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Alfredo Stroessner[AlfrA´thO shtrs´nur] Pronunciation Key, 1912–, president and dictator of Paraguay (1954–89). Of a German Paraguayan family, he was commissioned an officer (1932) and fought in the Chaco War (1932–35). Named commander in chief of the armed forces (1951), he engineered the coup (1954) that toppled Federico ChAvez and became president that same year. Retaining command of the armed forces, he suppressed all opposition, and turned Paraguay into a refuge for Nazi war criminals. He was "reelected" eight consecutive times (1958, 1963, 1968, 1973, 1978, 1983, 1988) making his rule the longest in 20th-century Latin American history. With Brazil, he built the ItaipU dam on the ParanA River; its power plant, the world's largest hydroelectric station, dramatically increasing export revenues through the sale of electricity. Though essentially authoritarian, he gradually permitted opposition political activity. He was overthrown in a military coup (1989) and went into exile.
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