The Peruvian army officer, dictator-president, and politician Manuel Apolinario Odría Amoretti (1897-1974) was a war hero who seized the presidency. After eight years of authoritarian rule he surrendered his office, but he continued to influence the affairs of Peru through his personal political party.

Odría was born at Tarma, in the Central Andes, on November 26, 1897, to a middle-class family of Spanish, Italian, and Peruvian Indian ancestry. After graduation from a nearby public high school in 1915 he entered the Chorillos military academy in suburban Lima. Odría graduated four years later at the head of his infantry officers' class. A model, "scientific" soldier in an army striving for increased professionalism, he earned rapid promotion as a military educator and administrator. Odría taught at the military academy, attended the superior war colleges of both the army and the navy, and served as a...