Control of government In 1936, Somoza staged a coup with the National Guard, forcing Sacasa to resign in June.
Carlos Alberto Brenes ruled for the remainder of the year and in December,
Somoza was elected president reportedly with 64,000 of the 80,663 votes cast He took office on New Year's Day 1937. In May 1939, President Roosevelt honored Somoza and his wife Salvadora by welcoming them to Washington, D.C., for a state visit. Somoza, popularly known as "Tacho", amended the Constitution to centralize all power in his hands. Family members and key supporters monopolized key positions in the government and military.
Nicaragua during World War II During
World War II, the government confiscated the properties of Nicaragua's small, but economically influential
German community and sold them to Somoza and his family at vastly lowered prices. By 1944, Somoza was the largest landowner in Nicaragua, owning fifty-one cattle ranches and forty-six coffee plantations, as well as several sugar mills and rum distilleries. Somoza named himself director of the Pacific Railroad, linking
Managua to the nation's principal port,
Corinto, which moved his merchandise and crops for free and maintained his vehicles and agricultural equipment. Although Nicaragua received
Lend-Lease aid in World War II, the unwillingness of Nicaragua to actually fight meant it was given obsolete equipment (most of it being either purchased from the
Soviet Union,
Francoist Spain, and
Estado Novo or captured
Nazi German equipment) and no Western training. Somoza also made substantial profits by granting concessions to foreign (primarily the United States) companies to exploit gold, rubber, and timber, for which he received "executive levies" and "presidential commissions". He passed laws restricting imports and organized contraband operations, which sold merchandise through his own stores. He also extracted bribes from illegal gambling, prostitution, and alcohol distilling. By the end of the decade, he had acquired a fortune estimated to be
$400 million.
Democratic window in 1953 In 1944, under pressure from the United States, Somoza agreed to liberalize his rule. Unions were legalized, and he agreed not to run for re-election in 1947. The
Nationalist Liberal Party nominated an elderly doctor named
Leonardo Argüello, with Somoza using the National Guard to secure his election. Somoza intended for Argüello to be a mere puppet and to keep real power in his own hands until he could run again in 1952. Upon being sworn in as president in May 1947, Argüello displayed considerable independence, attempting to reduce the power of the National Guard and the control of Somoza and his associates over the economy. Less than a month later, Somoza orchestrated another coup, naming one of his wife's uncles,
Benjamín Lacayo, as president. This definitively ended any hopes for further democratization in Nicaragua under the Somoza regime.
Second presidency When the administration of U.S. President
Harry S. Truman refused to recognize the new government, a Constituent Assembly was convened, which appointed Somoza's uncle,
Víctor Manuel Román y Reyes, as president. In another heavily rigged election, Somoza García again became president in 1950. In the 1950s, he reorganized and streamlined his business empire, founding a merchant marine company, several textile mills, a national airline (
LANICA, short for Líneas Aéreas de Nicaragua) and a new container port on the Pacific near Managua, which he named Puerto Somoza; after the
Sandinistas came to power, they renamed it
Puerto Sandino. He also acquired properties in the United States and Canada. == Assassination and legacy ==