Bülent Ecevit just one month. Justice Party leader Süleyman Demirel subsequently took over as Prime Minister and formed a three-party nationalist coalition. Ecevit's CHP was able to bring down Demirel's government by 1978, after which he became Prime Minister for a third time by forming a government supported by some independent MPs. Ecevit resigned as Prime Minister in 1979 following an election defeat in the 1979 senate elections. Bülent Ecevit recalled that he learned for the first time of the existence of Operation Gladio, a secret "stay-behind" NATO army, in 1974. He has also said he suspected "Counter-Guerrilla", the Turkish branch of
Bülent Ecevit among the first women in Turkey to paint professionally. Ecevit said his mother was of Bosniak ancestry and his paternal grandfather was of Kurdish ancestry. In 1944, Ecevit graduated from Robert College in Istanbul and started working as a translator at the General Directorate for Press and Publication (Turkish: "Basın Yayın Genel Müdürlüğü"). In 1946, shortly after marrying his classmate Rahşan Aral in 1946, he moved to London to work for Turkey's press attaché. During his stay in London, he studied Bengali, Sanskrit and Art History at the School of Oriental and African Studies, but did not graduate. He later