Anastasio Somoza Debayle

Anastasio Somoza Debayle (León, December 5, 1925-Asunción, September 17, 1980), nicknamed "Tachito", was a Nicaraguan politician, military, hydraulic engineer and dictator. He was the third and last member of the Somocista dynasty —after his father, Anastasio Somoza García, and his brother, Luis Somoza Debayle— to exercise dictatorial power in Nicaragua since 1937. After resigning his position and going into exile, he was killed the following year in an ambush.

Biography

Early Years

Anastasio Somoza Debayle was born in León on December 5, 1925. He was the third son of Anastasio Somoza García, head of the Army and Nicaraguan strongman since 1937, and the aristocrat Salvadora Debayle de Somoza. He was the younger brother of Lillian and Luis Somoza Debayle, and a member of one of the wealthiest families in the country.

He began his primary education at the La Salle Pedagogical Institute in Managua, of the Order of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, to continue from the age of 14 at the Saint Leo School, in St Leo, Florida, where he was visited by his aunt Blanca Debayle de Portocarrero. Later he started high school, along with his brother Luis de él at the De La Salle Military Academy in Oakdale.

The following year, after high school graduation, he entered West Point Academy, graduating in 1946 as a hydraulic engineer. As early as 1947, he was named head of the National Guard by his father.

When his father handed over power to Leonardo Argüello Barreto, of the ruling Nationalist Liberal Party PLN, on May 1, 1937, in the Monumental Tribune on the Tiscapa esplanade, he appointed him Commander of the department of León; This and the appointment of ministers of the Executive Power to well-known opponents, enraged the Somozas, so they supported his father in the coup d'état on the 26th of the same month and year, taking over the Presidential House on Loma de Tiscapa. Argüello took refuge in the Mexican Embassy. He stayed there for 6 months, until he finally traveled to that country, where he died on December 15 of that year in Mexico City, without resigning as President of the Republic. Somoza García had carried out electoral fraud against the candidate of the opposition coalition of the Conservative Party of Nicaragua (PCN) and the Independent Liberal Party (PLI), Enoc Aguado, so that Argüello would win.

In 1953, in the company of his wife Hope, he was appointed Extraordinary Ambassador of Nicaragua on a special mission for the coronation acts of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

In 1955 he became a certified pilot aviator in the United States.

Family Life

Upon his return to Nicaragua, he assumed control of the family businesses and started his own. One of his most beloved companies was Dismotor, an importer of Mercedes-Benz automobiles. In Managua, between 1947 and 1949, Somoza had an illegitimate daughter before his marriage, named Julia Patricia who married the Swiss businessman Richard Rapold, who would later be in charge of the magazine Visión, property de Tachito, and also helped hide large sums of money from the family fortune.

On December 5, 1950, when he was 25 years old, he married his cousin Hope Portocarrero Debayle, in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Managua (now the Old Cathedral of Managua). Somoza had met his cousin Hope when he lived in Tampa as a child and the two had developed a close friendship that later became a romantic relationship when they were teenagers. After the religious ceremony, the reception took place at the Palace of Communications, with more than 4,000 guests present, including foreign politicians and aristocrats.

Picture of cadet Anastasio Somoza Debayle in West Point. Class 1946.

Anastasio and Hope had five children: Anastasio Jesús, Hope Carolina, Julio Néstor, Carla Anne and Roberto Eduardo. The couple initially resided in New York, where they stayed until Anastasio Somoza García told his son that he would run for president again and needed him in Nicaragua. Their children were educated abroad. Over the years, the problems with his wife, Hope, became constant. The divorce finally came in 1978, when it became known that Tachito had a mistress, Dinorah Sampson.

Because he spent most of his childhood until his twenties in the United States and because his wife was American (although she also spoke Spanish), Somoza preferred to speak in English most of the time, and always did so with his family and relatives. During the international press conferences he gave while fighting the Sandinistas in the late 1970s, it became apparent to press correspondents that Somoza found it difficult to express himself in Spanish, while it was evident that when he spoke English he did so a lot. better. Somoza's height – 1.90 m – made him also stand out from most people in Nicaragua.

