General José Miguel Ramón Ydígoras Fuentes (17 October 1895 – 27 October 1982) was the conservative President of Guatemala from 1958 to March 1963. He was also the main challenger to Jacobo Árbenz during the 1950 presidential election. He had previously served as the governor of the province of San Marcos. Early life and military career Ydígoras Fuentes was born on a coffee plantation, in Pueblo Nuevo in the Guatemalan department of Retalhuleu, on 17 October 1895. He retained a great fondness for coffee as an adult, claiming to drink 10 cups of it in a day, and describing it as a "patriotic vice", referring to Guatemala's high coffee production. He enrolled in Guatemala's military academy, and graduated at the top of his class. He was commissioned in the Guatemalan infantry in 1915. He was posted to the Guatemalan embassy in Washington, D.C., in 1918, and to the Paris embassy in 1919. In the same year he represented Guatemala at the Paris Peace Conference. He subsequently held various posts in the military academy, before becoming a governor of the province of San Marcos in 1922. Ydígoras was appointed a general in 1937. He served as governor under the government of dictator Jorge Ubico until 1939, when Ubico appointed him director of roads. After Ubico was overthrown in the October revolution, Ydígoras was sent first to Washington, D.C., and then London, in diplomatic exile. During the government of Juan José Arévalo, Ydígoras was linked to several of the 25 attempted coups during 1945–1951. He returned to Guatemala in 1950. In the 1950 Guatemalan presidential election, Ydígoras was the main opponent of Árbenz. The elections were broadly free and fair, except that women who could not read were still disenfranchised. Although Ydígoras had the support of landowners, he lacked popular support, and did not have the backing of major political parties as Árbenz did. Árbenz eventually won the election with 258,987 votes to 72,796 for Ydígoras, out of a total of 404,739. The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) considered Ydígoras as a candidate to lead the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, because he had support among the Guatemalan opposition. However, he was rejected for his role in the Jorge Ubico regime, as well as his European visage, which was unlikely to appeal to the mostly mixed-race mestizo population. Carlos Castillo Armas was chosen instead. Ydígoras later claimed that in 1953, he had