Eight months after the junta of service chiefs seized power in Lima, the Peruvian military reshuffled its own leadership. On March 3, 1963 General Ricardo Perez Godoy, who as chief of the Joint Command had headed the four-man junta since the July 1962 coup against President Prado, was removed as head of the military junta by his fellow officers, and on March 4 army commander General Nicolas Lindley Lopez became provisional president. The removal exposed the internal tensions inside the junta but did not change its course: the government kept its commitment to fresh elections, continued the electoral reforms it had begun, including single identification cards and modernized voter registration, and in June 1963 handed power to the winner, Fernando Belaunde Terry, a centrist acceptable to the armed forces.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Target identified in Coup Atlas research: General Ricardo Perez Godoy, head of the governing military junta, removed by the other junta members on March 3, 1963; he was not physically harmed, and General Nicolas Lindley Lopez became provisional president the next day.
RESEARCHED NAME
Key figures
Ricardo Perez Godoy (junta head, removed March 3)
Nicolas Lindley Lopez (army commander, provisional president from March 4)
Juan Francisco Torres Matos (vice admiral, junta member)
Pedro Vargas Prada (air force general, junta member)
Fernando Belaunde Terry (winner of the June 1963 elections)
Sources
Major General Perez Godoy was overthrown as head of the military junta on March 3, 1963, and General Nicholas Lindley Lopez became provisional president on March 4, 1963.
SOURCE REVIEWEDUniversity of Central Arkansas, Dynamic Analysis of Dispute Management project, Peru (1912-present)open source ↗
The March 1963 replacement of Perez Godoy by General Nicolas Lindley as head of the junta revealed internal military tensions; the junta had implemented significant electoral reforms including single identification cards and modernized voter registration, and the 1963 elections were won by Fernando Belaunde Terry, a centrist alternative acceptable to the military.
SOURCE REVIEWEDHistory Rise, The Peruvian Civil War (1962-1963): Political Instability and Military Interventionopen source ↗
The original junta installed in July 1962 was a body of four presidents headed by Perez Godoy as chairman of the joint chiefs, with General Nicolas Lindley Lopez commanding the army, Vice Admiral Juan Francisco Torres Matos the navy, and General Pedro Vargas Prada the air force.
SOURCE REVIEWEDTIME, Peru: The Military Take Over (contemporary archive report)open source ↗
The junta formed after the July 18, 1962 coup had annulled the elections and called new elections for 1963, proposing to guarantee a transparent and fair process.
Palace coup coding: the deposed leader is the junta chief himself, removed from within the governing group with the regime continuing, which distinguishes this record from the July 18, 1962 coup against Prado enriched in batch 13. Sources on the exact internal mechanics of the removal are thin in this session's material; the record sticks to the documented dates and the succession. Arc link: the junta transferred power to Belaunde after the June 1963 elections; Belaunde was himself deposed by the military in October 1968.
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:
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: General Ricardo Perez Godoy, head of the governing military junta, removed by the other junta members on March 3, 1963; he was not physically harmed, and General Nicolas Lindley Lopez became provisional president the next day..
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; 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
“Peru Chief Ousted in Military Power Dispute,” March 4, 1963
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 →