Ambassador Komer, known for his success in garnering support in a hostile environment like Vietnam, tried to calm down the relations to the Turkish population, which was furious due the presence of US soldiers of the 6th US Navy Fleet in Istanbul, who had an exclusive access to certain theaters. He ordered that the US military presence should be adapted to only the necessary, navy fleet visits were to be halted and NATO facilities would be operated by Turkey. But he was not as successful in Turkey as he was in Vietnam, and he left a special mark in Turkish history: on January 6, 1969, at the beginning of his tenure as the US ambassador to Turkey, his car was set on fire in Middle East Technical UniversityPhotographs of Komer's car aflame: Devrimden vazgeçmeyen okul: ODTÜ, Radikal by a group of students who then formed the core of the Marxist-Leninist movement in Turkey under the banner of Dev-Genç. Komer was visiting the campus at the invitation of university president Kemal Kurdas, who relied on American donors to finance the building of the modern campus.
