Background
Marcos Pérez Jiménez was born on 25 April 1914 in Venezuela.
Marcos Pérez Jiménez was born on 25 April 1914 in Venezuela.
He graduated from the military school in 1934, and for a decade his military career was unspectacular.
By 1945 he had only reached the rank of major. In 1944-1945 Pérez Jiménez organized the Unión Patriótica Military (UPM) to plot the overthrow of President Isaías Medina Angarita. He also led a delegation of the UPM which conferred with Rómulo Betancourt and Raúl Leoni about Acción Democrática (AD) participation in that conspiracy. On October 18, 1945, it was the arrest of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, which triggered the UPM to go into action. By the next day the uprising had triumphed.
Pérez Jiménez was not included in the Revolutionary Government Junta established on October 19, 1945, a fact he reportedly deeply resented and held Rómulo Betancourt, president of that Junta, responsible for. However, he was made chief of the General Staff and in 1946 was promoted to lieutenant colonel.
Rómulo Betancourt had doubts about Pérez Jimenez' loyalty to the Acción Democrática regime. Therefore, just before turning the government over to his elected successor, Rómulo Gallegos, Betancourt dispatched Pérez Jiménez on an extensive “diplomatic” mission to keep him out of the country for a long period. However, Minister of Defense Carlos Delgado Chalbaud permitted Pérez Jiménez to return home prematurely. There Pérez Jiménez began to plot President Gallegos’ overthrow, which took place on November 24, 1948. Army leaders established a military government junta with Pérez Jiménez as a member but presided over by Minister of War Delgado Chalbaud. When, on November 13, 1950, Delgado Chalbaud was murdered, his place was taken by a civilian, with Pérez Jiménez and Colonel Luis Felipe Llovera Páez continuing as the other two members.
In November 1952 the Junta called elections. When it became clear that the opposition Republican Democratic Union (URD) had won, counting of the votes was suspended, and Colonel Marcos Pérez Jiménez announced over the radio that he had assumed the presidency “in the name of the armed forces. He remained president from December 2, 1952, until January 23, 1958, and presided over one of the most repressive dictatorships than existing in Latin America.
The downfall of Pérez Jiménez came after he chose to have a “plebiscite” where voters answered yes or no to the proposal that he remain in power, a device that appeared utterly ridiculous to most Venezuelans and eclipsed for the moment fear of the regime. The military finally deposed Pérez Jiménez on January 23, 1968.
Pérez Jiménez was deported and ended up in the United States, but in August 1963 the government of President Rómulo Betancourt extradited the ex-dictator. In a trial lasting five years he was convicted of having stolen a substantial amount of money, was sentenced to the time he had already been in jail, and was allowed to go into exile once more.
In 1968 supporters of Pérez Jiménez organized a political party, which named him candidate for the Senate from Caracas. He was elected but was subsequently disqualified on the ground that he had not been in Venezuela during the election campaign or on election day. Subsequently, a constitutional amendment provided that no ex-officeholder convicted of a felony connected with his tenure in office could be eligible to run for any post again.
Following his release from jail, Pérez Jiménez lived in self-imposed exile in Spain.
Much of the Pérez Jiménez period was marked by vastly increased oil revenues, for various international crises had raised the demand for Venezuelan oil. Moreover, Pérez Jiménez reversed the AD governments policy of not granting new concessions to foreign firms, and many firms spent large amounts to acquire new concessions. The regime had an extensive public works program, principally construction of roads and of pharaonic projects in Caracas. Corruption was also of monumental proportions.
