements discreetly said nothing. All that was definitely known was that about three weeks ago Mme. Kemal left Angora precipitately. Ministers of the Government were present to bid her farewell, but the President was conspicuously absent. Latife Hanoum, 21, pretty, plump, short, graceful and possessed of "large, .luminous and altogether entrancing black eyes," is the daughter of Mouamerou-Chaki Bey, rich merchant of Smyrna, who once had connections with the New York Stock Exchange.

As a child she received her education first from an English governess; later, at Tudor Hall, Chiselhurst, near London. During the Graeco-Turkish War of 1921-22, she, living in Smyrna with her papa, was kept under surveillance by the Greeks, who believed her to be a spy. When, in the summer of 1922, the Turks drove the Greeks into the sea and triumphantly entered Smyrna, Latife Hanoum, at the head of a group of Turkish maidens, first saw the manly form of "Ghazi" Mustafa Kemal Pasha, then about 41 years of age, to whom she offered buns, coffee and shelter under her father's roof.

Latife, brilliant and vivacious, intelligent and accomplished, naturally interested the grave Mustafa. She spoke 'fluently English, French and German, and had mastered the Turkish language, an uncommon achievement for a modern Turkish woman. Moreover, she profoundly believed in the enlightenment of her sex in Turkey. Her object was to bring Turkish women to the social and cultural level of Western women and, en route, to destroy traditions (many of which were not sanctioned by the Koran) which had for centuries bound women to men as slaves. Moreover, she was an heiress.

All these things inclined Mustafa Kemal's heart toward her and, as Latife Hanoum. subsequently said, their union was more a joining of minds than anything else. The man Mustafa used to talk about Turkey to the girl Latife in the shade of her father's house. He told her of all he hoped to accomplish for his native land and of the prejudices, born of ignorance, bred of superstition. that he meant to extirpate. The girl listened enthralled.

"These conversations," she wrote later, "continued for four days and on the fifth evening I was surprised when our great General told me in a very matter-of-fact way that, having a Western education, he thought I would make a fitting partner for him, and before I realized what I was doing I had accepted the offer in a real unsentimental, matter-of-fact spirit."