Rebellion of April 4, 1954

On April 4, 1954, Easter Sunday, a group of former National Guard officers and some civilians planned a plot and decided to ambush his father that day on the Pan-American Highway, in the department of Managua. But the plan failed due to the lack of coordination between those involved in the plot and because one of those involved betrayed his comrades to all of them.

The majors José R. Somoza and Agustín Peralta captured several, such as: Luis Felipe Baez Bone, Adolfo Baez Bone, Jorge Ribas Montes, Rafael Chosieul Praslin, Pablo Leal Rodríguez (father of Ernesto Leal Sánchez, who between 2002 and 2010 was chancellor of the Government of Enrique Bolaños Geyer), Augustin Alfaro, Luis Felipe Gaboardi, Optaciano Morazan, and others. Several of these were killed in the Cuatro Esquinas area, near Jinotepe, the head of the department of Carazo, or later captured in the Carazeño coffee plantations.

Newspaper headlines, especially the opposition newspaper La Prensa and Novedades (de Somoza), said that the conspirators "died in combat" which was a lie to a certain extent, because on said road in the Pacaya plain there was a shootout in which the rebels killed two GN soldiers at a checkpoint, and offered rewards for the whereabouts of the living. The remains of the rebels were buried near Jinotepe and they were there until 1962, when Ernesto Leal Sánchez (son of Pablo Leal Rodríguez, one of the compinchados), transferred them to the General Cemetery of Managua, where they currently rest near the crypt of the officers of the National Guard where the remains of Tacho and his son Luis Somoza Debayle are, as will be seen below. The conspiracy against General Somoza García, that April 4, 1954, failed because the dictator suddenly changed his itinerary and passed by the place where the rebels set up the ambush. Surprised by the National Guard, some of the conspirators were liquidated at the moment of being captured, others were assassinated when they were already in prison, after subjecting them to torture.

Major Agustín Peralta, compadre of the rebel Agustín Alfaro and commander of the Third Company, was long blamed for the murders, even when he retired from the National Guard with the rank of colonel in 1960 Many books such as Blood Lineage: The Somozas, by Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, director of La Prensa; Memoirs of a Soldier, by Colonel Francisco Boza; The saga of the Somozas, of Lieutenant Agustín Torres Lazo, etc., blame him for the incident. But in an interview that the historian and journalist Roberto Sánchez Ramírez did to him, published by La Prensa on Monday, October 17, 2005, Peralta clarified that Colonel Anastasio Somoza Debayle is the real person responsible for the act, since he forged his father's signature with a written order.

Rise to power

The victory of Anastasio Somoza Debayle caused a massacre of demonstrators in this place by the GN

After his father was assassinated in 1956, the elder Somoza, Luis Somoza Debayle, became president. Anastasio and his siblings Luis and Lillian inherited a heritage of 200 million dollars at the time, a fortune that the brothers tripled over time. Shortly before his brother's death, Anastasio was elected president for the first time on February 5, 1967, defeating the National Opposition Union (UNO) presidential candidate, Fernando Agüero Rocha (conservative), due to the Avenida Massacre. Roosevelt of Managua two weeks earlier on January 22, in which the GN fired on an opposition demonstration in which there were several deaths (the exact number is not known until today) and he assumed power on May 1, that same year, in addition to being in charge of the headquarters of the National Guard in different periods, in the General Somoza National Stadium (today it is the Denis Martínez National Stadium), under strict security regulations, due to the existence of the guerrilla Front Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), founded in 1961 by Carlos Fonseca Amador, son of Agustina Fonseca and Fausto Amador, administrator of the Somoza family assets. He succeeded Lorenzo Guerrero Gutiérrez, who replaced René Schick Gutiérrez when he died of a heart attack on August 3, 1966. Luis had died on April 13 of the same year before his brother's inauguration.

