ABSTRACT
Fernando Belaúnde Terry (1912-2002), President of Peru 1963-68 and 1980-85, was born in Arequipa, brought up in an upper middle-class family, and qualified as an architect at the University of Texas in 1935. Architecture spurred his interest in politics, and in 1945-48 he served as a member of Congress. On the military coup of Gen. Odría in 1948, however, Congress was dissolved and Belaúnde returned to architecture, serving as Dean of architecture at the National Engineering University from 1955 to 1960. Military intervention in 1962 to forestall an electoral victory by the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana left the way open for the election of Belaúnde in the 1963 elections. However, his failure to deal adequately with the problem of illegal oil leases led to his overthrow in 1968 and the imposition of a reforming military government under Gen. Juan Velasco Alvarado. With the restoration of civilian government in 1979, however, traditional voting patterns reasserted themselves and Belaúnde was elected to a second term. On the day of his inauguration, however, Lima was plunged into darkness by the guerrilla movement Sendero Luminoso, and over the next five years, while the movement grew and spread, measures to counter it appeared wholly ineffectual.
