Everyone is familiar with Enver’s “direct action” method of playing politics. One of the ways he was wont to remove troublesome rivals in the days of the Young Turk Revolution was to go out and shoot them with his own hand. This “impulsiveness” got him into grave trouble with the Soviets in spite of all his sensible utterances to the contrary. When he was “shifted” to Bokhara so that he would not be in the way of either Kemal or the Russians, he got bored and started a war of his own. One night he fled into the hills of Afghanistan and soon began to gather recruits around him. A few nights after that one of the principal officials of the Bokharan Republic also fled to join Enver. This performance was repeated until over half the Bokharan cabinet had fled. Then fighting began and we got vague rumors of battles, but only through the Soviet press. In August, 1922, we heard that Enver had been killed, that his body had been found on the field of battle. There was even romance surrounding him and his supposed death. Stories were circulated that when the body was picked up and examined, the letters of an American girl were found next his heart. I went to see Jacob Peters, who has charge now of all the Eastern Territory and who was then in Moscow. He laughed heartily and said he would show me the “information.” It consisted of three very hazy telegrams which had been three weeks on the way. The men who sent the telegrams and discovered the body had never seen Enver. There was no mention of letters. And Peter’s opinion of the whole affair was that there was nothing at all authentic in the story or else it was “a trick of Enver’s to sham being dead.” Peters’ theory proved true. Within a few days fighting began again and Enver began to win. He had conceived the notion of uniting all Turkestan and Bokhara and Keiva to the Angora government. It places the Soviets in a strange position. They may have to give in to him, though he will not actually be an “enemy,” because neither the Turks nor the Russians can afford to break their treaty. Therefore, his private war in the south embarrasses the Soviets much more than it does Kemal, who needs only to disavow any connection with it, as do all the Turkish officials. If Enver wins he will add a nice slice to Turkish territory; if he loses, Turkey will be in the same position as before. Enver, while he will always maintain a great prestige in the Mussulman world, will never oust Kemal. Mustapha Kemal Pasha is the great popular hero of a victorious Turkey, which but for him might never have even survived. There were times in the past when Enver was more important than Kemal, but that can never happen again in Kemal’s life. Both men rose from the ranks and both are the sons of peasants. And Kemal at this moment is more important than the Sultan. Greater than that no man can be under the banners of Mohammed.