Cemal Gursel was a Turkish army general who became the fourth President of Turkey after a coup.
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40 Facts About Cemal Gursel
2.
Cemal Gursel was born in the city of Erzurum as the son of an Ottoman Army officer, Abidin Bey, and the grandson of Ibrahim and the great-grandson of Haci Ahmad.
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3.
Cemal Gursel was a popular figure and was therefore nicknamed "Cemal Aga" since his childhood school years and onwards all his life.
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4.
Cemal Gursel later fought at the Palestine and Syria fronts in 1917 and became a prisoner of war by the British while suffering malaria during his command of the 5th Battery of the 41st Regiment on 19 September 1918.
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5.
Cemal Gursel was promoted for gallantry in the First Division excelling in the battles of Second Inonu, Eskisehir and Sakarya, and was later awarded the Medal of Independence by the first Parliament for his combat service in the Final Offensive.
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6.
Cemal Gursel was married, in 1927, to Melahat, the daughter of the chief engineer on the Ottoman cruiser Hamidiye.
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7.
Cemal Gursel attended the Turkish Military College and graduated in 1929 as a staff officer.
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8.
Cemal Gursel was made a brigadier general in 1946 and made commander of the 65th Division.
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9.
Cemal Gursel was later the commander of the 12th Division, the 18th Corps commander, and commander of the 2nd Interior Tasks District.
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10.
Cemal Gursel's statement read: 'Always hold high the honor of the army and the uniform you wear.
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11.
The day after the coup, four-star general Cemal Gursel was declared the commander in chief, Head of state, Prime minister and Minister of Defense of the 24th government on 30 May 1960, in theory giving him more absolute powers than even Kemal Ataturk had ever had.
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12.
Cemal Gursel freed 200 students and nine newsmen, and licensed 14 banned newspapers to start publishing again.
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13.
President Cemal Gursel formed a scientific council to guide the Ministry of Defence, later forming the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey to advise the government more broadly.
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14.
Cemal Gursel appointed General Ragip Gumuspala, the commander of the Third Army, as the new Chief of the General Staff who, upon his retirement in two months, was succeeded by General Cevdet Sunay, and Gumuspala was further directed by Gursel to form the new Justice Party to bring together the former members of the Democratic Party.
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15.
Cemal Gursel was successful with his personal interventions in reducing the number of execution verdicts from the Yassiada trials from 15 down to three.
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16.
Ismet Inonu and Cemal Gursel were already phoning for him not to be executed but the telecommunications' office cut off the lines and Egesel made use of the gap to conduct the execution.
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17.
Cemal Gursel rescheduled and attended the previously cancelled Turkish and Scottish national football teams' game in Ankara on 8 June 1960 which was followed by a National Football Tournament, the Cemal Gursel Cup, that helped boost the national morale in the post-coup weeks with finals in Istanbul on 3 July.
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18.
Cemal Gursel took an active role in extensive modernization of Turkish Armed Forces and the staunch defense of the free world and Europe during the cold war, in particular during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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19.
Cemal Gursel hosted the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Ankara in early 1961 and the visit of the vice president Lyndon Johnson in 1962.
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20.
Cemal Gursel obtained, with the coordinated work of Sir Bernard Burrows, and granted permission of the ruling military National Unity Committee for British military combat aircraft to overfly Turkish airspace on their way to support Kuwait, which was under threat of invasion by Iraq in July 1961.
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21.
When questioned by a German journalist regarding his intentions on becoming the next president upon proposal of the interim parliament, Cemal Gursel responded that he was ready to serve only if asked by the nation, not by the interim house.
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22.
Cemal Gursel neither put his own candidacy forward for the presidency nor lobbied for his election or against any other candidate in any way.
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23.
Cemal Gursel offered his endorsement of candidacy of several high rank academicians in Medicine and Sciences in Ankara for both the interim prime minister and future president positions.
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24.
Cemal Gursel placed a special emphasis on participatory democracy with the promotion of the full interests of the nation's minorities, appointing Turkish Citizen ethnic leaders Hermine Kalustyan of Armenian, Kaludi Laskari of Greek and Erol Dilek of Jewish origin as his "Deputy Representatives of Head of State" and the full members of the interim House of Representatives.
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25.
Cemal Gursel re-established the freedom of speech that was overwhelmingly taken away from the media organs and from the press by the previous cabinet.
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26.
The President of the Republic of Turkey Cemal Gursel assigned the mandate to form and serve as the Prime Minister of the new government to Ismet Inonu in November 1961, June 1962 and December 1963, to Senator Suat Hayri Urguplu in February 1965 and, following the general elections, to Suleyman Demirel of Justice Party in October 1965.
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27.
Cemal Gursel promoted the grant of the freedom of and the legal rights to form unions and to go on strike in the country.
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28.
Cemal Gursel granted a presidential pardon for the life sentences of the previous president Celal Bayar and the former chief of general staff Rustu Erdelhun whose prior execution sentence was revoked by the National Unity Committee upon Gursel's appeals.
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29.
Cemal Gursel reformed the "Teskilat-i Mahsusa", the "Special Organization" of clandestine security services to a modern National Intelligence Agency in response to and preparation against escalating international terrorism trends in 1963.
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30.
Cemal Gursel paved the way to Middle Eastern countries and Pakistan to concentrate on economic and cultural matters of mutual interest and Ankara recognized Syria following the breakup of the short-lived United Arab Republic in 1961, further reestablishing diplomatic relations with Egypt in 1965.
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33.
Cemal Gursel laid the foundations of the new agricultural and structural development plans for the south-eastern Anatolian regions in early 1960s for the first time.
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34.
Cemal Gursel added the first Ministry of Culture and Tourism to the cabinet.
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35.
Cemal Gursel started the new procedure of returning the law proposals presented for the President's approval back to the Parliamentary re-discussions in 1963.
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36.
Cemal Gursel founded The National Security Council as well as the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey in 1963, appointing Professor Cahit Arf as its first director, officially charging TUBITAK primarily with governmental advisory duty by legislation.
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38.
Cemal Gursel died of apoplexy at 6:45 pm on 14 September 1966 in Ankara.
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39.
Cemal Gursel was laid to rest at the "Freedom Martyrs Memorial" section in the yard of the mausoleum of Ataturk.
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40.
Cemal Gursel's body was transferred on 27 August 1988 to a permanent burial place in the newly built Turkish State Cemetery.
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