Sánchez Hernández, Fidel (1917–2003)

El Salvadorean soldier and politician, president 1967–72, at the time of the 1969 Football War with Honduras.

Sánchez was elected president with the backing of the military-reformist National Conciliation Party (PCN). He appointed a largely civilian cabinet and his reforms, although limited, included establishing a minimum wage. A five-day war (called the ‘Football War’ as it coincided with a World Cup qualifying match between the two countries) with neighbouring Honduras in July 1969, which Sánchez directed in the field, caused economic problems and raised nationalist feelings.

A professional soldier, he was military attaché in Washington 1960–62, and then interior minister under PCN leader Julio Rivera, who was president 1962–67. His protégé Colonel Arturo Armando Molina was his successor as president, in 1972.