Ecuador, 1954 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
The dataset records an attempted military coup in Ecuador on 23 December 1954, during the third presidency of Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra, the term that ran from 1 September 1952 to 1956 and became the only one of his five presidencies to reach its constitutional end. Velasco Ibarra was Ecuador's dominant caudillo, a mesmerizing populist orator repeatedly swept into and out of office, but this term coincided with the banana boom and a rare stretch of stability that saw hundreds of schools and thousands of kilometers of roads built. Any coup attempt in December 1954 came within that context and did not unseat him.
He completed the term in 1956 and peacefully handed power to his elected successor, extending the unusual 1948 to 1960 run of constitutional transitions in Ecuadorian politics.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Datasets agree. At least two of the three reference datasets we check against carry this event, and none of them disagrees about its date or its result.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
13012231954- Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-130-1954-12-23
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra survived and completed his third term, his only full presidency, in 1956.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Powell and Thyne
New York Times
Los Angeles Times
Chicago Tribune
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →