[4] Demirel's government, weakened by defections, seemed paralyzed in the face of the campus and street violence, and unable to pass any serious legislation on social and financial reform.

[3] It was in this atmosphere that on 12 March, the Chief of the General Staff, Memduh Tağmaç, handed prime minister Demirel a memorandum, really amounting to an ultimatum by the armed forces.

It demanded "the formation, within the context of democratic principles, of a strong and credible government, which will neutralise the current anarchical situation and which, inspired by Atatürk's views, will implement the reformist laws envisaged by the constitution", putting an end to the "anarchy, fratricidal strife, and social and economic unrest".

[3][5] Demirel resigned after a three-hour meeting with his cabinet;[6] veteran politician and opposition leader İsmet İnönü sharply denounced any military meddling in politics.

First, senior commanders believed Demirel had lost his grip on power and was unable to deal with rising public disorder and political terrorism, so they wished to return order to Turkey.

Second, many officers seem to have been unwilling to bear responsibility for the government's violent measures, such as the suppression of Istanbul workers' demonstrations the previous June; more radical members believed coercion alone could not stop popular unrest and Marxist revolutionary movements, and that the social and economic reformism behind the 1960 coup needed to be put into practice.

[7] The coup did not come as a surprise to most Turks, but the direction it would take was uncertain, as its collective nature made it difficult to discern which faction in the armed forces had seized the initiative.

The liberal intelligentsia hoped it was the radical-reformist wing led by Air Force commander Muhsin Batur, who favoured implementing reforms envisaged by the 1961 constitution; they were thus encouraged by the memorandum.

[10] In April, politics was eclipsed (and the envisaged reform put off until after 1973) when a new wave of terror began, carried out by the Turkish People's Liberation Army, in the form of kidnappings with ransom demands and bank robberies.

After the Israeli consul was abducted on 17 May, hundreds of students, young academics, writers, trade unionists and Workers' Party activists—not just leftists but also people with liberal-progressive sympathies—were detained and tortured.

[13] The Counter-Guerrillas were active in the same building, with interrogations directed by their mainly Central Intelligence Agency-trained specialists, and resulting in hundreds of deaths or permanent injuries.

(An important reassertion of civilian influence took place in March–April 1973, when Demirel and Ecevit, normally at odds, both rejected the generals' choice for president, instead having Fahri Korutürk elected to the post by the Assembly.

The constitution was amended so as to strengthen the state against civil society; special courts were in place to deal with all forms of dissent quickly and ruthlessly (these tried over 3,000 people before their abolition in 1976); the universities, their autonomy ended, had been made to curb the radicalism of students and faculty; radio, television, newspapers and the constitutional court were curtailed; the National Security Council was made more powerful; and, once the Workers' Party was dissolved in July 1971, the trade unions were pacified and left in an ideological vacuum.