René Barrientos
| René Barrientos | |
|---|---|
 |
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| President of Bolivia (Co-Government with Alfredo Ovando) | |
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In office 5 November 1964 – 26 May 1965 |
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| Preceded by | Víctor Paz Estenssoro |
| Succeeded by | Co Government with Alfredo Ovando |
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In office May 26, 1965 – 2 January 1966 |
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| Succeeded by | Alfredo Ovando |
| 56th and 58th President of Bolivia | |
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In office August 6, 1966 – April 27, 1969 |
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| Vice President | Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas |
| Preceded by | Alfredo Ovando |
| Vice President of Bolivia | |
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In office 6 August 1964 – 4 November 1964 |
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| President | Víctor Paz Estenssoro |
| Preceded by | Juan Lechín Oquendo |
| Succeeded by | Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
René Barrientos Ortuño 30 May 1919 Tarata, Cochabamba |
| Died | 27 April 1969 (aged 49) Near Arque, Cochabamba |
| Nationality | Bolivian |
| Political party | Popular Christian Movement |
René Barrientos Ortuño (30 May 1919 – 27 April 1969) was a Bolivian military officer and politician who served as his country's Vice President in 1964 and as its President from 1966 to 1969.
General Barrientos came to power after the 1964 Bolivian coup d'état which overthrew of the government of Paz Estenssoro. During his five-year rule, Barrientos and the army suppressed leftist opposition to his regime, including a guerrilla group led by Che Guevara in 1967.
Barrientos was a native of Tarata, department of Cochabamba, and was of mixed Quechua and Spanish descent. He was a career military officer, graduating from the military academy in 1943 and earning his pilot's license in 1945. Later in the 1940s, he gravitated toward the reformist Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario, or MNR) party of Víctor Paz Estenssoro. Barrientos played a part in the Bolivian National Revolution of 1952, when the MNR toppled the established order and took power. In fact, he was given the honor of flying out of the country to bring back the revolutionary leader Víctor Paz Estenssoro, then in exile, once the rebellion succeeded. In 1957, Barrientos was rewarded when he was named commander of the Bolivian Air Force.
Known as a rather obsequious, sycophantic supporter of the MNR, he slowly became famous throughout the country for his uncommon, and very public, feats of valor. In 1960, for example, a live parachute-drop demonstration by Air Force soldiers ended in disaster when their equipment failed and three of the fifteen parachutists fell to their death before a large crowd assembled. Recriminations flew as to who may be held responsible for the carnage. Barrientos, as Air Force commander, decided to put a demonstration of his own and jumped from an airplane himself, using one of the parachutes that had failed to open during the earlier debacle. His point was that there had been nothing wrong with the equipment or the training, just bad luck, but the incident cemented his popularity among certain sectors of the population. Furthermore, the ruling MNR helped prop up his standing, as the MNR leadership constantly extolled General Barrientos' virtues as the paragon of the new kind of military officer the Revolution had fostered.
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Wikipedia