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A grim, drawn President Prado sat surrounded by his ministers and friends. A door banged open, and in clumped eight tommy-gun-toting men of Peru's elite, U.S.-trained Ranger battalion. "Señor Presidente," announced the colonel at their head, "I have been sent to take you prisoner." Replied Prado: "So be it. I leave under force from a sector of the armed forces." Standing near by, Pedro Beltrán, until recently Prado's Prime Minister and a man who had done much to foster democracy and development in Peru, could not hide his emotion. "Well said! Well said!" he cried.
Kneeling before a crucifix in the palace, the four-man junta swore itself into office. The soldiers then suspended all constitutional guarantees, dissolved Congress, arrested Electoral Tribunal officials "for trial," and promised "clean and pure elections" on June 9, 1963. Haya and other leaders of his party fled underground. The APRA-controlled Workers Confederation declared a general strike for this week. Crowds that gathered before the palace to shout "Viva la libertad!" and "Down with the junta!" were beaten with truncheons by police or routed with tear gas.
The reaction abroad was compounded of disgust and dismay, something the military junta had obviously not reckoned on. Nine Latin American countries suspended or broke off relations. The blow that hurt most came from the U.S. Having persistently warned Peru's military of the consequences of a coup, the U.S. suspended relations, stopped $81 million in Alliance aid, cut off military aid now running at $5,000,000 a year, and threatened as well to take away Peru's premium-priced U.S. sugar quota, amounting to $19 million a year. "A serious setback" to democracy, said President Kennedy, in an unusually vigorous White House statement. The generals were reported planning to send a mission to Washington to explain everything. Said Perez Godoy: "I know that President Kennedy can understand. What he wants in the Alliance is what we want."
What Kennedy and the Hemisphere Alliance partners want for Peru is a return to democracy.