First government (1967-1972)

Abrogation of the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty, July 14, 1970, in Managua. Nicaraguan President General Anastasio Somoza Debayle during a public event in the lobby of the National Palace, together with his wife Hope Portocarrero and ministers of his government.

During his government, important US entities settled in Nicaragua such as Citigroup, Bank of America, Chase Manhattan Bank, Morgan Guaranty Trust, Wells Fargo Bank, Banco de Londres y Montreal Limitada, Sears, Westinghouse and Coca Cola. The first Christmas bonus in the history of Nicaragua was granted by Somoza Debayle at the end of the 1970s.^{[citation required]}

Important medical and cultural centers were built under the auspices of his wife, the nation's first lady, Hope Portocarrero. During that time tourism increased significantly in the country. An important step that Somoza Debayle achieved in 1972 was to convince the United States to lift the embargo and isolation in which they had Haiti, after he visited that country with his wife Hope. For such an occasion, knowing the purpose of the Somozas in providing them with diplomatic aid, President Jean-Claude Duvalier ordered the purchase of a new armored Mercedes Benz limousine direct from the factory in Germany. They baptized the road from the airport of Puerto Príncipe as avenue Somoza, a week of national holiday was declared and arches were built at the entrance to the capital, dances and dinners in the National Palace were held in honor of the Somozas.

1971 Population Census

During the Somoza government, the sixth population census and the second housing census in the country were carried out. The results managed to demonstrate that for that year the population of Nicaragua was 1,535,588 inhabitants.

On May 1, 1972, he handed over power to a National Government Junta, made up of Fernando Agüero Rocha (conservative), Roberto Martínez Lacayo and Alfonso Lovo Cordero (nationalist liberals) since the previous year a pact was signed between the Nationalist Liberal Party (PLN) and the Conservative Party of Nicaragua (PCN) (on March 28, 1971 in the Sala Mayor of the Rubén Darío National Theater) to be re-elected in 1974. The pact is popularly known as kupia kumi (a single heart) in the Miskito language.

A few months later, on December 23 of the same year, an earthquake devastated the nation's capital, Managua, leaving more than ten thousand dead and practically destroying the center of the city. Martial law was declared, making Somoza, then head of the National Guard, the de facto leader of the country. It was later discovered that the Somoza family had appropriated most of the international aid offered after the earthquake. country in a mysterious way, since he had left the United States fleeing from the treasury.

Second government (1974-1979)

Despite everything, Somoza was re-elected president in the general elections of September 1, 1974 and took office on December 1 of the same year at the Rubén Darío National Theater, due to the existence of the FSLN. His interest in continuing to remain in power and repression of the population caused him to lose support from previously allied sectors, such as the oligarchy, the United States and the Catholic Church.

A few weeks later, around 11 pm on December 27 of the same year, an FSLN commando commanded by Commander Eduardo Contreras and made up of Hugo Torres, Joaquín Cuadra Lacayo, Javier Carrión McDonough (both future Army chiefs of Nicaragua in the periods 1995-2000 and 2000-2005 respectively), and 8 other guerrillas, attacked the house of José María Castillo Quant, Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, located in Colonial Los Robles, in Managua. The assault occurred after United States Ambassador Turner Shelton and General José R. Somoza (his brother on his father's side) who had bodyguards, left the house (where a party was being held). Several members of the government cabinet were taken hostage there, including the Chilean ambassador, Guillermo Sevilla Sacasa (Nicaraguan Ambassador to the United States), Somoza's brother-in-law and husband of his sister Lillian Somoza Debayle.

Castillo Quant was the only one killed in the operation.

The commando demanded the release of 8 Sandinista prisoners (among them the current president of the nation Daniel Ortega Saavedra), eight million dollars, the publication on radio and television of the abuses of the repression that the population was exposed from Nicaragua on behalf of Somoza with his repressive apparatus (the National Guard) and a plane with some hostages to go to Cuba three days later, which was achieved with the mediation of Monsignor Miguel Obando y Bravo, S.D.B. Archbishop of Managua

This made Somoza implement a state of siege and press censorship from that day, for 33 months until September 19, 1977, against the opposition media, including the newspaper La Prensa. At the end of the 1970s, groups defending human rights denounced the violations of the same, committed by his Government and the National Guard.

