Iscariot to Ankara

Turkey, unlike Bulgaria and Hungary, had its fill of German alliances in the World War and wants no more of them. Although trading heavily with Nazi Germany, the Turks now look favorably on the British-French antiaggression "Peace Front." Last week, in the face of this development, Adolf Hitler decided it was high time to send to Turkey a man skilled in dealing with just such a situation. He picked for the job of Reich Ambassador to Ankara Franz von Papen, a diplomatic smoothie, an international intriguer whom British Foreign Office wits call the "German specialist for political dirty work."

In the U. S. Captain von Papen is remembered for his melodramatic attempts in 1914-15, when he was a military attache in Washington, to sabotage ships and arms factories serving the Allies. He was suspected of implication in the famed Black Tom explosion. Only an apprentice plotter at the time, the Captain was soon caught so red-handed that President Wilson notified the Imperial German Government that the U. S. would have no more of him.

The U. S. Government arranged for his passage through the blockade to Germany, and the British Government promised to safeguard him. The guarantee did not, however, include his luggage. That was searched--and confiscated--and in it were found 126 check stubs showing the Captain's payments in the U. S. for spying and sabotage. The beneficiaries were promptly arrested.

Franz von Papen ended the War as a liaison officer on the Near Eastern Front. In the retreat of the Turks and Germans from Palestine he again left behind some valuable papers which fell into British hands. They, too, showed payments to U. S. agents. London was cabled for instructions. Legend has it that London replied: "Forward papers. If von Papen is captured do not intern; send him to a lunatic asylum."

Schemer von Papen was more success ful in putting the skids under the German Republic. One of the last of the Republic's Chancellors, he wanted to get back into the driver's seat. With Junker sup port, he helped persuade President Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Adolf Hitler Chancellor, believing naively that the Fiihrer would become a figurehead and that he, von Papen, as Vice Chancellor would be the real power in a "Barons' Cabinet." Only hitch came when the Nazis, once in power, took the bit in their teeth and ignored Driver von Papen.

Latest big von Papen intrigue took place in Austria, where he was sent as Ambassador to prepare the way for Anschluss. His big moment came when he arranged the Hitler-Schuschnigg conference at Berchtesgaden which sealed the fate of independent Austria. Since then he has been living on his estate in the Saar, where he rides, fishes, plays tennis. Last winter he delivered several innocuous lectures in Sweden.

The Ambassador has had many narrow escapes, the closest being in the 1934 Nazi purge, when only President von Hindenburg's protection and friendship saved him from assassination. Friends and associates have not been so lucky. His political supporters were wiped out in the purge and the body of the man who was his secretary in Austria was found floating in the Danube two months after Anschluss.

The late General Kurt von Schleicher, who was murdered in the Nazi purge by SS Guards, once described von Papen as: "The kind of traitor beside whom Judas Iscariot is a saint."

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