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Journalist, politic, diplomat, writer and author. He was
born in Bogota the 3rd of July of 1906. He studied in Ricaurte School of
Bogota, in the School of "Nuestra Señora del Rosario" and in the Law Program in
Political Sciences in the same city.
He started working in the media in the newspaper "La
República" which was founded by the Doctor Alfonso Villegas Restrepo; later he
collaborated in "El Tiempo" and "El Espectador" Bogota’s newspapers. He
traveled to Argentina in 1926 and there he worked in "La Nación" of Buenos
Aires, also in newspapers and magazines from that city.
He traveled to Europe in 1929 as special correspondent of
"El Mundo" of Buenos Aires, to the International Exposition of Sevilla, Spain.
He came back to Bogota in 1929 and rejoined the newspaper "El Tiempo", as
Editing Chief. He was the director of "La Tarde", that was edited in Bogota for
a period of about a year.
He was again Editing Chief of "El Tiempo" in charged of the
editorial section until 1934. In 1938 he founded "El Liberal" which was the
newspaper that he directed until 1942. In 1929 he was named General Secretary
of the Liberal Party; he was elected to the House of Representatives in
1931/1933 and was the first Liberal President of the corporation after 45 years
of conservative domination.
He was part of the Colombian Delegation to the Montevideo
Conference in 1934; He also was Secretary of the Embassy that accompanied Dr.
Alfonso López, elected President, in his official visit to United States in
1934, he was General Secretary of the Presidency of the Republic when the López
administration began in 1934; He was Government Minister from 1935 to 1938; he
directed the Ministry of National Education for a short period.
Dr. Lleras Camargo was delegated to the Inter- American
Conference of Buenos Aires, in which he proposed the foundation of the American
Nations League; He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1941, in
which he was its first president; the National Convention elected him member of
the Liberal National Direction; He was elected in 1943 senator and once again
member of the Liberal National Direction; in April of 1943 he was designed
Ambassador of Colombia to the United States Government.
In October of 1943 he was named once again Government
Minister and he reminded in that position until January of 1945. Later he was
designated External Relations Minister until august 7 of 1945, in that date he
began his function as the Commander Chief because of the Titular’s Commander
Chief resignation.
He was Chief of the Colombians Delegations to the
Chapultepec Conference (February of 1945) and to the United Nations Conference
celebrated in San Francisco from April to June of 1945. He was named Doctor
honoris causa of Cauca University (Popayan, Colombia) and the California
University in United States too. He married General’s Arturo Puga daughter
Miss. Berta Puga; General Puga was ex Chief Commander of Chile. Dr. Lleras
Camargo had three daughters and one son: Consuelo, Ximena, Marcela, and
Alberto.
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