By the late 1970s, his wife was rarely seen with him, as Somoza continued to maintain his romantic relationship with Dinorah Sampson. The first lady stayed longer outside of Nicaragua and returned only to preside over her social welfare works, such as the construction of hospitals, schools and orphanages. The couple's children studied at colleges and universities on the east coast of the United States, while the two daughters also studied in Switzerland.

One of the last episodes in which the family appeared reunited in Nicaragua was at the wedding of their eldest daughter Carolina, who married Víctor Urcuyo in 1976. The marriage was a failure and shortly after Carolina divorced and moved to London, where the youngest daughter, Carla, also frequently resided. Carla Somoza later decides to enter the order of the Missionaries of Charity as a volunteer, established by Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The Nicaraguan press has published that she has made constant trips to India, where she was very close to Mother Teresa.

Sanitary conditions in Somoza-era Nicaragua were abysmal according to a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine "under Somoza, sanitary conditions had been worse than in neighboring countries, with 35% of the urban population and 95% of the rural without access to potable water and only 10% of the population receiving adequate medical attention. One third of the population contracted malaria at least once in their lives and 46-83% of children were malnourished. Life expectancy at the time of the Sandinista revolution was 52.9 years, infant mortality was between 120-140/1000.

Well-known goods and companies

Anastasio Somoza Debayle meets U.S. President Richard Nixon.

He also owned

• A luxurious mansion in Miami.
• Two condominiums in Coconut Grove (Florida).
• A house in Washington D.C.
• One ranch in Texas and one in California.
• A house in the Bahamas.
• A house in Mexico.

In addition, it maintained strong investments in Panama, Colombia and Venezuela.

He owned shares in banks in California, Florida, and New York, including Bank of America and Chase Manhattan Bank. Major real estate firms, shares in the Standard Fruit Steamship Co, Castle & Cook, Pan American World Airways (Pan Am), Hercules Inc., Pennwalt Chemical Corporation. Goods in Europe; He was a shareholder of Nestlé in Switzerland, apart from owning various properties in London, Spain and Canada. Many pieces of jewelry: diamonds and generally a lot of gold.

Among many other properties in Nicaragua mostly farms, casinos, clubs as well as other businesses. In the capital Managua, Somoza Debayle owned more than 130 properties, farms, buildings, residences, and lots.

Brazilian journalist and writer Fernando Morais in the book "Cem quilos de ouro" or "One hundred kilograms of gold" In Spanish, he tells in one of the reports that make up the book who had access to extensive documentation through the FSLN guerrillas that demonstrated the scope of Somoza's business.

He also had economic interests in mining. According to Time Magazine's correspondent in Nicaragua at the time, William Krehm, "gold mining, the most important export industry in Nicaragua, is Somoza's second source of income." "Apart from the legal tax of $17 per kilo, the mining companies pay two additional contributions to Tacho, the total of which amounts to approximately 2.25 percent of its production," Krehm noted.

Sandinista Revolution and overthrow

Insurrection

From left to right and from top to bottom: Ingreso de guerrilleros a la ciudad de León; civilians victims of the executions carried out by the Nicaraguan National Guard; guerrillero with a RPG-2 pointing to a goal; a pro-Somoza spy captured by Sandinista members; bombings carried out by the National Guard air force and subsequent consequences such as the destruction of peoples taken by the guerrillas.

