Tortured American Sergeants

Shortly before 1 o'clock one morning in early August, U.S. Army Sergeant Dale McCuistion, 27, driving through the streets of Izmir, Turkey, headquarters of NATO land forces in southeastern Europe, was crowded over to the curb. Men in plain clothes poured out of an unmarked civilian car and a Jeep, yanked McCuistion out of his station wagon. Convinced that he was about to be robbed, McCuistion put up a fight, but was soon overpowered and hustled off to a dungeonlike room underneath an old stable.

According to the story McCuistion later told his superiors, an English-speaking Turk, later identified as an agent of the Turkish Finance Ministry, charged McCuistion with black-market purchases of Turkish lire. When McCuistion denied the charge, five Turks began to work him over. For 18 hours he went without water, food or sleep while his captors questioned and "beat me unmercifully. They rabbit-punched me from behind and kicked me. I was afraid they would kill me."

An Old Turkish Custom. Early the following morning, while McCuistion was still being held incommunicado, Turkish police picked up U.S. Air Force Sergeant Giacomo Recevuto, of Brooklyn. And that afternoon Izmir Police Chief Nevzat Emrealp informed NATO authorities that he wanted to have "a little talk" about currency black-marketing with two other U.S. sergeants, James D. King of Ruth, Miss, and Joseph Proietti of Mt. Kisco, N.Y. Emrealp did not mention that his men had already extracted from the Turkish manager of the NATO noncoms' club in Izmir a confession implicating King--a confession subsequently repudiated by the club manager, who, as a result of his "questioning," was still in the hospital. Assured that King and Proietti would not be arrested, NATO officers turned them over to Emrealp--and Emrealp promptly arrested them.

VVhile Turkish cops without a search warrant ransacked Sergeant King's house under the terrified eyes of his wife and children, King himself was taken not to jail but to the stable dungeon. There, says King, he was introduced to an old Turkish custom: the bastinado. As he hung head down from a rafter, two Turks took turns beating the soles of his bare feet with a "rubber or leather stick."

Stolen Papers. It was two days after McCuistion's disappearance before NATO headquarters got interested. When Brigadier General Paul Hollister, NATO chief of staff in Izmir, protested to Turkish authorities, Tough Cop Emrealp at first denied knowledge of McCuistion's arrest. Finally the Turks agreed to show McCuistion and King to a U.S. colonel--who reported that both men were "in bad shape." It took ten more days for NATO to learn of the charges against the four sergeants, and by this time NATO officers also discovered that someone had stolen McCuistion's finance records from a safe in NATO headquarters.

According to the Turkish police, the four sergeants among them had bought about $15,000 worth of lire at black-market rates, i.e., at 11 or 12 to the dollar instead of at the official 9 to the dollar. For this, Izmir's public prosecutor last week demanded up to 25 years for McCuistion and lesser prison sentences for the other three.

Private Business. Under a status-of-forces treaty with the U.S., Turkish courts have jurisdiction over crimes committed by U.S. servicemen outside the line of duty. But U.S. officers at NATO could and did start assembling affidavits on the sergeants' complaints of brutality. (Wrote Lieut. General Paul D. Harkins in a report to the Pentagon: "There seems little doubt that Sergeants McCuistion and King were mistreated.")

But then diplomacy raised its familiar head. After all, Turkey is a stout ally and determinedly antiCommunist. The U.S. has given it approximately $2 billion in economic and military aid, and tries to avert its gaze from the increasingly dictatorial tendencies shown in a lively democratic country by Premier Adnan Menderes. After first word got out last week about the sergeants' case, Donald B. Eddy, U.S. consul in Izmir, spent nearly an hour trying to persuade NATO's Hollister to withdraw the report to the Pentagon. When Hollister refused. Eddy issued a statement to the Turkish press declaring that U.S. doctors had examined McCuistion and King and had found no injuries save a bruise on McCuistion's shoulder, "which he might have received while resisting arrest." When Eddy was reminded that NATO sources had given newsmen a detailed account of the tortures inflicted on McCuistion and King, he starchily replied: "In my opinion, it is impossible for a responsible American officer to give out such a story."

But the case of the tortured sergeants had gone beyond the stage where it could be papered over by press releases and morning-coat pronouncements. The Izmir public prosecutor's office took a belated interest in the brutality charges. (In a parade of "suspects" in Izmir jail, both McCuistion and King identified three Turkish Ministry of Finance agents as their torturers.) And at week's end U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Fletcher Warren came flying back to the U.S. on what the State Department insisted was "private business." Along with Warren, "by pure coincidence," came a colonel from the Air Force judge advocate's office in Ankara.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.