Juan Velasco Alvarado

Juan Francisco Velasco Alvarado (June 16, 1910 – December 24, 1977) was a Peruvian general and politician who was the military leader of Peru from 1968 to 1975 after a successful coup d'état against Fernando Belaúnde's presidency. Under his government, nationalism, as well as left-leaning policies that addressed indigenous Peruvians, such as nationalization or agrarian reform were adopted. These policies were reversed after another coup d'état in 1975 led by his Prime Minister, Francisco Morales Bermúdez. Velasco had a confrontational foreign policy towards the United States, as he pushed for renegotiation of treaties and criticized what he perceived as a pernicious dependence of Latin American states on the United States and strengthened relations with the Soviet Union.