José Miguel Ramón Ydígoras Fuentes (17 October 1895 – 27 October 1982) was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as the 32nd
president of Guatemala
The president of Guatemala (), officially titled President of the Republic of Guatemala (), is the head of state and head of government of Guatemala, elected to a single four-year term. The position of President was created in 1839.
Selectio ...
from 1958 to March 1963. He was also the main challenger to
Jacobo Árbenz during the
1950 presidential election. Ydígoras previously served as the governor of the province of
San Marcos.
Early life and military career
Ydígoras Fuentes was born on a coffee plantation, in
Pueblo Nuevo in the Guatemalan department of
Retalhuleu, on 17 October 1895.
He retained a great fondness for coffee as an adult, claiming to drink 10 cups of it in a day, and describing it as a "patriotic vice", referring to Guatemala's high coffee production.
He enrolled in Guatemala's military academy, and graduated at the top of his class.
He was commissioned in the Guatemalan infantry in 1915. He was posted to the Guatemalan embassy in Washington, D.C., in 1918, and to the Paris embassy in 1919.
In the same year he represented Guatemala at the
Paris Peace Conference. He subsequently held various posts in the military academy,
before becoming a governor of the province of
San Marcos in 1922.
Ydígoras was appointed a general in 1937.
He served as governor under the government of dictator
Jorge Ubico until 1939, when Ubico appointed him director of roads.
After Ubico was overthrown in the
October revolution
The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...
, Ydígoras was sent first to Washington, D.C., and then London, in diplomatic exile.
During the government of
Juan José Arévalo, Ydígoras was linked to several of the 25 attempted coups during 1945–1951. He returned to Guatemala in 1950.
In the
1950 Guatemalan presidential election, Ydígoras was the main opponent of Árbenz. The elections were broadly free and fair, except that women who could not read were still disenfranchised. Although Ydígoras had the support of landowners, he lacked popular support, and did not have the backing of major political parties as Árbenz did. Árbenz eventually won the election with 258,987 votes to 72,796 for Ydígoras, out of a total of 404,739.
The United States
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
(CIA) considered Ydígoras as a candidate to lead the
1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, because he had support among the Guatemalan opposition. However, he was rejected for his role in the
Jorge Ubico regime, as well as his European visage, which was unlikely to appeal to the mostly mixed-race ''
mestizo
( , ; fem. , literally 'mixed person') is a term primarily used to denote people of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturall ...
'' population.
Carlos Castillo Armas was chosen instead. Ydígoras later claimed that in 1953, he had been introduced to two CIA agents by Walter Turnbull, an official of the
United Fruit Company, and offered support to overthrow Árbenz. Ydígoras said he refused their terms, which included favoring the United Fruit Company, abolishing the railway worker's union, and establishing a dictatorship similar to that of Ubico. Ydígoras later agreed to help Castillo Armas in his own coup attempt, a fact which came to the attention of the Árbenz government before it fell. After Castillo Armas took power following the
1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat, Ydígoras was made ambassador to Colombia.
Election as president
Carlos Castillo Armas was assassinated in 1957, and
elections
An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated ...
were held immediately afterwards by a military junta. These elections were so fraudulent that popular outcry forced a fresh ballot.
Another election was held in 1958, in which Ydígoras was elected. His administration saw continual corruption scandals. There was significant social turmoil following his election, and demonstrations and protests against the government and against electoral fraud were common during his administration. These protests eventually grew into the
guerrilla group MR-13.
In July 1958 a senior
CIA Chief described Ydígoras as, "known to be a moody, almost schizophrenic individual" who "regularly disregards the advice of his Cabinet and other close associates". The beginning of the leftist rebellion led to Ydígoras being accused of being "soft on communism" by other figures within the army. During his presidency, Ydígoras allowed the CIA to train the Cuban exile force that would be used in the failed
1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion.
Several coups were attempted against him in the early 1960s, but they all failed, including one rebellion by the
air force
An air force in the broadest sense is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army aviati ...
in 1962.
In 1963, Ydígoras's defense minister Colonel
Enrique Peralta Azurdia eventually toppled Ydígoras. Peralta claimed that the entire government had been infiltrated by communists, abrogated the constitution, and took over as the head of state.
Peralta's coup had the backing of several opposition parties, who wished to end the possibility that former left-of-center civilian president
Juan José Arévalo would return to Guatemala and run as a candidate in the upcoming elections.
Later life
Later in his life, Ydígoras was bitter about the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion. In exile in El Salvador in 1974, he stated that he had been made a scapegoat for the failure, and that the US was responsible for his overthrow.
Ydígoras died of a
cerebral hemorrhage
Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as hemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain (i.e. the parenchyma), into its ventricles, or into both. An ICH is a type of bleeding within the skull and one kind of stro ...
in October 1982, in a military hospital in
Guatemala City
Guatemala City (, also known colloquially by the nickname Guate), is the Capital city, national capital and largest city of the Guatemala, Republic of Guatemala. It is also the Municipalities of Guatemala, municipal capital of the Guatemala Depa ...
, at the age of 87. He was survived by his wife and two children.
References
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ydigoras Fuentes, Jose Miguel Ramon
1895 births
1982 deaths
People from Retalhuleu Department
20th-century presidents of Guatemala
Leaders ousted by a coup
National Democratic Reconciliation Party politicians
Guatemalan Revolution
Guatemalan generals
Guatemalan International Olympic Committee members