Roberto Arias
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Roberto E. Arias (1918-1989) was a Panamanian lawyer, diplomat and journalist who was the husband of Dame Margot Fonteyn. Arias was from a Panamanian political dynasty, members of which had reached the Presidency four times; amongst them was his own father, Harmodio Arias.
Arias was educated at Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey, and at St. John's College, Cambridge. From 1942-1946 he edited his family's newspaper.
In 1955 he served as Envoy to Great Britain, shortly after his marriage to Dame Margot. In 1959 he and Dame Margot were charged with attempted gun-smuggling from their yacht off the coast of Panama and he was accused of fomenting a revolt against Ernesto de la Guardia Jr., who was then President. She was immediately deported to England; he took refuge in the Brazilian Embassy for two months before being given safe conduct out of the country. Eventually the charges were dropped and, after a governmental change, the couple were permitted to return to Panama.
In May 1964 he was elected to the National Assembly, his first venture into active politics. Two months later he was shot in an argument with a friend and former political associate, Alberto Jimenez, on a street corner in a suburb of Panama City, he was treated for 18 months in British hospitals and spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
