Istanbul Austronomy Student Denies That Kemal Ataturk Was Dictator

"In Turkey none of us thought of Ataturk as a dictator, although the rest of the world called him one," said Miss. Paris Pishmish in an interview yesterday. Arrived two days ago from Istanbul, she will work at the Astronomy Observatory for a year.

"We were at Genoa when we learned of the death of Ataturk," Miss Pishmish added. It was Ataturk who was responsible for the rejuvenation of the University of Istanbul, five years ago, when he had many of the old professors fired, and imported new ones from the various European countries, especially from Germany.

Miss Pishmish herself worked under the German Professor Freundlich, who was Head of the Department of Astronomy at Istanbul until he left for Prague a short time ago. She interpreted his German and English lectures, and investigated the "K-effect."

Her paper on the "K-effect" as yet unpublished, Miss Pishmish declined to explain the cryptic phrase. Her work here, in the Milton Bureau investigating variable stars was no better defined.

After graduation, in 1933, from the University of Istanbul, where she specialized in Mathematics, Miss Pishmish taught and worked as an assistant there until she earned her Doctorate in 1937. Belying the common conception of the cloistered life, she was a live interest in conditions in Turkey, and the world in general.

On her way to American, Miss Pishmish stopped to visit the observatories in Naples, and was much impressed with the Italians' spirit, "You can fool the artistic attitude," she said. "It is everywhere,--in the decorated buildings, the sidewalks,--even in the varied uniforms."

Although she know Americans in Turkey and mot many on the American Export Liner, Exeter, on the way across, this is Miss Pishmish's first visit to America. When asked what she thought of the feasibility of bringing German student refugees to the United States and to Harvard especially, she reapplied, "Although I am not a refugee, speaking as a foreign student I think it a splendid idea,. I should like to help it possible.