Julio César Turbay Ayala

Turbay was born in a rich neighborhood of “Voto Nacional”, Bogotá, on June 18, 1916. His father, Antonio Amín Turbay, was a businessman who emigrated from Tannourine, Lebanon.[3] His mother, Rosaura Ayala, was a peasant from the province of Cundinamarca. Turbay’s father, a hard working merchant, had built a fortune, which he completely lost during the civil war of the Thousand Days War.[4] Turbay Ayala completed his secondary studies in Bogotá, but never attended college, and instead became an autodidact, a fact that his political adversaries always poked fun at. He received a number of honorary degrees later in life.

Turbay started his political career in the Liberal Party as a councilman in the (then) town of Usme in 1936. He would later be appointed as major of the city of Girardot (1937), and then councilman in the town of Engativá in 1938 along with fellow politicians Alfonso López Michelsen and Álvaro Gómez Hurtado. The next few years he spent as a member of the Assembly of Cundinamarca. In 1943 he was chosen for congress as a Chamber Representative. He was a leader of the opposition to conservative governments, and in 1953 became a member of the national directive of the liberal party. With the rise to power of the military Junta that ousted dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, Turbay was appointed Minister of Mines and Petroleum. He was later appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs by president Alberto Lleras Camargo until 1961. He was known as a strong defender of the National Front, and was chosen as senator for four consecutive periods between 1962 and 1974. He also served briefly as interim president in 1967. He was also appointed as ambassador the UN (1967-1969), United Kingdom (1973-1974), and the United States (1975-1976).[1][2] He first attempted to become a presidential candidate in 1974, but ended up supporting López Michelsen, who won the elections that year. The sector supporting López Michelsen was instrumental in Turbay's presidential campaign of 1978, and after a very narrow election he became president of Colombia in 1978.

Turbay was a supporter of president Álvaro Uribe. He initially opposed the possibility of presidential reelection in Colombia, but later changed his views, contributing to founding a movement known as Patria Nueva ("New Homeland"), in order to help promote Uribe's 2006 reelection aspirations.

Turbay married his niece, Nydia Quintero Turbay, on July 1, 1948.[8] They had four children together: Julio César, Diana, Claudia, and María Victoria. However, their marriage was annulled by the Roman Catholic Church,[8] and in 1986 he married his longtime companion Amparo Canal, to whom he remained married until his death. He is related to Paola Turbay.

In January 1991, Turbay's daughter, the journalist Diana Turbay, was kidnapped by orders of the Medellín Cartel and died during a failed police rescue operation not sanctioned by her family.[9] Her kidnapping is chronicled in News of a Kidnapping by the Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez (1996) and depicted in multiple onscreen productions.

A personal idiosyncrasy of Turbay's was his custom of wearing bow ties, a sartorial habit extremely uncommon in Colombia.

Turbay died on 13 September 2005, at the age of 89.[10] He was honored by a state funeral personally led by President Álvaro Uribe and was buried at the Sacromonte Caves at Canton Norte, an army base in Bogotá.. He visited Lebanon with his family in 2003 as a final trip to the homeland of his family.

• Julio César Turbay Ayala at Find a Grave