Word: tacho
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Privies & Meters. To Salvadora's father, Dr. Luis Henri Debayle, Nicaragua's top surgeon, the grandnephew of a celebrated bandit seemed a poor prospect for a son-in-law. But Salvadorita loved Tacho. Soon after their return to Nicaragua in 1919 they were married...
...Tacho opened an agency for Lexington motor cars (he still prides himself that he can take down an engine), but that flopped. He taught boxing, refereed at football matches. In León he was a meter reader. Then, briefly, he got a city job, inspecting privies. It got him the nickname el mariscal, because the long flashlight he carried looked like a marshal's baton...
Those were the years when the U.S. Marines were trying to keep Nicaragua's rival Liberals and Conservatives from using machetes on each other.* In the turmoil a Liberal general named José Moncada rose to the top. He found Tacho's bilingual blarney useful. When Henry Stimson came down to arrange the deal that made Moncada President in 1928, Tacho acted as interpreter. By then Tacho was on the upgrade. "I was lucky," he says. From the start, he knew how to make the most of this luck...
Dancing Partner. Once Moncada sent him out with $75,000 to pay off people whose property had been damaged by the rampaging campaigns of the famed revolutionary Augusto Sandino. Moncada, hearing that most of the money was going into Tacho's pockets, called him back. "Listen, Tacho," said Moncada, "you are not even a thief; you are a pickpocket. Get out of here." Somoza landed on his feet, became a consul in Costa Rica. Soon he was back in Managua, as Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs...
...that 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...