Manuel Carlos Prado y Ugarteche (21 April 1889 – 15 August 1967) was a Peruvian politician and banker who served twice as president of Peru, in 1939–1945 and 1956–1962. Son of former President Mariano Ignacio Prado, his brother, Leoncio Prado Gutiérrez, was a soldier who died in 1883, six years before Manuel Prado was born.
Prado was born in Lima in 1889 as the son of Mariano Ignacio Prado. He went to college and became a banker. In 1914, Prado, along with General Benavides, overthrew Guillermo Billinghurst and his government during the First World War, in which Peru remained neutral. Benavides became the president of the Junta. Later imprisoned, Prado was deported to Chile and went into exile in France. He returned in 1932, and upon his return he was chairman of the board of the Peruvian Vapores Company and general manager and president of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru, which he served from 1934 to 1939. He ran and won the 1939 elections. Under his first administration, Peru came out victorious against Ecuador in the Ecuadorian-Peruvian War, and also became the first country in South America to break relations with the Axis, as Peru declared war on the Axis. After the end of his administration in 1945, he went to Paris, and eventually came back. He defeated Belaunde in the elections in 1956, as his second administration came to power. He sided with the United States in the Cold War, but was deposed in a coup, led by Ricardo Perez Godoy in 1962. He went into exile for one last time to Paris, where he died in 1967.
Early life Born into a prominent political family, he was the youngest son of General Mariano Ignacio Prado and his wife, María Magdalena Ugarteche Gutiérrez de Cossío. His father was various times head of government of Peru and was President of the Republic when the war with Chile broke out in 1879. He left the country in the midst of the war and was later deposed by a coup d'état.
Prado had several siblings who distinguished themselves in politics, finances and diplomacy. His paternal half-brother Leoncio was a war hero who died executed by the Chileans in 1883. His eldest brother Mariano Ignacio was a prominent banker who founded the so-called Prado Empire, the main economic group in Peru during the first half of 20th Century. Other brothers included Javier, once Prime Minister and intellectual figure, and Jorge, also a Prime Minister.
Manuel studied at Lycée Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague, in Paris, and Inmaculada School in Lima. He then attended the faculties of Sciences and Political Sciences of the University of San Marcos, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1907 and a doctor's degree in 1910. He also studied at the National School of Engineers (now the National University of Engineering), graduating as a Civil Engineer in 1911.
Elected by both the student bodies of the National School of Engineers and University of San Marcos, he was a student delegate to the 1st Congress of American Students in Montevideo in 1908. As a undergraduate student, he received military education in the Military School of Chorrillos attaining the ranks of sergeant and cavalry ensign. He later joined the army with this commission and was stationed in Lambayeque when a war with Ecuador was imminent in 1911.
Incorporated into San Marcos in 1912, he was assistant professor and then full professor of the infinitesimal Analysis course in the Faculty of Sciences.
Early political career
Joined to the Civil Party, he and his brothers Javier and Jorge supported the civil-military coup d'etat which overthrew President Guillermo Billinghurst in February 1914. The coup was organized by members of both the Civil Party and the Congress who wanted to anticipate the dissolution of the latter by Billinghurst. The Prado brothers took an active role in the capture of the Government Palace and once Billinghurst was arrested urged him to resign. The deposed Billinghurst later said that the Prado brothers stated that they were obliged "to vindicate the name of his father". Manuel Prado was then promoted to lieutenant by the Congress.
In 1915, he was elected member of the Council of the City of Lima. In the Council, he was an inspector of Works and as such designed some of the plans of the urban reordering of the city.
In 1919, Prado was elected a member of the National Assembly called by Augusto Leguía to promulgate a new Constitution. Early that year, Leguía had overthrew the Civilist President Pardo y Barreda and called an assembly to rewrite a Constitution convenient to him. Prado among other Civilists decisively opposed the new regime and despite being elected a senator later was deported by Leguía in 1921. He and his brothers settled down in Paris and London, respectively.
Prado returned to Peru after a military coup overthrew Leguía in 1930. In 1932, he was elected a member of the board of directors of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru and, shortly afterwards, general manager of the Bank. In 1934, he was appointed chairman (Governor) of the Bank, a post he occupied until 1939 with the general manager office.
1939 election For the 1939 general election, President Oscar R. Benavides chose Prado as his presidential candidate. Against this official candidacy, José Quesada Larrea, a young lawyer, a native of Trujillo, Peru, who for his campaign acquired the newspaper La Prensa, from where he fought for electoral freedom, for the obvious purpose of the government to manipulate the results.
The APRA party, which was the most important party in the country, was outlawed. Another important political force, the Sanchecerrista Revolutionary Union, was also annulled when its leader, Luis A. Flores, was banished. At the electoral juncture, both Prado and Quesada requested the support of the apristas (Members and supporters of the APRA) but they decided not to take sides. Prado ran as a candidate for a concentration of small parties.
