Anastasio "Tachito" Somoza Debayle (; 5 December 1925 – 17 September 1980) was a Nicaraguan politician, military officer, hydraulic engineer, and dictator who served as the 53rd President of Nicaragua from 1967 to 1972 and again from 1974 until his fall in 1979. As head of the National Guard, he was de facto ruler of the country between 1967 and 1979, even during the period when he was not the de jure ruler.
Somoza Debayle succeeded his older brother, Luis Somoza Debayle, in office. He was the last member of the Somoza family to be president, ending a dynasty that had been in power since 1937. After insurgents led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (; FSLN) were closing in on Managua in July 1979, Somoza fled Nicaragua. Power was ceded to the Junta of National Reconstruction. He was assassinated in 1980 while in exile in Paraguay.
Early life and education
Somoza Debayle, nicknamed "Tachito" (Spanish: Little Tacho) by his father, was born in 1925 as the third child of Anastasio Somoza García and Salvadora Debayle. At the age of seven, he was enrolled at the Instituto Pedagógico La Salle, run by the Christian Brothers. One of his classmates was Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal,Diederich, Bernard. Somoza and the Legacy of U.S. Involvement in Central America. p. 14 who later became a journalist and publisher of La Prensa newspaper and one of the most prominent opponents of the Somoza dynasty.
From the age of ten, Tachito was educated in the United States. During this period, their father became president of Nicaragua, and served from 1937 to 1947, and again from 1950 into 1956. He and older brother Luis Somoza Debayle both attended St. Leo College Prep (Florida) and La Salle Military Academy on Long Island.
Somoza attended La Salle with Lt. Andrew Edward Tuck III, uncle of American television host Stephen Colbert, and would stay at the family home in Larchmont during the holidays instead of returning to Nicaragua. This led to Somoza going on several dates with Andrew Edward's sister and Colbert's mother, Lorna.
Somoza Debayle passed the examination for West Point, entered the United States Military Academy on July 3, 1943, and graduated on June 6, 1946.Somoza, Anastasio and Jack Cox. Nicaragua Betrayed. p. ix
After his return to Nicaragua, Somoza Debayle was appointed chief of staff of the National Guard (Nicaragua's national army), by his father. The president had also appointed numerous family members and close personal friends to other important posts in his government. As commander of the Guard, the young Somoza was head of the nation's armed forces, effectively the second-most powerful man in Nicaragua.
Two years after his return from West Point, Somoza Debayle had an affair and fathered a daughter, Patricia. She was later sent to a series of schools abroad.Diederich, p. 42
On 10 December 1950, Somoza married Hope Portocarrero, an American citizen and his first cousin. Their wedding was held at the Cathedral in Managua and officiated by Archbishop Jose Antonio Lezcano. Over 4,000 guests attended the ceremony. The reception was given by Somoza's father, President Anastasio Somoza García, in the luxurious and modern Palacio de Comunicaciones.
The couple had five children: Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero Julio Somoza Portocarrero Carolina Somoza Portocarrero, married to James Minskoff Sterling, son of New York real estate developer Henry H. Minskoff"Miss Somoza Wed to Dr. J. M. Sterling", New York Times, 16 October 1984 Carla Somoza Portocarrero Roberto Somoza Portocarrero
Somoza and Hope attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.
Following their father's assassination on 21 September 1956, Somoza's elder brother, Luis, took over the presidency. Anastasio also had a large hand in the government during this time; he helped ensure that the presidency was held by politicians loyal to his family from 1963 to 1967.
Presidency
Anastasio was elected president in his own right on 5 February 1967 and took office on 1 May, a few weeks after his brother's death. While Luis had ruled more gently than his father, Anastasio shared his father's cold intolerance of dissent. His rule soon resembled his father's in all significant respects, with harsh repression of dissent.
On education Somoza in his memoirs states "My dream was to provide a University equal to any in the world so that those young men and women with special qualifications could achieve educational equivalency with any student in any part of the world".Somoza (1980). Nicaragua betrayed. Western Islands. p. 4 However according to Thomas H. Holloway while visiting Costa Rica while a colleague boasted of the schools the government was building Somoza's father, Anastasio Somoza García famously replied, “I don’t want an educated population; I want oxen.” Holloway concludes that "The dehumanization of the population throughout the region led to a policy of slaughter."Thomas H. Holloway (2011). A Companion to Latin American History. Blackwell Publishing, Ltd. p. 408 According to Penny Lernoux a rural teacher from a school that had been closed by the National Guard, during Anastasio Somoza's Presidency, said “Teaching people to think is the worst crime you can commit under the Somoza government.” Penny Lernoux "Cry of the People: United States Involvement in the Rise of Fascism, Torture, and Murder and the Persecution of the Catholic Church in Latin America" 1980 p.85
In 1968, Prince Rainier III bestowed Somoza with the Order of St. Charles, Monaco's highest honor.Sovereign Ordonnance n° 4.123 of 23 October 1968.
