THE best hope that the Turkish army's coup marked a step back to democracy instead of away from it lay in the character of the man who is now simultaneously President, Premier and Defense Minister.
General Cemal Gursel (pronounced Jem-fl/ Goor-sell) is a professional soldier whose troops affectionately call him Cemal Aga (Big Brother Cemal). Silver-haired. scrub-mustached and corpulent (5 ft. 10 in., more than 200 Ibs.), he was born of a conservative, middle-class family in Eastern Anatolia 65 years ago, was commissioned a lieutenant in the Ot toman army at 19. As a World War I artillery officer, he fought...