ABSTRACT
Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Cardenal, editor of the Conservative opposition daily La Prensa and participant in an abortive anti-Somoza invasion in 1954, was one of the first arrested. Twenty-two years later Chamorro's death at the hands of the Somozas would prove the last straw for the fed-up Nicaraguan people. This chapter examines a critical phase of Chamorro's life—his arrest, imprisonment, interrogation, torture, trial, and punishment in 1956, and presents the study his murder. Luis and Anastasio ("Tachito") Somoza Debayle both came to embody and to exaggerate their father's traits. Somoza Garcia trained his sons to follow him in power, to have technical skill greater than his own, yet tempered in the laboratory of practical experience. The personality differences between Luis and Anastasio paralleled the two sides of their father; they complemented each other in their shared rule. The transition of government from father to sons exaggerated the traits of rule under Somoza Garcia.