He was due to leave office in May 1972; at the time, Nicaraguan presidents were barred from immediate re-election. However, prior to that, Somoza worked out an agreement that allowed him to stand for re-election in 1974. He would be replaced as president by a three-man junta consisting of two members of his Nationalist Liberal Party and one member from the opposition Conservative while he retained control of the National Guard. Somoza and his triumvirate drew up a new constitution that was ratified by the triumvirate and the cabinet on April 3, 1971. He stepped down as president on May 1, 1972. However, as head of the National Guard, he remained the de facto ruler of the country.
Anastasio Somoza and his son were both part owners of Plasmaferesis. The company collected blood plasma from up to 1,000 of Nicaragua's poorest persons every day for sale in the United States and Europe. According to El Diario Nuevo and La Prensa, "Every morning the homeless, drunks, and poor people went to sell half a liter of blood for 35 (Nicaraguan) cordobas".
On 23 December 1972, an earthquake struck the nation's capital, Managua, killing about 5,000 people and virtually destroying the city. The government declared martial law, and Somoza took over de jure as well as de facto control of the country as head of the National Emergency Committee. He reportedly embezzled a large amount of money from funds sent to Nicaragua from around the world to help rebuild Managua.
Some parts of Managua have yet to be rebuilt or restored, including the National Cathedral.
Somoza also allegedly exported freshly imported emergency blood plasma abroad at the time of the earthquake, when most medical supplies in Nicaragua were desperately in short supply.
Somoza was re-elected president in the 1974 election. By this time, the Catholic Church had begun to speak out against his government (one of his fiercest critics was Ernesto Cardenal, a leftist Nicaraguan priest who preached liberation theology and was later appointed as the Sandinista government's Minister of Culture). By the late 1970s, human rights groups were condemning the record of the Somoza government. Support for the Sandinistas was growing inside and outside the country.
In July 1977, Somoza had a heart attack, and went to the US to recuperate.
Fall
In 1975 Somoza Debayle launched a campaign to crush the Sandinistas; individuals suspected of supporting the Front were targeted. The Front, named after Augusto César Sandino, began its guerrilla war against the Somozas in 1963. It received funds from the Soviet Union and Cuba under Fidel Castro. Support for the Sandinistas ballooned after the earthquake, especially when U.S. President Jimmy Carter withdrew American support for the regime for human rights reasons, including the televised murder of American journalist Bill Stewart by government soldiers. At this point, the opposition to the Somozas included not only Sandinistas, but other prominent figures such as publisher Pedro Chamorro (assassinated on January 10, 1978).
Because of Somoza's status, most of his family members were forced to flee to Honduras, Guatemala, and the United States. It is uncertain where the surviving Somozas live; they changed their names to protect their own lives.
On July 17, 1979, Somoza resigned from the presidency and fled to Miami in a converted Curtiss C-46. He took with him the caskets of his father and brother and, it is claimed, much of Nicaragua's national treasure. The country was left with $1.6 billion in foreign debt, the highest in Central America. After Somoza had fled, the Sandinistas found less than $2 million in the national treasury.
Denied asylum in the U.S. by President Carter, Somoza later took refuge in Paraguay, then under the rule of Alfredo Stroessner. He bought a ranch and a gated house at Avenida España no. 433 in Asunción, the capital. The president of the Nicaraguan Chamber of Deputies, Francisco Urcuyo, took over as acting president, but lasted only a day before peacefully handing Managua to the Sandinistas.
Death Little more than a year later, Somoza was shot dead in Asunción on September 17, 1980. He was 54 years old. He was ambushed by a seven-strong Sandinista commando team (four men and three women). The action was known as "Operation Reptile".
The Sandinista team were armed with two Soviet-made machine guns, two AK-47 assault rifles, two automatic pistols, and an RPG-7 rocket launcher, with four anti-tank grenades and two rockets. The leader was Argentinian Marxist revolutionary Enrique Gorriarán Merlo (code named "Ramon"), an ex-Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo member.Gorriarán Merlo, Enrique. Memorias ("Memories") One of the team members said: "We cannot tolerate the existence of millionaire playboys while thousands of Latin Americans are dying of hunger. We are perfectly willing to give up our lives for this cause."
The Sandinista team had researched and planned their assault for over six months. The team studied Somoza's movements via a team member who was staked out at a newspaper kiosk near the estate. The commando team also utilized disinformation tactics to gain access into important residencies under the guise of a famous name, that being Julio Iglesias. They waited in ambush for Somoza in Avenida España. Somoza was often driven about the city in a Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan, which was believed to be unarmored. Team member Oswaldo, disguised as a paper boy, watched Somoza exit the estate at 10:10 am and gave a signal.