Carlos Delgado Chalbaud Chairman of the military junta of Venezuela from 1948 to 1950. Date of Birth: 20.01.1909 Country: Venezuela

Biography of Carlos Delgado Chalbaud

Carlos Delgado Chalbaud was a Venezuelan military leader and politician who served as the Chairman of the military junta in Venezuela from 1948 to 1950. He was born into the family of General Roman Delgado Chalbaud. In 1913, his father was arrested by the order of dictator Juan Vicente Gomez, and the family was exiled to Paris.

In 1927, General Delgado Chalbaud was released from prison and started preparing for the overthrow of Gomez in Paris. This led young Carlos Delgado to become acquainted with participants of the student movement against the dictatorship who were planning an uprising. After a failed attempt to invade Venezuela in 1929, during which his father died, Carlos returned to Paris and completed his higher education in the field of technical sciences at the Higher School of Social Works (where he also married Romanian communist Lucia Devine).

After the death of President Gomez in 1935, Carlos returned to Venezuela and was sent back to Paris to attend the Higher Military School in Versailles, which he graduated from in 1939. Upon returning to his homeland, he joined the armed forces as an engineering captain, becoming part of the "new generation of officers" who sought institutional changes in the country.

In October 1945, he participated in a conspiracy against President Medina Angarita, becoming a member of the government's revolutionary junta and the Minister of Defense. His predecessors in the presidency, Romulo Betancourt and Romulo Gallegos, attempted to limit the sphere of influence of foreign capital, especially the United States, by increasing taxes on it.

On November 24, 1948, Delgado Chalbaud led a new coup and overthrew the first democratically elected president, Gallegos. He headed the military junta, which also included Marcos Perez Jimenez and Luis Llovera Paez. He repealed the previous laws regarding the increase of taxes on foreign capital and granted even greater concessions. The National Congress was dissolved, and the "Democratic Action" party was banned.

In early 1950, a conflict erupted within the ruling junta over the leader's plans to dissolve it and run as a candidate in the presidential elections. On November 13, 1950, 41-year-old Delgado was kidnapped by a group led by opposition member Rafael Simon Urbina and was killed under unclear circumstances (the following day, Simon Urbina himself died). Marcos Perez Jimenez, who became the de facto head of the government after Delgado's death, is suspected of organizing this event. He eventually became the authoritarian president of the country in 1952. The Venezuelan mini-series "The Assassination of Delgado Chalbaud" (RCTV) is dedicated to this event.

In honor of Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, a mountain in the upper reaches of the Orinoco and a non-profit foundation for social programs have been named after him.