At five minutes past 9 one morning last week, in the capital city of Ankara, a bugler blew a blast, and all over the nation's 296,000 square miles, 21 million Turks stood motionless for five minutes. Only the delayed shriek of jet formations broke the silence. Then cannon began to boom at five-minute intervals as Kemal Ataturk, the Father of the Turks—dead 15 years this day—began his last voyage.
His remains were taken from the Ethnographic Museum, reverently laid on an artillery caisson, and drawn by 138 young reserve officers in a procession that stretched for two miles. Behind a...
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