Coup Atlas Research Database
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13508101954AttemptedMilitary coup

Peru, 1954 — military coup attempt

Peru (PER)South America, AmericasAugust 10, 1954

Event Summary

The dataset records an attempted military coup in Peru on 10 August 1954, during the authoritarian ochenio of General Manuel A. Odria, who had seized power in the October 1948 Restorative Revolution and won an unopposed 1950 election. Odria's regime rested on suppression of the outlawed APRA party, whose leader Victor Raul Haya de la Torre had taken asylum in the Colombian embassy in Lima, and on a personalist military government that would periodically fracture as ambitious officers maneuvered.

Any coup attempt in August 1954 came within that context and did not dislodge Odria, whose most serious internal challenge came the following year when his powerful interior minister Alejandro Esparza Zanartu was forced out. Odria ultimately allowed elections and handed power to a civilian successor in 1956, ending the ochenio.

Researched Details

Researched

Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.

Target identified in Coup Atlas research: President Manuel A. Odria survived and ruled until handing power to an elected civilian government in 1956
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
Manuel A. Odria (president of Peru, target)
Dissident military officers (recurrent plotters within the regime)
Victor Raul Haya de la Torre (APRA leader in embassy asylum)

Sources

Manuel A. Odria led the Restorative Revolution against Bustamante in October 1948 and governed Peru as the ochenio until 1956, a period of authoritarian military rule.
SOURCE REVIEWED Wikipedia, Manuel A. Odria open source ↗
Odria's regime outlawed APRA and drove its leader Haya de la Torre into asylum in the Colombian embassy in Lima, a standoff that lasted for years during the ochenio.
SOURCE REVIEWED Wikipedia, Manuel A. Odria open source ↗
Odria won an unopposed presidential election in 1950 after the July 1950 Arequipa revolt against his candidacy, consolidating the personalist military government.
SOURCE REVIEWED University of Central Arkansas DADM Project, Peru 1912 to present open source ↗
Odria allowed elections in 1956 and handed power to the elected civilian government of Manuel Prado, ending the ochenio.
SOURCE REVIEWED Wikipedia, Manuel A. Odria open source ↗

Editorial Note

No discrete documentation of a 10 August 1954 Peruvian coup attempt was found in accessible English sources this session; the entry records the dataset's coding and the verified context of the Odria ochenio, with plotter identity for this specific date unconfirmed, flagged. Sits between Odria's 1948 seizure and his 1956 handover in the dataset.

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
13508101954
Albrecht/Koehler/Schutz (CAM) id
CAM-135-1954-08-10

How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.

Outcome and Target

Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Manuel A. Odria survived and ruled until handing power to an elected civilian government 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

Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset, v2.2.2
Peyton, Buddy, Joseph Bajjalieh, Michael Martin, and Andrea Gerald. 2026. Cline Center Coup d’État Project Dataset. Cline Center for Advanced Social Research. V.2.2.2. February 17. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. doi: 10.13012/B2IDB-9651987_V10
⚑ This citation establishes the coded baseline record; use the claim-level sources above for the researched narrative.

Baseline Source-Document Entries

CSP

Named in the baseline source document; no article citation was recorded.

New York Times

“PERU TO TRY OFFICERS:12 High Army Men Are Charged With Participation In Revolt,”August 13, 1954

New York Herald Tribune

“Peru to Try 12 in Plot,” August 13, 1954

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 →

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