Anastasio Somoza García

Anastasio Somoza García   (soldier, politician)
Born	1 February 1896
Died	29 September 1956 (Age 60)
Cause of death	gunshot
Nationality	Nicaraguan
Children	• Lillian Somoza Debayle • Luis Somoza Debayle • Anastasio Somoza Debayle
Victim of	premature death
Perpetrator of	Operation Washtub
Interests	• Operation PBSUCCESS • US Marines
Party	Nationalist Liberal Party, (PLN)
With the help of the US Marine Corps started a family dictatorship that maintained absolute control over Nicaragua for 42 years.  President of Nicaragua In office 21 May 1950 - 29 September 1956  President of Nicaragua In office 1 January 1937 - 1 May 1947

Anastasio "Tacho" Somoza García was officially the 21st President of Nicaragua from 1 January 1937 to 1 May 1947 and from 21 May 1950 to 29 September 1956,Anastasio Somoza started the Somoza family, a family dictatorship that maintained absolute control over Nicaragua for 42 years.

The son of a wealthy coffee planter, Somoza was educated in the United States. After his return to Nicaragua, he helped oust President Adolfo Díaz. He became the foreign secretary and took the title of "General". With the help of the US Marine Corps, which occupied Nicaragua at the time, Somoza became the head of the National Guard. This gave him the power base to remove his wife's uncle, Juan Bautista Sacasa, from the presidency, and make himself president in 1937. In 1947, an ally nominally succeeded him, but he retained power.

A month after his successor had been inaugurated, Somoza used the military to carry out a coup. The president was declared 'incapacitated' by Congress and Somoza served in his stead. Returning to power in his own name in 1951, he maintained an iron grip on his own Liberal Party while making a deal with the Conservatives; thus, he faced no opposition. This left him free to amass a huge personal fortune.

On 21 September 1956, he was shot by poet Rigoberto López Pérez. Mortally wounded, he was flown to the Panama Canal Zone where he died a week later. His eldest son Luis Somoza Debayle, who was Speaker of the House at the time of Somoza Garcia's death, took over and was elected in his own right in 1957 to serve until 1963, to be succeeded by Dr. Rene Schick who served until his death in 1966. His term was completed by Lorenzo Guerrero. In 1967 his younger brother Anastasio Somoza Debayle was elected to serve until 1972. He was reelected in 1974 after a Constituent Assembly that lasted from 1972 to 1974. During that time the country was ruled by a coalition junta of conservatives and Liberals. Somoza Debayle was forced to resign in 1979 and was assassinated in exile in Paraguay the following year.

Biography

Somoza was born in San Marcos, Carazo Department in Nicaragua, the son of Anastasio Somoza Reyes, a wealthy coffee planter, and Julia García, and a grandson of Anastasio Somoza Martínez and Isabel Reyes. As a teenager, he was sent to live with relatives in Philadelphia, where he attended the Peirce School of Business Administration (now Peirce College). While living in Philadelphia, he met his future wife, Salvadora Debayle Sacasa, a member of one of Nicaragua's wealthiest families, daughter of Dr. Luis Henri Debayle Pallais and wife Casimira Sacasa Sacasa, daughter of Roberto Sacasa Sarria, 44th and 46th President of Nicaragua, and wife and cousin Ángela Sacasa Cuadra. After returning to Nicaragua, he was unsuccessful as a businessman.

Marriage and family

He married Salvadora in 1919. They had two sons, Luis Somoza Debayle and Anastasio Somoza Debayle, and a daughter, Lillian Somoza de Sevilla Sacasa.

Early political career

In 1926, Somoza joined the Liberal rebellion in support of the presidential claims of Juan Bautista Sacasa, his wife's uncle. Somoza failed to distinguish himself in battle, leading an unsuccessful attack on the garrison at San Marcos. However, as a result of being educated in the United States, he spoke excellent English and acted as an interpreter during the U.S.-brokered negotiations between the warring parties.

In the government of President José María Moncada, to whom he was distantly related, he was governor of the department of León, Nicaraguan Consul to Costa Rica, and Foreign Minister. Despite his limited military experience, Somoza was able to rise through the ranks of the National Guard (Guardia Nacional), the constabulary force organized by the United States Marines.

