Lesson 22

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Question SA-8. Here is the text reference (p. 215/4 and 216/1):

To extricate U.S. troops from Nicaragua, a professional military force trained by the U.S. was established. The plan was that this force would stay out of politics and act as a stabilizer between the two main political camps, the liberals and the conservatives. The first commander of this Nicaraguan National Guard (Guardia Nacional) was General Anastasio Somoza Sr., who rather quickly converted the Guard into his personal force and became deeply involved in the politics the Guard was supposed to abstain from. Somoza had been educated in the United States and knew how to manipulate U.S. emissaries and policy-makers in Washington by assuring them of Nicaraguan support and guaranteeing U.S. businesses that they would find Nicaragua to be a stable country for their investments. Internally, Somoza was ruthless in his political activities and his use of the Guard to defend his family interests. In 1934 he had Sandino assassinated, thus eliminating a potential rival for power (and in the process making him a national martyr). In 1937 Somoza assumed the presidency and began the forty-year period that could fairly be called the Somoza family's dynastic rule of Nicaragua.

Somoza senior died by an assassin's bullet in 1956, and over the next two decades was succeeded in the presidency by two sons and a close family friend. Anastasio Somoza junior, who had been trained at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, had been National Guard Commander for much of this time and became President in 1967, governing directly or indirectly until overthrown by the Sandinistas in 1979.