Tobacco.org

León Febres Cordero, Former Leader of Ecuador, Is Dead at 77  

León Febres Cordero, a pistol-wielding, chain-smoking, horse-breeding businessman who served a tumultuous term as Ecuador’s president in the 1980s and later exerted broad influence over the country’s political life for nearly two decades, died Monday in Guayaquil, his hometown. He was 77.

The cause was complications of lung cancer, said Pascual del Cioppo, an official in Mr. Febres Cordero’s Social Christian Party. Newspapers in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, and Guayaquil noted that Mr. Febres Cordero also had emphysema and had survived five heart bypass operations and three bullet wounds over the years. . . .

“My best friends are my cigarettes and my pistols,” he once told The Associated Press. “They don’t ask for anything, and they’re always ready.”

Jump to full article »