Capus Waynick and Anastasio Somoza

Source: Guide to the Capus Miller Waynick Papers, East Carolina Manuscript Collection #421

Staff Person: Maury York

Description:

This photograph from the Capus Miller Waynick Papers in the East Carolina Manuscript Collection shows Waynick (right) with Anastasio Somoza, the military dictator who ruled Nicaragua from 1936 until he was assassinated in 1956. Waynick (1889-1986), a native of Rockingham County, N.C., edited the High Point Enterprise, served as a state legislator and played an active role in North Carolina’s Democratic Party. After Waynick sucessfully managed W. Kerr Scott’s upset bid for the governorship in 1948, President Harry Truman appointed him Ambassador to Nicaragua. This photograph was taken about 1949, shortly after Waynick arrived in the country. Waynick’s papers, Manuscript Collection 421, include significant materials pertaining to Somoza and Waynick’s service as ambassador. Recently a young scholar from the Netherlands spent three days in the Special Collections Department conducting research in the Waynick papers for his forthcoming book on Somoza. He noted that Waynick’s diary kept during his stay in Nicaragua is the only such document he has located among the papers of U.S. ambassadors to Nicaragua during Somoza’s dictatorship. Also available in the Manuscript Collection is Waynick’s oral history interview, conducted by Donald R. Lennon.

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Anastasio Somoza and Capus Waynick