VENEZUELA: Death of a Dictator

So many times in late years had the story come down to Caracas that for hours no one would believe it. Finally, though, there was no denying it: The Meritorious One (El Benemerito), was really dead. President Juan Vincente Gomez. 78, had died quietly in his bed of the uremia from which he suffered for many a month. With his General’s cap and all his medals beside him, they laid him out in the village church at Maracay. All night long barefoot peasants shuffled past, their black eyes wide with wonder. In his lifetime canny Dictator Gomez made much of the fact that he was born on July 24, a holiday celebrated throughout South America as the birthday of the Liberator, Simon Bolivar. The day and hour of his death last week were reported to have coincided with those of Bolivar’s 105 years ago.

No contemporary figure was ever more of a pain to serious liberals than Juan Vincente Gomez. A thoroughgoing reprobate, he became Dictator of Venezuela 27 years ago when Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler had scarcely a political thought in their heads. Though for appearances sake he sometimes gave up the office of President, he always remained the iron-fisted boss who put down every attempt at revolution more ruthlessly than Germany’s famed blood purge of 1934. The secret police of Germany, Russia and Italy are notable organizations. They fade into insignificance before those of Dictator Gomez. For every policeman in Caracas Dictator Gomez kept twelve spies, .male & female, on his payroll. No shotgun was ever big enough to make Dictator Gomez marry and before his death last week he had produced at least So bastards. One of them, Gonzalo, got himself shot last week attempting to stage a deathbed marriage for his mother. From graft alone he assembled the second largest private fortune in South America, estimated at over $100,000,000.*

But: Venezuela was one of few countries in the world last week with a balanced budget and a treasury surplus. Not a single foreigner owns a Venezuelan government bond and her money is the soundest in the world. Venezuela claims to have the finest highway system in Latin America, built entirely since 1912 and largely by the forced labor of political prisoners. Farmers pay no land taxes at all and may borrow up to 50% of the value of their land from a government farm bank. Caracas has been rebuilt. School attendance has been upped 300%. There is little or no unemployment.

A cattleman, and the son of a cattleman, Juan Vincente Gomez first appeared on the Venezuelan political scene 43 years ago when at the age of 35 he came tearing out of the Andean foothills at the head of a regiment of hard-riding gauchos to support with his neighbor, Cipriano Castro, the government of President Aldueza Palacio in one of the country’s innumerable revolutions. They guessed wrong. The successful revolutionists exiled Gomez & Castro. Seven years later another revolution left Cipriano Castro President of Venezuela and General Gomez Vice President and Minister of War. President Castro’s vices and extravagances nearly bankrupted the nation. In 1908 when Castro was in Germany attempting to have his liver repaired, General Gomez and his henchmen seized the country.

Oil is the secret of Venezuela’s prosperity. The secret of Dictator Gomez’ success is that he did not attempt to interfere with the foreign development of Venezuelan oil fields, so long as his personal “cut” was promptly paid. And he had the patriotism to reinvest all his loot in his own country. Gomez oil royalties went to build Gomez hotels, cotton mills, rubber plantations, model farms. When they failed he sold them to the Government. When they succeeded he kept the change. For years the legend persisted that Dictator Gomez kept a yacht with steam up night & day in case it should ever be necessary to flee the country. Most authorities doubt such a yarn.

Ever since the assassination of his brother in 1923, Dictator Gomez has avoided the capital. Seventy-seven miles away at his enormous ranch Las Delicias he sat under a giant rubber tree, feeding peanuts to his pet elephant, beaming fondly at his squalling, illegitimate offspring, governing the country as The Meritorious One, a title officially conferred on him by Venezuela’s Congress. For fun he brought famed Juan Belmont from Spain to fight bulls, played much with his favorite toy: a barber chair specially imported from the U. S. So many citizens hurried out to Maracay to reaffirm their loyalty by his coffin last week that the road was blocked for hours.

While the funeral guns were still booming, youthful Vice President Lopez Contreras was appointed acting President to succeed him. His first manifesto ended with a pointed warning:

“I know full well the duties which the fatherland demands of me in this hour. Countrymen, I insist on recommending order and peace, which as a definite orientation of policy, the Government knows how to maintain energetically.”

Wiseacres paid little attention to him. The most important man in Venezuela last week was General Vincencio Perez Soto, Governer of the State of Zulia. From Zulia comes all Venezuela’s oil, most of her revenues. General Soto was smart enough never to oppose Dictator Gomez. He lived simply, kept his books straight, and waited. Exiles in Panama insisted last week that General Soto had sent what was virtually a secret ultimatum to Caracas. Either he must be President of Venezuela, or .he would proclaim Zulia an independent republic.

* Largest: Bolivian “Tin-King” Simon Palino.