The National Security Service (Turkish: Milli Emniyet Hizmeti, or MAH¶) was the governmental intelligence organization of Turkey between 1926 and 1965, when it was replaced by the National Intelligence Organization (Turkish: Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı, MİT).
It was established at a time when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was purging Union and Progress elements, including the Sentinel Association and the Teşkilât-ı Mahsûsa intelligence organizations. The first director of the MAH was M. Şükrü Âli Ögel.
During World War II, Turkey saw increased espionage by British, Soviet and German operatives and sympathizers. The MAH learned that the Germany would not attempt to invade Turkey, allowing the İnönü administration to resist mounting Allied pressure to declare war on Germany. (British efforts to get Turkey as an ally against Germany are a central element of Eric Ambler's classic spy thriller Journey Into Fear, published in 1940, in which a fictional head of the MAH, Colonel Haki, plays an important role.)
The MAH received financial support from the CIA.
Famous quotes containing the words national, security and/or service:
“The return of the asymmetrical Saturday was one of those small events that were interior, local, almost civic and which, in tranquil lives and closed societies, create a sort of national bond and become the favorite theme of conversation, of jokes and of stories exaggerated with pleasure: it would have been a ready- made seed for a legendary cycle, had any of us leanings toward the epic.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
—U.S. Constitution, Second Amendment.
“Old books that have ceased to be of service should no more be abandoned than should old friends who have ceased to give pleasure.”
—Peregrine, Sir Worsthorne (b. 1923)