Ríos Morales, Juan Antonio (1888–1946)
Ríos Morales, Juan Antonio (1888–1946)
Juan Antonio Ríos Morales (b. 1888; d. 27 June 1946), president of Chile (1942–1946). In 1924, Ríos, a lawyer and businessman, won his first election to Congress, where he quickly became a leading member of the Radical party and a contender for the party's presidential nomination in 1938. With the death of Radical president Pedro Aguirre Cerda in November 1941, Ríos was elected his successor with 56 percent of the vote. He continued Aguirre Cerda's policies but focused on the principal issue of the time, Chile's neutrality in World War II. Chile finally broke off relations with the Axis in January 1943. Ríos subsequently became the first Chilean president to make an official visit to the United States (October 1945). His health, however, was failing, and, like his predecessor, he died before the end of his term.
See alsoChile: The Twentieth Century; Chile, Political Parties: Radical Party.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R. A. Humphreys, Latin America and the Second World War, vol. 2 (1982), pp. 105-119.
Additional Bibliography
Moulian, Tomás, and Isabel Torres Dujisin. Las candidaturas presidenciales de la derecha: Ross e Ibáñez. Santiago de Chile: Programa FLACSO, 1986.
Simon Collier