Somoza and Sandino

After waging a bitter, six-year struggle with the forces of General Augusto César Sandino, in January 1933, the Marines evacuated the country following the election of Juan Bautista Sacasa as president. At the urging of the U.S. Ambassador Matthew E. Hanna, Somoza García was appointed as director of the National Guard.

During peace talks, Somoza ordered the assassination of General Sandino on 21 February 1934 in violation of a safe-conduct agreement. Sandino's assassination was followed by the murder of former Sandino supporters by the National Guard. In June 1936, Somoza forced Sacasa to resign.

Ruler of Nicaragua

Somoza (left), with Argentine President Juan Perón, in 1953.

Somoza's control of the Government

A series of puppets ruled for the remainder of the year, and, in December, Somoza was elected president by a margin of 107,201 votes to 100—an implausibly high margin that could have been obtained only through massive fraud. He took office on New Year's Day 1937. Somoza, popularly known as "Tacho", amended the Constitution to centralize all power in his hands. Family members and key supporters monopolized key positions in the government and military.

Nicaragua World War II

During World War II, the government confiscated the properties of Nicaragua's small, but economically influential German community and sold them to Somoza and his family at vastly lowered prices. By 1944, Somoza was the largest landowner in Nicaragua, owning fifty-one cattle ranches and forty-six coffee plantations, as well as several sugar mills and rum distilleries. Somoza named himself director of the Pacific Railroad, linking Managua to the nation's principal port, Corinto, which moved his merchandise and crops for free and maintained his vehicles and agricultural equipment.

He also made substantial profits by granting concessions to foreign (primarily U.S.) companies to exploit gold, rubber, and timber, for which he received 'executive levies' and 'presidential commissions.' He passed laws restricting imports and organized contraband operations, which sold merchandise through his own stores. He also extracted bribes from illegal gambling, prostitution, and alcohol distilling. By the end of the decade, he had acquired a fortune estimated to be US$400 million.

Though Nicaragua was on the Lend-Lease in World War II, the unwillingness of Nicaragua to actually fight meant it was given obsolete equipment (most of it being either purchased from Russia, Spain and Portugal or captured German equipment) and no Western training.

Democratic Window

In 1944, under pressure from the U.S., Somoza agreed to liberalize his rule. Unions were legalized, and he agreed not to run for re-election in 1947. The Nationalist Liberal Party nominated an elderly doctor named Leonardo Argüello, with Somoza using the National Guard to secure his election. Somoza intended for Argüello to be a mere puppet and to keep real power in his own hands until he could run again in 1952. However, upon being sworn in as president in May 1947, Argüello displayed considerable independence, attempting to reduce the power of the National Guard and the control of Somoza and his associates over the economy. Less than a month later, Somoza orchestrated another coup, naming one of his wife's uncles, Benjamín Lacayo, as president. This definitively ended any hopes for further democratization in Nicaragua under the Somoza regime.

Second Presidency

When the administration of U.S. President Harry Truman refused to recognize the new government, a Constituent Assembly was convened, which appointed Somoza's uncle, Víctor Manuel Román y Reyes, as president. In another heavily rigged election, Somoza García again became president in 1950. In the 1950s, he reorganized and streamlined his business empire, founding a merchant marine company, several textile mills, a national airline (LANICA, short for Líneas Aéreas de Nicaragua) and a new container port on the Pacific near Managua, which he named Puerto Somoza. (After the Sandinistas came to power they renamed it Puerto Sandino). He also acquired properties in the United States and Canada.

Assassination

In 1955, the constitution was amended to allow him to run for another term. On Friday, September 21, 1956, in the city of León, a party was given, after the convention of the Nationalist Liberal Party (PLN) that would once again proclaim Somoza as its candidate. That night, around 11:20 pm, the young opposition poet Rigoberto López Pérez fired five bullets (of which four hit) with a 38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver, wounding Somoza. Meanwhile, the guards of his escort drew their Colt pistols and Thompson submachine guns, both US 11.43 mm caliber weapons, killing López Pérez with 54 rounds.