In 1978, Somoza made a highly publicized visit to the United States, where the press witnessed the high school graduation of his youngest son, Roberto, who studied in Connecticut. For the occasion, Somoza traveled in a highway escort from New York with Hope and her two daughters to her son's school. The Somozas and their daughters appeared guarded by guards of the United States Secret Service. Somoza declared that he would be in the country for several days and that he would like to pay a visit to President Carter (meeting that never took place). ^{[citation needed ]}

The eldest son, Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero, graduated from Harvard in 1973 and with military studies in the United Kingdom, had become his father's right hand and many thought that it was only a few years before he was ready for the "dynastic succession".

The rise to power of United States President Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1977 and his policy of respect for human rights marked the beginning of the end of his regime. On July 28 of the same year, he suffered a heart attack for which he had to be transferred to Miami on a United States Air Force hospital plane (for which he was charged about $30,000 despite Carter's accusations).. He was in a Miami hospital until September 7, the day he returned to Nicaragua. The assassination of the journalist Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal, director of the opposition newspaper La Prensa, on Tuesday, January 10, 1978 at the intersection of Trébol street and Bolívar avenue, in Managua, unleashed the insurrection of the Nicaraguan people.

On August 22 of the same year, another commando of 25 FSLN members, under the command of Edén Pastora Gómez (Comandante Cero), assaulted the National Palace (current Palace of Culture) and which was then the headquarters of the National Congress, the Court of Accounts and the Ministries of the Interior, and of Finance and Public Credit. Among the hostages were his cousin Luis Pallais Debayle, President of the Chamber of Deputies and his nephew José Somoza Abrego (son of his brother José R. Somoza); The command demanded the release of several imprisoned guerrillas (including Tomás Borge), half a million dollars and 2 planes to travel to Panama and Venezuela with some hostages and Monsignor Obando (called Comandante Miguel contemptuously by Tacho). 2 days later his demands were met, since Tacho did not want to recover the Palace for fear of a massacre of the hostages and that the guerrillas would kill his cousin and nephew. During that time, Somoza divorced Hope, who lived in a luxurious mansion in the United Kingdom, with her minor children.

From September 1978 until his overthrow on July 17, 1979, Somoza and his son, Major Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero, head of the EEBI Basic Infantry Training School, provoked a civil war, ordering the murder of civilians and the bombardment with artillery and planes of the main cities of Nicaragua that had fallen into the hands of the popular uprising led by the Sandinista forces. The GN had the support of the Governments of South Africa, Portugal, Argentina and Paraguay. In contrast, the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica and Mexico headed by their respective presidents, Fidel Castro, Carlos Andrés Pérez, Omar Torrijos, Rodrigo Carazo Odio and José López Portillo sent weapons (such as the Belgian FN FAL assault rifles, Israeli IMI Galil and US M16) and FSLN fighters by plane, to Costa Rican territory, and from there to Nicaragua. Mexico even broke diplomatic relations with the Nicaraguan government on May 20 of that same year. The National Guard was disproportionate in relation to the power of the Sandinistas, who did not have the power of Somoza's forces, this caused the Somoza government to be isolated internationally and the rebels were adding recognition and support. On June 20, 1979, American journalist Bill Stewart, the victim of a National Guard soldier, is assassinated in Managua. This action was recorded on video by one of the members of the journalistic team and was later broadcast by various television networks in the United States. With this, Somoza lost the support that he still had in the United States, both from the government and from the citizenry, and this isolation favored the armed struggle in favor of the FSLN.

Collapse of the Somoza dictatorship

Somoza wrote his letter of resignation from the presidency by hand on June 29, 1979, addressed to the national Congress. He had that letter in his pocket for 18 days and did not deliver it because the US ambassador to Nicaragua, Lawrence Pezzullo, had not given him the guarantees for political asylum in his country. On Monday, July 16, 1979, he redid his letter, this time on a typewriter with the second date, making it known to Congress. That same night, meeting at the Intercontinental Managua Hotel (today the Crowne Plaza Hotel), two days after receiving the Cyrus Vance note (on July 14), written by said Secretary of State of the Jimmy Carter government ―who pressured him to that he resign, along with the OAS (Organization of American States)―, in which he demanded that he leave Nicaragua. This is the full text of the resignation letter:

Presidency of the Republic

Managua, D. N., Nicaragua, C. A.

