Bolivian historians have referred to him as "El Hombre Símbolo" (the symbolic man), as a president who carefully cultivated an appearance of integrity and nationalism.

[1] Born in Cochabamba, Salamanca studied law at the Higher University of San Simón, before being elected to Bolivia's Chamber of Deputies in 1899 for the Liberal Party.

In what was likely a measure to avert public attention to the economic problems still facing the country, he also revived hostilities with Paraguay in the disputed Chaco region.

Sporadic battles would occur, but cooler heads tended to prevail, especially because neither Bolivia nor Paraguay (the only landlocked and poorest countries in South America) could afford a full-scale war over the Chaco.

In addition, the explosive economic and political situation prompted President Salamanca to use the dispute to shore up national unity and distract attention from his government's shortcomings.

A string of devastating defeats on the southern front of the war at the hands of the Paraguayans, who knew the terrain much better than the Bolivians (most of whom hailed from the Altiplano Highlands) precipitated Kundt's replacement by General Enrique Peñaranda at the end of 1933.

The elderly and sickly Salamanca at that point was allowed to "retire" to his native Cochabamba, where he died of stomach cancer less than a year later in July 1935, only days after the establishment of the cease-fire.

The rather dour, intellectual Salamanca is perhaps best remembered by two celebrated phrases of his: musing upon one of the many disastrous losses of his armies, he is reported to have said "I gave them everything they asked for – weapons, trucks, whatever they wanted; the one and only thing I could not give them was brains."

He is also supposed to have remarked dryly to Peñaranda, upon the encirclement of the house where he was staying at Villamontes during the coup: "Congratulations General; you just completed your first and only successful military siege of the entire war."