Word: bogot
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Under the stained-glass dome of the Capitol in Bogotá, a Liberal intellectual with a talent for adroit political compromise became President of Colombia last week, ending five years of military rule. The tricolored sash of office flashing across his starched shirt, Dr. Alberto Lleras Camargo, 52, stood stiffly through an enthusiastic 21-gun salute that shattered a Capitol window. He listened gravely to aging (69), ailing Conservative Senate President Laureano Gómez, who struggled to his feet to read the oath of office. Lleras Camargo answered, "I swear," and democracy was back in business...
...became Colombia's "boy wonder" Minister of the Interior (Premier) at 29, stepped up to the presidency ten years later. He served as head of the creaky old Pan American Union after World War II, created the efficient, effective Organization of American States, then was named president of Bogotá's University of the Andes. Two years ago he resigned the university job to lead the opposition to Dictator Rojas. Before his own acceptance last week, Lleras had ruefully spelled out the qualifications for a Colombian president. He must be, said Lleras, "a magician, prophet, redeemer, savior...
...Bogotá, Colombia...
Peace Voter. In 1954, Lleras gave up his plush OAS post, returned to Bogotá as a private citizen. Talking and writing, he made himself the sober advocate of truce in the passionate political war, of a return to political sanity. Then, flying to Spain, he sat down amicably with exiled Laureano Gómez, once furiously hated by all Liberals, and persuaded him to agree to the essentials of a plan for sharing power between the parties. The truce, giving promise of responsible civilian government in the future, played an important role when the present caretaker military junta took...
...answer: "No one has thought that other courses could be harder-for example, living eight years under a state of siege. But we have just done that, and I do not see why we cannot now coexist peacefully, rebuilding the country, for twelve years." A crippled beggar in Bogotá spoke for most Colombians when asked if he knew what the plebiscite issue was. "I know," he said, "that yes means peace and no means violence. I want peace...