Bernardo Leighton
Bernardo Leighton Guzmán (August 16, 1909, Negrete, Bío Bío Province – January 26, 1995, Santiago) was a Chilean Christian Democratic Party politician and lawyer. He served as minister of state under three presidents over a 36-year career. Exiled as a critic of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, he was targeted for assassination by Operation Condor.
Bernardo Leighton
Sótero del Río
Manuel Rodríguez Valenzuela
Eliodoro Domínguez
Roberto Vergara Donoso
Juan José Hidalgo
January 26, 1995 (aged 85)
Santiago, Chile
National Falange
(1938–1957)
Christian Democratic Party
(1957–1978)
Bernardino Leighton Gajardo and Sinforosa Guzmán Gallegos
Biography[edit]
Early life[edit]
Bernardo Leighton was the son of Judge Bernardino Leighton Gajardo and Sinforosa Guzmán Gallegos. He grew up with admiration for his father, a reputed "justice man". Leighton spent his childhood in Los Angeles, Chile, in the Province of Bío Bío. In 1921, Leighton moved to Concepción for studies and an apprenticeship in the lay section of a seminary. In 1922, he moved to Santiago to work in the local Jesuit school, St. Ignacio.[1]
Political life[edit]
As the student leader at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, he participated in the 1927 riots against Carlos Ibáñez del Campo's dictatorship, which was deposed in 1931. During the same year, Leighton was sent by the Minister Marcial Mora to Coquimbo to placate the local military riots supported by the population.[2] In 1933, he graduated as a lawyer with a thesis on rural works.[1]
In 1937, Leighton was appointed Minister of Labor by Arturo Alessandri Palma. During this time he founded – along with his friends and associates, Eduardo Frei Montalva, Radomiro Tomic, and José Ignacio Palma – the National Falange which merged with the Christian Democratic Party in 1957.[3] At various times, he served as the party's vice-president.
In 1945, he was elected a deputy in the Chamber of Deputies, for an Antofagasta constituency. Leighton also served as Minister of Education in the Videla Government (1946–1952), and as Minister of the Interior in the Montalva Government (1964–1970).
He was re-elected in 1969, and served as legislator until the Chilean coup d'état of 1973.
Personal life[edit]
On August 15, 1940, Leighton married Ana María Fresno Ovalle, a relative of Juan Francisco Fresno. Ana Maria became a paraplegic due to the murder attempt on the couple in October 1975 and died in 2011. The couple had no children.