Stroessner also benefited from the 1950s and 1960s Cold War ideology in the United States, which favored authoritarian, anticommunist regimes.

Influenced by Paraguay's support for the United States intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1965, the United States became friendlier to Stroessner in the mid-1960s under President Lyndon B. Johnson.

The Stroessner regime enjoyed close military and economic ties with the United States and supported the US invasion of Dominican Republic and even offered to send troops to support the U. S. in Vietnam.

Although the military and security forces under Stroessner received less material support from the United States than other South American countries, strong inter-military connections existed through military advisors and military training.

Stroessner made many state visits, including to Emperor Hirohito of Japan, President Lyndon Johnson of the United States, President Charles de Gaulle of France, to South Africa and several visits to West Germany, although over the years his relations with West Germany deteriorated.

The exhaustion of most opposition forces enabled Stroessner to crush the Paraguayan Communist Party ( Partido Communista Paraguayo-PCP ) by mercilessly persecuting its members and their spouses and to isolate the exiled Colorado epifanistas ( followers of Epifanio Méndez Fleitas ) and democráticos, who had reorganized themselves as the Popular Colorado Movement ( Movimiento Popular Colorado-Mopoco ).

Stroessner was known for several positive economic policies, including the building of the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world in Itaipu Dam, developing Paraguay's economy: although Paraguay received only 15 % of the contracts, it was a major factor allowing the country to have the highest rate of growth in Latin America for most of the 1970s.

Human rights violations characteristic of those in other Latin American countries such as kidnapping, torture, forced disappearance and extrajudicial killing, were routine and systematic during the Stroessner regime.

While Stroessner's rule saw more stability than any living Paraguayan had ever known, it came at a high cost ; corruption was rampant ( Stroessner himself did not dispute charges of corruption at some levels in his government ) and the Stroessner government's human rights record was considered one of the poorest in South America.

As one of the few officers who had remained loyal to Morínigo, Stroessner became a formidable player once he entered the higher echelons of the armed forces.

An upsurge in guerrilla violence followed, but Stroessner once again parried the blow.

By this time, the Febreristas, a sad remnant of the once powerful but never terribly coherent revolutionary coalition, posed no threat to Stroessner and were legalized in 1964.

Stroessner was nominated by the Colorados once again, and was the only candidate who was allowed to campaign completely unmolested.

The capital is Ciudad del Este, originally named Puerto Flor de Lis, and later Puerto Presidente Stroessner until it received the name that has nowadays once the dictatorial government of General Alfredo Stroessner was over.

The Colorados helped Moríñigo crush the insurgency, but the man who saved Moríñigo's government during crucial battles was the commander of the General Brúgez Artillery Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda.

As the military " strongman " who made the coup, Stroessner was able to provide many of his supporters with positions in the provisional government.

The son of an immigrant German brewer and a Paraguayan woman, Stroessner was born in Encarnación in 1912.

Like Franco and Estigarribia, Stroessner was a hero of the Chaco War.

On February 3, 1989, Stroessner was overthrown in a military coup headed by General Andrés Rodríguez.

In 1955 Stroessner fired the country's finance minister, who was unwilling to implement reforms, and in 1956 accepted an International Monetary Fund ( IMF ) stabilization plan that abolished export duties, lowered import tariffs, restricted credit, devalued the currency, and implemented strict austerity measures.

The first was the completion of the road from Asunción to Puerto Presidente Stroessner and to Brazilian seaports on the Atlantic, ending traditional dependence on access through Argentina and opening the east to many for the first time.

Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda ( also Strössner or Strößner ; November 3, 1912 – August 16, 2006 ), was a Paraguayan military officer and the country's president from 1954 to 1989.

After a brief interim presidency by Tomás Romero, Stroessner was the only candidate in a special election on July 11 to complete Chávez ' term.

The Secretary of the Paraguayan Communist Party was dismembered alive with a chainsaw while Stroessner listened on the phone.

Stroessner was careful not to show off or draw attention from jealous generals or foreign journalists.

Stroessner was also known for many projects that improved the country's infrastructure.

Most impressive was the fact that by the end of the Stronato, the second biggest city was Puerto Flor de Lis ( renamed " Puerto Presidente Stroessner ," then " Ciudad del Este "), founded just 32 years before.

Under these circumstances, the February 1988 election was no different from past elections, with Stroessner officially registering 89 percent of the vote — a margin that his rivals contended could only have been obtained through massive fraud.

His father was a Paraguayan member of the PLRA who left his country during the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner.

* 1954 – Alfredo Stroessner begins his dictatorship in Paraguay.

* 1912 – Alfredo Stroessner, Paraguayan politician ( d. 2006 )

In 1954, General Alfredo Stroessner took advantage of the strong link between the armed forces and the Colorado Party to overthrow the government ; he ruled until 1989.

Suspecting that Moríñigo would not relinquish power to González, a group of Colorado military officers, including Stroessner, removed Morínigo from office.

The institution of one-party rule, the establishment of order at the expense of political liberty, and the acceptance of the army's role of final political arbiter created the conditions that encouraged the emergence of the Stroessner regime.

Early in 1954, recently fired Central Bank Director Epifanio Méndez Fleitas joined forces with Stroessner, at that time a general and commander in chief of the armed forces, to oust Chaves.

In May 1954, Stroessner ordered his troops into action against the government after Chaves had tried to dismiss one of his subordinates.

About two months later, a divided Colorado Party nominated Stroessner for president.

When Stroessner took office on August 15, 1954, few people imagined that this circumspect, unassuming forty-one-year-old commander in chief would be a master politician capable of outmaneuvering and outlasting them all.

Career considerations and an antipathy for communists possibly caused Stroessner to decide against joining the rebels in 1947.

Stroessner took a hard line from the beginning in his declaration of a state of siege, which he renewed carefully at intervals prescribed by the constitution.

Except for a brief period in 1959, Stroessner renewed the state of siege every three months for the interior of the country until 1970 and for Asunción until 1987.

However, Stroessner purged the military of Méndez Fleitas ' supporters and made him go into exile in 1956.

To observers, Stroessner did not seem to be in a particularly strong position.

A 1958 national plebiscite elected Stroessner to a second term, but dissatisfaction with the regime blossomed into a guerrilla insurgency soon afterward.

In April 1959, however, Stroessner grudgingly decided to heed the growing call for reform within the army and the Colorado Party.

Stroessner responded swiftly by reimposing the state of siege and dissolving the legislature.

In return for Renovationist participation in the elections of 1963, Stroessner allotted the new party twenty of Congress's sixty seats.