Word: tacho
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Central America's heady unrest swept into Nicaragua, rippled ominously around the white hilltop palace of Dictator Anastasio Somoza. In his spacious office, flanked by two ack-ack guns, a grand piano and a juke box, shrewd "Tacho" Somoza might well wonder if the jig were up. For seven years he had been Central America's most genial, least bloodthirsty dictator. But he had made all Nicaragua his racket, with opéra-bouffe trimmings. He had justified his record with a plaintive: "Godammit, I want to make sure that my family has enough to live on after...
...Politician. In Nicaraguan politics Tacho was a natural from the start. After a lean youth which included a spell of meter-reading, residence in the U.S., and marriage into Nicaragua's potent Debayle family, Tacho entered public life via civil war. In the troubles of 1926-27, notable for the intervention of U.S. Marines...
...Tacho took part in one skirmish, was defeated, thereupon gave himself the title of General. His fluency in English, which he speaks with a tough accent, won him a job as an interpreter for the sharp-tongued Liberal politician, José Maria Moncada. When Moncada became President in 1929, Tacho became Subsecretary of Foreign Affairs...
Subsecretary Somoza's slick, smiling, kinetic personality won over U.S. Minister Matthew Elting Hanna. His graceful dancing entranced Mrs. Hanna. The Americans pushed Tacho's fortunes, were gratified when President Moncada put him at the head of the National Guard. In good time, Tacho used the National Guard to liquidate his most formidable rival: Augusto Sandino, the pint-sized, ferocious patriot whose ragged guerrillas never yielded to the U.S. Marines. In 1936, Tacho took the Presidency for himself in a phony election, won immediate U.S. recognition...
...Tacho" Somoza of Nicaragua also extended his term illegally, also faced rebellion. Last week he suppressed a demonstration of students and citizens by shooting a few and arresting over 200. Across the Costa Rican border waited thousands of Nicaraguans, eager for a chance to invade their own country. Last week Dictator Somoza received 18 Lend-Lease airplanes from the U.S. They may aid him militarily, but cannot help him against the non-violent but powerful pressure of a brazos caídos strike...