Background
Anastasio Somoza García was born on 1 February 1896 in San Marcos. He was a son of prosperous middle-class landowners.
Anastasio Somoza García was born on 1 February 1896 in San Marcos. He was a son of prosperous middle-class landowners.
He attended the Intituto Nacional de Oriente at Granada, Nicaragua, and later graduated front the Pierce Commercial College in Philadelphia, where he studied bookkeeping, baseball and English.
On his return to Nicaragua, his experience, assumed abroad, helped ingratiate him with influential Americans for whom he acted as interpreter during the Marine occupation of 1926-1932.
In August 1926 “General” Somoza, only 30 years old, commanded a Liberal force that occupied San Marcos on behalf of Liberal “General” Benjamín Moneada, in revolt against the government of Conservative General Emiliano Chamorro Vargas. Going into hiding after a defeat, Somoza accepted a pardon in return for a promise "not to join any other subversive activities.” When Moneada later became president. Somoza was his subsecretary for foreign affairs and acting foreign minister.
After Liberal Juan Bautista Sacasa won the presidential election conducted under U. S. supervision in 1932, he appointed his nephew-in-law Anastasio Somoza to head the National Guard. However, relations between the two deteriorated after the U. S. Marines left in 1933, and Somoza ousted his uncle from the presidency in 1936—after having permitted the assassination of Augusto César Sandino,the Liberal guerrilla leader, in Managua under a flag of truce.
Inaugurated president in January 1937, Somoza reorganized the Liberal Party into a personalist party to maintain his family’s control. Making himself a general, he ruled directly (1937-1947 and 1950-1956) or through puppets until his death.
On September 21, 1956, Somoza was shot. He died on September 30 in a U. S. Army hospital in Panama, to which he had been transported under orders of President Dwight Eisenhower. He succeeded by his son, Luis Somoza Dcbayle.
Somoza was clever enough to see that more than force was needed to stay in power. He juggled the constitution until he had a document that enabled him to do whatever he wanted. Roads, schools, hospitals, and hydroelectric plants were built; agriculture was diversified by stimulating the production of sugar and cotton. Somoza also benefited mightily from this economic development, amassing a fortune worth at least $150 million.
A labor code was adopted in 1944, an income tax in 1952, a National Development Institute in 1953, and a National Institute of Social Security in 1956. By tempting Conservative opponents and independents with jobs and influence on a minor scale, Somoza weakened the opposition. Twice, the Conservatives under Emiliano Chamorro negotiated formal agreements with him that provided them with a stated percentage of government posts in return tor a relaxation of opposition.
Somoza was wise enough to cultivate good relations with the United States. In 1939, when he paid a state visit to the United States, he was elaborately received by Washington officials. However, his relations with other Central American countries, especially Costa Rica, after World War II were not so cordial. Somoza gave support to Costa Rican conservatives wishing to overthrow the democratic Junta governing that country in December 1948, and in January 1955, the government of Jose Figueres Ferrer.
One of the first things Somoza did upon his return from Philadelphia was to marry Salvadora Debayle, whom he had met in Philadelphia. She was daughter of one of Nicaragua’s leading families, and niece of Liberal politician Juan Bautista Sacasa.
