Bermúdez was born on December 11, 1932 in León, Nicaragua, the son of a mechanical engineer and a domestic servant. After graduating from the military academy in 1952, he took a commission in the engineer corps of the Nicaraguan Guardia Nacional. He rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel under former Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, and was serving as military attaché to the United States at the time of the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua by the Sandinistas.

Bermúdez moved almost immediately into armed opposition against the new government, ultimately becoming one of the most influential leaders in the armed opposition to the Sandinista government. Together with Ricardo Lau, he created the 15th of September Legion, the first armed opposition movement against the Sandinistas. In 1981, Bermúdez returned to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, from exile in Miami, United States. He would later become commander of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), the primary Contra movement.

Following the Sandinista defeat in the 1990 elections, Bermúdez returned to Managua, only to be gunned down on February 16, 1991 after being lured to a meeting at Managua’s InterContinental Hotel. He was shot in the hotel’s parking lot as he departed the hotel after those with whom he was meeting failed to show. In 1994, Bermúdez’ daughter, Claudia Bermúdez, told The Miami Herald: “There were a lot of people who would have benefited from having my dad put away–the Sandinistas, the Chamorro government, the United States. My dad died with a lot of information.”

In 2002 and 2004, his daughter, Claudia Bermúdez, now a resident of the San Francisco area, ran unsuccessfully against incumbent Democrat Barbara Lee for California’s 9th congressional district seat. She remains heavily engaged in public policy-related initiatives in the district.