Name: Anastasio Somoza Debayle
Title: President of Nicaragua 1967 – 1979
Birth: 1925
Death: September 17, 1980, assassinated in Paraguay. He was buried in Miami.
Region: Nicaragua
Religion / Political: Anastasio Somoza Debayle was born in Leon, Nicaragua, on December 5, 1925, the last of three children of Salvadora Debayle and Anastasio Somoza Garcia. The family moved to Managua, where his father rose rapidly in politics, becoming commander of Nicaragua’s only armed force, the National Guard, in 1933. In 1937 General Somoza Garcia used his position to install himself as president of Nicaragua.
Main interests: Anastasio Somoza Debayle was sent to the United States to study, first in Tampa, then at La Salle Academy in New York. While there he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Guard and promoted to captain when he graduated. In 1943 he entered West Point, graduating from the war-shortened course in 1946. Returning to Nicaragua he was promoted to major and, shortly thereafter, to lieutenant colonel and made the Guard’s chief of staff. In 1956 Anastasio Somoza Debayle was made a colonel and became acting commander of the Guard while his father, who had dominated Nicaragua for 20 years, prepared to run again for president. But in September 1956 General Somoza Garcia was shot, dying a few days later. While Anastasio Somoza Debayle held command of the military, his older brother, Luis, was installed as president and nominated by the Somoza-controlled Liberal Party for the 1957 presidential elections.
Notable ideas: In 1974, in a rigged election, Somoza won a six-year presidential term. A few months later, FSLN guerrillas took numerous prominent Nicaraguans hostage, forcing the regime to release political prisoners and pay a large ransom. Somoza responded to this humiliation by instituting a state of seige and press censorship.
