Word: urdaneta
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Crazy Cowboys. Over Caracas at sunup the jets made lazy passes as a sign for disaffected army garrisons in the capital to rise up. Instead, tanks clanked up Urdaneta Avenue to ring presidential Miraflores Palace; 40-mm. antiaircraft guns sprouted from the roofs of the palace and the Defense Ministry across the street. At 11 a.m. four Sabre jets, three Vampires and three elderly light bombers began to cut through holes in the clouds and buzz the city low across rooftops. "Those crazy cowboys!" remarked a watching Pan American pilot from his poolside deck chair at the Hotel Tamanaco...
...with the hated Liberals out in the countryside. The war brought death to perhaps 20,000 people. Never relenting, Gómez drove the Liberals clear out of public life. Struck down by two heart attacks, he went into partial retirement, gave some administrative chores to Acting President Roberto Urdaneta Arbeláez, but kept the real power for himself...
...straight-talking General Rojas, an engineer officer with a record of 33 years' service, must have looked to Gómez like one man who might stand up to him. He demanded that Acting President Urdaneta fire the army chief. Urdaneta made out a retirement order-to go into effect the minute Rojas left Bogotá airport last April on an airline junket to Germany. Rojas' baggage was already on the plane when a loyal officer brought word of the order. He canceled the flight, and the firing was held off for the time being, to avoid trouble...
Sunny Spain. Last week, though still in bad health, Laureano Gómez decided to force the issue. He stalked into the Presidential Palace and abruptly resumed the full presidency, ousting Urdaneta. Implacable as ever, he immediately fired Rojas. The general, weekending at a country town, got the word by telephone, flew back to Bogotá, went to a battalion barracks in the heart of the city and waited. Soon the new Minister of War, named by Gómez that morning, arrived to take charge; Rojas quietly arrested him. Then the general sent tanks and troops into the city...
That night Rojas offered the presidency to Ospina, then Urdaneta. When both declined, he took the title for himself, pending new elections, and set up an all-Conservative cabinet including three brother officers. Over the radio from the palace, he promised "clean elections" and "no more bloodshed, no more quarrels among the sons of Colombia." He also pledged scrupulous observance of all international obligations and sent personal greetings to the Colombian battalion in Korea, the only Latin American contingent fighting with the United Nations forces...