Before the election, the government shut down La Prensa. When the counts were made, Prado appeared as the victor, with enormous advantage. There was talk of mass fraud
First government (1939–1945)
Manuel Prado assumed the presidency on 8 December 1939. Politician until then almost unknown, he predicted that he would not last long in office, but deployed a combination of tactical cunning, strategic flexibility and personal charm that made him one of Peru's most effective politicians of the 20th century. His government largely continued the work done by General Benavides and was of relative democracy. It suffered the consequences of the Second World War, which had a strong impact on trade. Imports fell sharply but export products such as sugar, cotton, metals and rubber increased. The shortage of import products for domestic consumption brought about new industries that successfully replaced foreign products. The war made numerous "new rich" appear.
In the international order, Prado had two notable successes:
The first was the victorious war against Ecuador and the subscription of the Rio de Janeiro Protocol guaranteed by the United States, Brazil, Chile and Argentina, which sought to settle the old boundary lawsuit that for more than a century had kept the attention of the Peruvian chancellery. The problem was revived again some time later, following Ecuador's withdrawal of recognition of the Protocol.
The second was the policy of continental solidarity and support for the United States and democracies faced by the Axis powers, Germany, Italy and Japan, during World War II. Peru was the first country in Latin America to break relations with the Axis powers, and during an extraordinary meeting of chancellors held in Rio de Janeiro in early 1942, it was the Peruvian attitude that inclined representatives of other American countries to support the United States. This pro-Americanism brought with it some excesses, such as allowing the United States to set up an air base in Talara, northern Peru, and the mass internment of German and Japanese residents. In the domestic order, despite being considered a democratic government, Prado kept the Aprista Party outlawed; only in the last year of his government, on the occasion of the general election, did he legalize the participation of APRA, which on that occasion was part of the National Democratic Front under the name "People's Party". In contrast, many communists supported Prado, following the international context, as the Soviet Union belonged to the Allied bloc.
Important events In addition to the victorious war against Ecuador, with the subsequent signing of the Rio de Janeiro Protocol, as well as support for Western democracies in World War II, the following works were carried out in Prado's first government:
An "import substitution" policy was planned in the face of a shortage of imported products because of world war. In this sense, significant progress was made in the country's industrialization process. The Peruvian Amazon Corporation was founded to boost the rubber industry, in the face of its demand for world war. The Peruvian Commercial Aviation Corporation(CORPAC), responsible for the proper functioning of airports, was created. For this purpose, Limatambo Airport was opened. The agreement with the United States for agricultural development was signed through the intervention of the Inter-American Cooperative Food Production Service (SCIPA). The asphalt of the Peruvian stretch of the Pan American Highway was completed. The Central Road to Aguaytia and Pucallpa was completed, in themiddle of the jungle. The department of Tumbes (Law No. 9667 of 25 November 1942)and the department of Pasco (Law No. 10.030 of 27 November 1944) were created. The 1940 General Census was held, which yielded a population of 6,207,966. Some 577,000 inhabitants were concentrated in Lima. The organic Law on Public Education was given accompanied by an aggressive national literacy plan, in the face of the large number of illiterate people that the census unveiled (1943). It gave access to technical education, with the best implementation and equipment of art schools and crafts. The Worker's Hospital (present-day Guillermo Almenara Hospital) was inaugurated. The Worker's Hospital of Huacho (present-day Gustavo Lanatta Luján Hospital) was inaugurated. The Maternity Hospital of Lima was inaugurated. Mass vaccination campaigns began. The fourth Working Quarter was built on the Rimac. The Yavarí District was created in the Mariscal Ramón Castilla Province in the Department of Loreto The boost to tourism continued. Popular canteens were created, which subsisted efficiently for several decades. In this period there were two misfortunes of magnitude: the Lima and Callao Earthquake of 24 May 1940, and the fire of the National Library of Peru that occurred on 11 May 1943. The reconstruction of the latter was commissioned by the historian Jorge Basadre.
In the 1945 general election Prado sponsored the candidacy of General Eloy Ureta, the victor in the war against Ecuador in 1941. But the most popular candidacy was that of the jurist José Luis Bustamante y Rivero, representing a front or alliance of parties including the APRA: the National Democratic Front, which proved triumphant.
After his tenure, Prado traveled and settled in Paris where he owned a residence on the elegant Avenida Foch. In Lima, he was the owner of the Edificio Rímac from 1939 to 1945.
Position on the Jewish Holocaust Faced with the systematic extermination of millions of Jews in Europe, Manuel Prado Ugarteche, through his Chancellor Alfredo Solf de Muro, implemented a strict policy of denying visas to Jews who asked for entry to Peru, even though they desperately sought to escape certain death.