Pasha Ali (Napoleon's World)

Ali Halil Kamal Ozal (18 February 1912 - 3 October 2007), better known as Pasha Ali, was an influential conservative Turkish politician and statesman with a career spanning five decades, from his first mayoral appointment at the age of 31 in 1943 until his retirement in 1995. He is the only Turkish politician to serve as the Speaker of Parliament, Grand Vizier, Secretary General of the Turkish Empire and Deputy Secretary General, holding a variety of posts between his appointment as the first postwar Speaker in 1960 following the Black Sea War until his eventual rise in power to Grand Vizier, a position he held between 1982 and 1995, the longest term of office in the 20th century. He is remembered fondly as Grand Vizier, as he governed over a time of relative peace and robust economic growth in Turkey.

Internationally, he is regarded as the staunchest proponent of the Turko-American alliance in the history of NATO and was considered "our good friend in Istanbul" by the US defense establishment. In particular, he had an exceptional rapport with Vice President and later President Robert Redford, whom he considered a "man's man" and one of his few genuine foreign friends. In France, Pasha Ali was reviled and detested, especially in the Jewish community, for his opposition to the formation of an independent Jewish state and his insistence on the independence of Jerusalem as opposed to the French-backed "two state" proposal.