Since that night of September 21, a state of siege was declared in Nicaragua. Many opponents were jailed, including Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, owner of the daily La Prensa.

Somoza was first transferred to the San Vicente hospital in the city of León, where the doctors transfused him with plasma, blood, a liter of dextrified serum and demerol. Later, he was transferred by helicopter to the Military Hospital in Managua, but since the radiological team was out of service there, they transferred him to the General Hospital in the same city. Here the X-rays confirmed that the bullets were not fatal, but the bullet that injured the cauda equina of the spine was dangerous, although the doctor César Amador Kühl recommended that it was not necessary to do the operation immediately to remove it.

This type of surgery did not exist in Nicaragua, so the president of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, sent a military plane to transfer him to the Gorgas Hospital, which was located in the Panama Canal Zone (then in the hands of the United States). On Monday, September 24, 1956, they performed the surgery, but the doctors made the mistake of giving him general anesthesia instead of local anesthesia. As Somoza was diabetic and obese, he went into a coma, developing severe metabolic encephalopathy until he died five days later at that American health center on Saturday, September 29, 1956 at 4:05 in the morning.

Funeral and Legacy

All the Nicaraguan bishops, diplomats, Somocistas, and foreign delegations attended his funeral During the ceremonies, a series of speeches by loyal followers of the Somoza family gave something that was more servility than the realities towards the person of the dictator.

Pope Pius XII sent his blessing to the widow Salvadora Debayle. The New York Cardinal, Francis Spellman, sent a statement to Luis Anastasio Somoza Debayle (eldest son of the general) saying: "I am sure that his father would have been very pleased to know that you will be his successor." US President Dwight D. Eisenhower also expressed his great sympathy for the deceased and his condolences to his family. Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic, was one of those who most presented solidarity for Somoza and the rest of his friends: Paul E. Magloire (from Haiti), Fulgencio Batista (from Cuba), Carlos Ibáñez del Campo (from Chile) and Alfredo Stroessner (from Paraguay). Among other messages that reached Nicaragua, there was condolences from the British Queen Elizabeth II.

Somoza's sons, Luis and Anastasio Somoza Debayle, ruled the country directly or through figurehead politicians for the next 23 years. Despite widespread corruption and repression of dissent, they were able to receive support from the United States, which viewed them as anti-communist stalwarts and a source of stability. His daughter Lillian Somoza Debayle, born in León, Nicaragua, on 3 May 1921, married Guillermo Sevilla Sacasa, Nicaraguan Ambassador to the United States during his brother-in-law's rule. He also had a son named José R. Somoza, born to an unknown mother.

Somoza is entombed with his oldest son at Cementerio Occidental in the National Guard Mausoleum in Managua, Nicaragua. (He should not be confused with his son, Somoza DeBayle, also a former Nicaraguan dictator, who is entombed in Miami.)

"Our Son of a Bitch"

Although Somoza was recognized as a ruthless dictator, the United States continued to support his regime as a non-communist stronghold in Nicaragua. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) supposedly remarked in 1939 that "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." According to historian David Schmitz, however, researchers and archivists who have searched the archives of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library have found no evidence that Roosevelt ever made this statement. The statement first appeared in the 15 November 1948 issue of Time magazine and was later mentioned in a 17 March 1960 broadcast of CBS Reports called "Trujillo: Portrait of a Dictator". In this broadcast, however, it was asserted that FDR made the statement in reference to Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. It should be further noted that this statement has been attributed to a variety of United States presidential administrations in regard to foreign dictators. Thus the statement remains apocryphal at this point, though Roosevelt and later presidents certainly supported the Somoza family and their rule over Nicaragua. Andrew Crawley claims that the Roosevelt statement is a myth created by Somoza himself.

From 1952 to 1954 Somoza was actively involved in the planning of the CIA operations Operation Fortune and Operation Success or Operation PBSUCCESS, which aimed to overthrow Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. The invasion force that overthrew Arbenz in June 1954 had been trained in Nicaragua; i.a. on one of Somoza's private properties, El Tamarindo.

 

An event carried out

Event	Location
Operation Washtub	Nicaragua Guatemala

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.