Anastasio Somoza García

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Anastasio "Tacho" Somoza Garca, born in 1937 to 1 May 1947, and from 21 May 1950 to 29 September 1956, but ruled effectively as tyrant from 1936 to 1956.

Anastasio Somoza started a dynasty in Nicaragua that ruled absolute power for 55 years. Somoza, the son of a wealthy coffee planter, was educated in the United States.

He helped depose President Adolfo D'az after returning to Nicaragua.

He became the foreign minister and took the name of "General" after him.

Somoza became the head of the National Guard with the help of the US Marine Corps, which was occupying Nicaragua at the time.

Juan Bautista Sacasa, his wife's uncle, was evicted from office by the time, and he made himself president in 1937.

An ally nominally succeeded him in 1947, but the executive retained power. Somoza launched a coup a month after his successor was announced by the military.

By Congress, the president had been declared 'incapitated,' and Somoza was in his place.

Although returning to power in his own name in 1951, he retained an iron grip on his own Liberal Party even as he signed an agreement with the Conservatives; in the process, he faced no opposition.

He was left with a huge personal fortune.

Rigoberto López Pérez, a poet, had shot him on September 21.

He was flown to the Panama Canal Zone where he died a week later, causing him to be mortally wounded.

Luis Somoza Debayle, the son of Somoza Garcia's death, died and was elected in his own right in 1957 to serve until 1963. Dr. Gregor Will replace him.

Rene Schick, a retired swimmer who died in 1966, was the subject of a series of tragedies.

Lorenzo Guerrero ended his term.

Anastasio Somoza Debayle, his younger brother, was elected to serve until 1972.

He was reelected in 1974 after a Constituent Assembly that spanned 1972 to 1974.

During this time, the country was ruled by a coalition junta of conservatives and Liberals.

In 1979, Somoza Debayle was forced to resign and was assassinated in exile in Paraguay the following year.

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Early political career

Somoza, a 1926 Liberal immigrant, joined the Liberal movement in favour of Juan Bautista Sacasa's presidential inauguration assay. Somoza failed to distinguish himself in combat, leading to a failed assault on San Marcos' garrison. However, despite being educated in the United States, he spoke fluent English and served as an interpreter during the US-brokered talks between the warring sides.

President José Mara Moncada's cabinet, to whom he was distantly related, he served as governor of León's Nicaraguan Consul to Costa Rica and Foreign Minister. Despite his modest military service, Somoza was able to climb through the ranks of the National Guard (Guardia Nacional), the constabulary force organized by the US Marines.

Following Juan Bautista Sacasa's election as president, the Marines left the country after waging a lengthy, six-year war with the general Augusto César Sandino's forces in January 1933. The United States' ambassador encouraged the United States to join the European Union at his request. Ambassador Matthew E. Hanna, Somoza Garca, was appointed as the head of the National Guard.

Somoza ordered the assassination of General Sandino on February 21, 1934, in breach of a safe-conduct deal. The National Guard assassinated Sandino, followed the assassination of former Sandino supporters. Somoza compelled Sacasa to resign in June 1936.

Carlos Alberto Brenes ruled for the remainder of the year, and Somoza was elected president by a margin of 107,201 votes to 100 in December, an implausibly wide margin that may have only been achieved by massive fraud. On New Year's Day 1937, he took office. Somoza, also known as "Tacho," rewrites the Constitution to centralize all power in his hands. Family members and other key supporters monopolized key positions in the government and military.

The government confiscated the assets of Nicaragua's tiny, but financially wealthy German community and sold them to Somoza and his family at much lower rates during World War II. Somoza, Guatemala's biggest landowner, owned fifty-one cattle ranches and forty-six coffee plantations, as well as many sugar mills and rum distilleries by 1944, making him the country's largest landowner. Somoza referred to Mana's Pacific Railroad, which moved his produce and crops for free and maintained his vehicles and agricultural equipment.

He also made substantial money by granting waivers to international (mainly US) companies to mine gold, rubber, and timber for which he received 'executive levies' and 'presidential commissions.' He passed legislation restricting imports and organized contraband enterprises, which sold merchandise in his own stores. He also obtained bribes from illegal gambling, prostitution, and alcohol distillation. He had acquired a fortune estimated to be US$400 million by the end of the decade.

Though Nicaragua received Lend-Lease assistance in World War II, the resistance of Nicaragua to actually combat meant that it was given outdated equipment (most of which was purchased from Russia, Spain, and Portugal) and no Western training.

Somoza decided to liberalize his reign in 1944, despite obnoxious pressure from the United States. Unions were established, and he decided not to run for re-election in 1947. Leonardo Argüello, an elderly doctor, had been nominated by the National Guard for his election, with Somoza utilizing the National Guard to ensure his election. Somoza intended for Argüello to be a mere puppet and to keep real power in his own hands until he ran again in 1952. However, Argüello, who was elected president in May 1947, displayed a great deal of independence, seeking to reduce the National Guard's influence and Somoza's influence over the economy. Somoza orchestrated another coup, naming Benjamn Lacayo as president less than a month after his wife's uncles, Lazaro Tetayo, as the head. Any aspirations for further democratization in Nicaragua under Somoza's regime have been shattered.

When President Harry Truman refused to recognize the new government, a Constituent Assembly was convened, which named Somoza's uncle, Váctor Manuel Román y Reyes as president. Somoza Garca won in another heavily fought election in 1950. He reorganized and simplified his company empire in the 1950s, including a merchant marine company, several textile mills, a national airline (LANICA), and a new container port on the Pacific near Manas, which he shortened to Puerto Somoza. (They renamed it Puerto Sandino after the Sandinistas took power.) He also bought properties in the United States and Canada.

The constitution was changed in 1955 to allow him to run for another term. He was shot by poet Rigoberto López Pérez in León on September 21, 1956, and died in a Panama Canal Zone hospital a few days later.

For the next 23 years, Somoza's sons, Luis and Anastasio Somoza Debayle, ruled the country either directly or through figurehead politicians. Despite widespread graft and repression of opposition, they were able to obtain assistance from the US, which saw them as anti-communist stalwarts and a point of stability. Lillian Somoza Debayle, a born in León, Nicaragua, on May 3, 1921, married Guillermo Sevilla Sacasa, Nicaragua's ambassador to the United States during his brother-in-law's reign. José R. Somoza, who was born to an unknown mother, had an older brother.

In the National Guard Mausoleum in Mana, Nicaragua, Somoza's oldest son is entombed. (He should not be confused with his son, Somoza DeBayle, who is also a former Nicaraguan tyrant who has been entombed in Miami, but he should not be confused with him.)

Despite Somoza's deposition as a brutal tyrant, the United States continued to support his regime as a non-communist stronghold in Nicaragua. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) reportedly remarked in 1939 that "Somoza may be a bitch's son, but he's our son of a bitch." According to historian David Schmitz, historians and archivists who have searched the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library's archives find no evidence that Roosevelt ever made this statement. The essay appeared in the Time magazine's November 15, 1948 issue, and it was later announced in CBS Reports' "Trujillo: Portrait of a Dictator" on March 17, 1960. However, it was claimed in this broadcast that FDR made the remark in reference to Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic's Rafael Trujillo. It should be further noted that this statement has been traced to a number of US presidential administrations in the case of foreign dictatorships. According to this point, the address is also apocryphal, though Roosevelt and later presidents have obviously favored the Somoza family and their reign over Nicaragua. According to Andrew Crawley, the Roosevelt address is a myth fabricated by Somoza himself.

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