Word: guardia
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Unlike Dominican Dictator Trujillo, Tacho kills a man only as a last resort. A spell in jail usually brings an enemy around. If jail fails, the Guardia has a little electric device known as la maquinita. A wire is wrapped around the prisoner's scrotum, and if he is stubborn, the current is turned on. There are Nicaraguan exiles in Guatemala who cry in their sleep about the Little Machine. "Oh, hell," snorts Tacho, "that damned thing isn't so bad. I've tried it myself-on my hand...
Each morning he is up around 6, breakfasts on steak and cornflakes while aides read him Guardia telegrams and reports on the country. After that, he goes to a desk stacked high with Guardia business and with his own business affairs, mainly coffee and cattle...
...poker playing, his business ability are not altogether idle. When he plays cards, he never loses. "It's fantastic the luck I have. It's that way with anything I want to try-I'm the champ. I'm the champ shot of the Guardia National, didja know that? Pistol or rifle. Jeez, I never miss, it seems...
...post Somoza got very chummy with U.S. Minister Matthew Hanna. It was the smartest move he ever made. Both the minister and his wife were charmed by Tacho's effervescence. Before long, Hanna was urging that when the Marines pulled out, Tacho should be made chief of the Guardia Nacional. Sixteen years ago this week, Somoza took over that job. He has been the Guardia's boss ever since...
...successor, President Juan Bautista Sacasa. Sacasa, worried about Tacho's growing power, decided to cultivate Sandino as a counterforce. On the night of Feb. 21, 1934, he asked him to dinner in the presidential palace overlooking Managua. Somoza spent the evening at a party in the Guardia's barracks...