16 July 1979

Honorable National Congress
People of Nicaragua

In consultation with the Governments that truly have an interest in pacifying the country, I have decided to abide by the provision of the Organization of American States and by this means I renounce the Presidency to which I was elected popularly. My resignation is irrevocable.

I've fought communism, and I think when the truths come out, they'll give me the reason in history.

A. Somoza

President of the Republic.

In the early morning of the following day, July 17, 1979, at 2:00 in the morning, a Sikorski helicopter, piloted by Abel Toledo, took off from the EEBI facilities and landed on Loma de Tiscapa, in front of the north side of the ruins of the Presidential House destroyed by the 1972 earthquake, picked him up and 6 of his most faithful collaborators: his brother on the father's side, General José R. Somoza, former Army inspector general; General Samuel Genie Amaya, former head of the National Security Office (OSN) and former Minister of Finance and Public Credit; his wife General Ida Ow de Genie, of the GN Medical Corps; General Rafael Adonis Porras Largaespada, his first assistant, and his wife, Professor María Elena de Porras, Minister of Public Education, and Colonel Pedro Joaquín Sánchez (Piquín), pilot of Somoza's executive Lear Jet, to drive them to the Las Mercedes (today is the Managua International Airport) and from there by plane they fled to Miami, putting an end to the Somocista regime. Toledo told his testimony to the newspaper La Estrella de Nicaragua, published in the edition of the first fortnight of July 2004.

In Somoza's bunker, the Sandinistas placed an FSLN flag over his bed. They found numerous weapons and photographs as well as a large portrait of her father, Pope John Paul II, the last official portrait that Hope took as first lady and even a poster of Mafalda that said "The thing is that... Hey?"

He later traveled to the Bahamas, where he was swindled by Prime Minister Lynden Pindling, who charged him a million dollars for his stay in the Bahamas, later denying him asylum and forcing Somoza to leave the country after two weeks to stay on a tourist visa. His departure from the Bahamas takes place in the company of his daughters Carla, Carolina and his son Roberto, 17 guards and servants headed for Guatemala. In the Central American country, the last details were arranged with the president of that country Fernando Romeo Lucas García to establish his residence in Paraguay, thanks to the dictator Alfredo Stroessner, since the possibilities of seeking asylum in France or Switzerland had been rejected by Somoza himself. who wanted to stay on the mainland.

Exile

On Friday, August 17, 1979, Somoza left Guatemala City for Paraguay. The plane was owned by Líneas Aéreas Paraguayas, and the cost of the trip was US$100,000. The direct flight from Guatemala to Asunción was one of the requirements of the contract and its duration was 8 hours. Later it was learned that the former dictator arrived accompanied by the following people: General José R Somoza (his half brother), Anastasio Somoza Portocarrero (his eldest son), Roberto Somoza Portocarrero (his youngest son), Dinorah Sampson (his lover) and his Collaborators: Captain José L. Gutiérrez L., Second Lieutenant Aquiles Cifuentes P, Mario A. Lara M, Luis U. Sirio, Jaime Roa, Abraham Gutiérrez R, Orlando Poimares M, Julio C. Guerrero P, General Rafael Porras, General Samuel Genie Amaya, Roger F. Sandino, Concepción Sapaldo T, Erwin Earl Hooker, Alejandro Montiel A., Justo Pastor Rivera S., Gerardo Martínez M., Alejandro Chavarría, and Josefa Matilde Román.

Somoza settled in a mansion on Calle Mariscal López y Motta, the property had previously been occupied by the South African embassy. He settled with his lover Dinorah, two of his nephews (sons of José) and several assistants. Somoza immediately began to acquire multiple properties in Paraguay, more than 25,000 hectares and even a hotel. It was also said that the former dictator bought a farm in Brazil for 20 million dollars, coal mines in Colombia and bought the magazine Visión.

