THE ROLE OF MEHMET MUN？R ERTEGUN, AMBASSADOR AT WASH？NGTON ？N UNCOVER？NG THE INTERNAT？ONAL A？RPLANE SCANDAL “EKREM KON？G CASE”

Turkish contemporary history faced with some corruptions and scandals during the period Ataturk died and ？smet ？nonu was elected president. The first of these was the case of Muhittin Ustundag. The cases of Impex, Satie and Denizbank folllowed it. Another of these scandals was Ekrem Konig Scandal wearing out Celal Bayar cabinet and causing some changes in his cabinet. The aim of this paper is to study Konig Scandal which is different from others in view of the fact that its consequences and also has international dimensions and the role of Mehmet Munir Ertegun in uncovering the scandal, the Turkish Ambassador at Washington between the years 1934-1944. Besides, internal political developments and changes in the cabinet and ？stanbul American Consulate’s comment on these changes will be studied with the comments from Turkish press. In this study, it has been made used of NARA (National Archives and Records Administration), FRUS (Foreign Relations of the US) and memoirs. This international airplane scandal was uncovered by Mehmet Munir Ertegun, however it was suppressed for a while. It not only shook the capitals of many countries but also was an opportunity for ？smet ？n？nü who had been just elected president and wanted to eliminate the dissenters around him