NATIONAL UNITY COMMITTEE (TURKEY)

a group of military officers, commonly referred to as the nuc, who seized control of turkey's government on 27 may 1960.

The National Unity Committee (in Turkish, Milli Birlik Komitesi) was a group of military officers, led by General Cemal Gürsel, that staged the revolution of 27 May 1960 and subsequently ruled Turkey through 20 November 1961. Although the coup was prepared by officers of middle and junior rank, it was the senior officers who took control of the National Unity Committee and the government. Serious divisions separated the two groups: junior members favored radical reform requiring longer-term retention of power by the military. Senior members supported an early return of elected civilian government. One of the first acts of the NUC was to convene a constitutional commission to draft a new constitution. On 12 June 1960 a provisional constitution granted sovereignty to the NUC until new elections could be held. The NUC exercised legislative power directly and executive power indirectly through a civilian council of ministers appointed and controlled by the NUC.

On 13 November 1960, in a move to rid the group of its more radical elements, thirteen of the original thirty-eight members of the committee were purged, including the ultranationalist Colonel Alparslan Türkes, paving the way for convocation of a civilian constituent assembly to draft a new constitution. The constitution was approved in a popular referendum on 8 July 1961, though a large negative vote was cast. On 15 October 1961 parliamentary elections produced indecisive results, leading to the election of the NUC leader, Cemal Gürsel, as president of the republic, and to the necessity of organizing coalition governments for the first time.

The NUC implemented some social and economic reforms designed to stabilize politics in Turkey. In addition, it abolished the Demokrat Parti and brought almost six hundred of its members to trial, three of whom were subsequently executed.

see also gÜrsel, cemal.

Bibliography

Ahmad, Feroz. The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, 1950–1975. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1977.

Özbudun, E. The Role of the Military in Recent Turkish Politics. Cambridge, MA: Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 1966.

Shaw, Stanford, and Shaw, Ezel Kural. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. 2: Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey, 1808–1975. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977.

frank tachau