Murder

He was assassinated near his home in exile on September 17, 1980 at the age of 54, when he was ambushed by a Sandinista commando of 7 people (four men and three women), on the luxurious Generalissimo Franco avenue, today avenida España, in Asunción, Paraguay, an operation known as "Operation Reptile," by an Argentine guerrilla group called the People's Revolutionary Army, headed by the Argentine Marxist revolutionary Enrique Haroldo Gorriarán Merlo (alias Ramón). One of the commando members said: “We cannot tolerate the existence of millionaire playboys while thousands of Latin Americans die of hunger. We are perfectly willing to give our lives for this cause."

The team had meticulously studied Somoza's movements, through a member of the team was at a newsstand near the scene. They saw how Somoza advanced along España avenue. Somoza frequently drove near the city in his Mercedes Benz S-Class sedan. Oswaldo, a member of the team disguised as a newspaper vendor, saw Somoza leaving the building giving the signal at 10:10. The guerrillas fired their M-16 assault rifles at the unarmored limousine, then capped off the deed by firing an RPG-2 rocket launcher. The car was completely destroyed, but the engine remained running; the explosion killed Somoza, Italian-American Joseph Baittiner (his financial adviser) and César Gallardo (his civilian driver). The Sandinista team had two Soviet-made machine guns, two AK-47 assault rifles, two automatic pistols, and an RPG-2 rocket launcher with four anti-tank grenades and two rockets.

Their bodies were charred. When the forensic doctors did the autopsy, his body was in such a state that the forensics had to identify him by his feet, according to information from the Paraguayan media.

The belongings of Somoza that the Paraguayan police managed to hand over were:

• Two American Express credit cards.
• Three 18 carat gold medals
• A 18K gold ring (carreton)
• A big 18K gold medal
• A large gold medal of 18 carats with the registration "A. S. D. December 78"
• A gold watch Rolex brand
• A heavy chain of 18 carat gold
• A check for the value of US$ 150 000 in favor of Minas Maturín, charge Citibank NA, broken in the part of the shipper's signature.

Funeral

Tomb of Anastasio Somoza Debayle in Miami.

He was buried in Miami in the Somoza Portocarrero crypt. At his funeral, dozens of Nicaraguans and Cubans exiled in Florida accompanied Hope Portocarrero, her children and other relatives such as Tachito's mother; Salvadorita Debayle widow of Somoza.

The State Department, in a special concession to Hope Portocarrero, agreed to have Somoza's remains buried in the United States, with the permission of the US authorities. This was because Hope as a US citizen requested that her husband receive a Christian burial in the country where she and the couple's children were born.

Fortune

It is speculated that Somoza's fortune was as high as US$1 billion. Others affirm that it reached 500 million, although it was never known for sure how much it really was, since family businesses and assets both in Nicaragua and abroad were not fully counted. He had important businesses in New York, Texas and various countries in Europe.

Somoza Debayle only acknowledged that his family's fortune was close to one hundred million dollars and much of it was patrimony in Nicaragua.

Somoza Debayle was also involved in oil and mineral exploration companies, such as the Rucker Co. and the Morgan Trust Co. Bank, and even before his heart disease, he had to travel regularly to the United States to support business meetings in Florida, Texas and Chicago.

From their youth the family was considered the richest in Central America and one of the richest in Latin America.

Jean Ziegler, who was a Swiss parliamentarian in the 1980s, told Brecha magazine (issues 388-404) that Somoza had bank accounts in Switzerland and who would have helped hide that large fortune It was his son-in-law Richard Rapold, who was married to Julia Patricia, the daughter that Somoza would have had before his marriage to Hope Portocarrero.

During the 1980s, the Sandinista government failed to prove that a fortune belonging to Anastasio Somoza was found in Switzerland.

Cinema

In 1983, actor Lloyd Battista played Somoza in the film Last Plane Out, which also starred Jan-Michael Vincent. That same year, another production was filmed about Somoza's last months in power: Under Fire, where actor René Henríquez played General Somoza.