Turkey, 1963 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
On 20 to 21 May 1963 Colonel Talat Aydemir, the former commander of the Turkish Military Academy who had been forced into retirement after his failed February 1962 coup, mounted a second and bloodier attempt to overthrow the coalition government of Prime Minister Ismet Inonu. Aydemir and his chief associate Major Fethi Gurcan led their cadets and allied units to seize the radio station in Ankara and announced that the army had taken over the government, dissolved parliament, and abolished the political parties. But a loyalist officer slipped into the studio and broadcast a denial, rallying loyal forces; air units flew over Ankara against the rebels, the deceived cadets dispersed, and by dawn the government had regained control.
The brief clashes killed at least six people. Unlike the leniency shown after 1962, this time the government responded harshly: Aydemir was arrested, tried, and executed, and his sympathizers were purged from the military.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
64005201963- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-640-1963-05-20
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Prime Minister Ismet Inonu and the civilian government survived the second Aydemir coup; the leaders were executed.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Luttwak
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →