21 Facts About Arnulfo Arias

Arnulfo Arias Madrid was a Panamanian politician, medical doctor, and writer who served as the President of Panama from 1940 to 1941, again from 1949 to 1951, and finally for 11 days in October 1968.

Arnulfo Arias was removed from his duly-elected presidency thrice in military coups.

Arnulfo Arias Madrid was born in Penonome, Cocle Province, on 15 August 1901.

Arnulfo Arias was the son of Antonio Arias and Carmen Madrid, and the brother of Harmodio Arias, who served as the President of Panama for 13 days in January 1931 and again from 1932 to 1936.

Arnulfo Arias studied medicine and surgery at Harvard University and the University of Chicago.

In 1925, Arnulfo Arias returned to Panama and assumed leadership of the nationalistic organization Patriotic Communal Action.

In 1931, Arnulfo Arias led a coup that deposed Liberal President Florencio Harmodio Arosemena.

Arnulfo Arias subsequently served in the cabinet and on diplomatic posts, including as Panama's ambassador to Italy during Benito Mussolini's reign.

Arnulfo Arias was ousted in October 1941, in a coup engineered by the police.

Arnulfo Arias consistently opposed the influence of the police in politics, labeling it as "a cancer" on the body politic.

Arnulfo Arias ran for president once more in 1948 as the candidate of a coalition of his party and the Authentic Revolutionary Party and clearly won but was not allowed to be seated.

Arnulfo Arias appointed his long time collaborator, Norberto Navarro, Minister of Public Works.

Arnulfo Arias fled the country but remained widely popular among the masses.

Arnulfo Arias ran in 1964, then won the 1968 elections as the standard-bearer of a five-party coalition.

Arnulfo Arias, having seen his guards disappear and after receiving a call from the Costa Rican President Jose Joaquin Trejos Fernandez, warning him that the border had been closed; he left the palace along with Hildebrando Nicosia, his chief of staff.

The majority of the party remained with Arnulfo Arias, renaming itself the Authentic Panamenista Party.

Arnulfo Arias's campaign was complicated by a book Holocaust in Panama, distributed by Noriega with help from the Israeli Mossad, that fraudulently claimed Arias had arranged a massacre of Jews in 1941.

Independent observers estimated that Arnulfo Arias would have won in a landslide had the election been conducted in a fair manner.

Seven months later, the United States launched Operation Just Cause and Arnulfo Arias' party regained power shortly afterwards.

Arnulfo Arias was re-buried in a mausoleum close to the Arias Madrid Family Museum, located in the town of Penonome, Cocle Province, Panama.

Arnulfo Arias married to Ana Matilde Linares in 1927 and remained together until her death in 1955.