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The steady downward slope of Duarte's tenure could be charted from one October to the next. His first October, in 1984, was a time of triumph as he strode into the small town of La Palma for the first of three meetings with leftist rebel leaders. A year later, as hostilities continued, tragedy hit home when Duarte's eldest daughter, Ines Guadalupe Duarte Duran, was kidnaped and held by rebels for 30 days. That October, Duarte personally supervised the complex negotiations that secured Ines' freedom, briefly abandoning his tough line with the guerrillas and freeing 25 political prisoners in exchange. The double standard aroused the contempt of some, especially within the powerful military, who charged that he had compromised his ability to govern.
In the months that followed, Duarte tried unsuccessfully to get the peace talks back on track. He also implemented an austerity program that enjoyed greater support in Washington than in San Salvador. A hefty devaluation of the Salvadoran colon and a tax on coffee, the country's main export, pushed inflation to the 40% mark and raised unemployment close to 50%. Wary businessmen sought investments abroad, while some of the unions that had once supported Duarte joined a new opposition labor confederation. In October 1986 an earthquake flattened much of San Salvador, killing 1,500 people and inflicting $1 billion in damages. When hundreds of millions of dollars poured in, including $250 million from the U.S., the Duarte government was accused of squandering the funds.
During the next year, charges of corruption haunted Duarte's government. The death squads returned; mutilated bodies once again littered the roadsides. And the leftist guerrillas regained their momentum, waging successful assaults on military and economic targets throughout the country. As the country spun back toward chaos, Salvadorans came to regard Duarte as little better than a pawn of the Reagan Administration. That October, when Duarte journeyed to Washington for a White House visit with Ronald Reagan, he touched his hosts by kissing the American flag. At home, that same image came to symbolize the power that Duarte had forfeited.
The waning months of Duarte's administration were beset by political turmoil. In March 1988 Duarte's bitter political rivals, the ultraconservative Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), won control of the national legislature. Duarte's attempts to heal a deepening rift within his Christian Democratic Party failed, and one year later ARENA's presidential candidate, Alfredo Cristiani, triumphed, with 54% of the vote.
Friends eulogize Duarte as the man who, as one close adviser put it, "started a process, a tendency toward democracy." Detractors, such as Jesuit scholar Ignacio Martin Baro, assert that "history will remember Duarte as the President who mortgaged the sovereignty of his country to the Americans." Duarte may best be remembered, however, as the leader who could not live up to his own best intentions.