by John Bolton;
More positively, Opposition negotiations with key regime figures indicated their view that the fissures we sought were beginning to emerge. Overcoming years of mistrust was not easy, but we tried to show potential defectors that both the Opposition and Washington were serious about amnesty and avoiding criminal prosecutions for earlier transgressions. This was realpolitik. Many top regime figures were corrupt, profiting from drug trafficking, for example, and their human-rights records were hardly exemplary. But I felt strongly it was better to swallow a few scruples to crash the regime and free Venezuela’s people than to stand on “principles” that kept them oppressed, and Cuba and Russia dominant inside. That was why, playing head games with the regime, I tweeted to wish Maduro a long, quiet retirement on a nice beach somewhere (like Cuba). I didn’t like it, but it was far preferable to his remaining in power. In the judgment of the Opposition, we also faced the problem of heavy surveillance, likely Cuban, of leading regime officials, obviously intimidating, and making trustworthy communications among potential coup plotters all the more difficult.
One ploy we considered to send signals to key figures in the regime was delisting from the sanctions people like wives and family members, a common practice in US policy to send signals to influence the behavior of selected individuals or entities. Such actions would likely get little public attention but would be powerful messages to regime officials that we were prepared to ease their paths either out of Venezuela entirely or into the arms of the Opposition as co-conspirators rather than prisoners. In turn, if they then cooperated in facilitating Maduro’s ouster, they could be delisted themselves. In mid-March, the issue came to a head when Treasury flatly refused to delist certain individuals, despite the unanimous support of the other affected players. Pompeo called Mnuchin, once again reaching him in Los Angeles, and told him to fulfill Treasury’s administrative role and stop second-guessing his department. Nonetheless, Treasury persisted, asking questions about Opposition negotiations with Maduro regime figures, second-guessing the State Department on whether delisting would produce the results desired. This was intolerable. It suggested that we should move the entire sanctions operation out of Treasury and put it elsewhere. Finally, Mnuchin said he would accept the State Department’s guidance if I would send him a note saying it was acceptable to me. This was nothing but “cover your ass” behavior, but I was happy to send a brief memo to Pompeo, Mnuchin, and Barr laying out my view that Treasury was not entitled to its own foreign policy. I was gladdened later that Elliott Abrams, an old friend who had joined State as another “special envoy,” sent me an e-mail saying, “Your letter is a classic. It should be studied in schools of government!” Sadly, the time and effort wasted here could have been spent advancing US interests.
We were simultaneously squeezing Havana. State reversed Obama’s absurd conclusion that Cuban baseball was somehow independent of its government, thus in turn allowing Treasury to revoke the license allowing Major League Baseball to traffic in Cuban players. This action didn’t endear us to the owners, but they were sadly mistaken if they didn’t grasp that their participation in professional baseball’s scheme meant they were sleeping with the enemy. Even better, the perennial presidential waivers of key provisions of the Helms-Burton Act were coming to an end. Helms-Burton allowed property owners with assets expropriated by Castro’s government and sold to others, to sue in US courts, either to retrieve the property or to receive compensation from the new owners, but those provisions had never been deployed. Now they would be. Consistent with his public threats of a “full and complete embargo” on Cuba because of the oil shipments between Venezuela and Cuba, Trump also repeatedly asked the Defense Department for concrete options on how to stop such shipments, including interdiction.44 Although military force inside Venezuela was a nonstarter, using force to slice Cuba’s oil lifeline could have been dramatic. The Pentagon did nothing.
How bad was Cuba’s influence in Venezuela? Even the New York Times understood the problem, running a major story on March 17 recounting how Cuban “medical assistance” had been used to shore up Maduro’s support among Venezuela’s poor and held back from those unwilling to carry out Maduro’s orders.45 The article demonstrated the extent of Cuba’s penetration of Maduro’s regime and how bad conditions in Venezuela were. In addition, a top Venezuelan General who defected to Colombia described publicly later in the week the extent of the corruption inside the country’s medical program, adding further evidence of the rot within the regime.46 The Wall Street Journal carried an article shortly thereafter detailing Maduro’s loss of support among Venezuela’s poor, something we’d believed since the outset of the rebellion in January.47 I urged that we consider more measures to drive wedges between the Venezuelan military and the Cubans and their gangs of colectivos. The professional military despised the colectivos, and anything we could do to increase tensions between them, further delegitimizing the Cuban presence, would be positive.
Trump seemed to be holding up fine, saying at a March 19 White House press conference with new Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, “We haven’t done the really tough sanctions yet on Venezuela.” Of course, that comment begged the question “Why not?” What exactly were we waiting for? Story, Claver-Carone, and others continued to hear from Venezuela that the pace and extent of conversations between the Opposition and potential allies inside the regime continued to increase. It all seemed incredibly slow but was still moving in the right direction. In fact, evidence of division within the regime may have prompted the arrest of two top Guaidó aides, particularly his chief of staff, Roberto Marrero. Pence weighed in heavily on this, persuading Trump to overcome Treasury’s objections to sanctioning a major Venezuelan government financial institution and four of its subsidiaries. Pence told me later Trump said to Mnuchin in giving him these instructions, “Maybe it’s time to put Maduro out of business.” Indeed. Treasury also now acquiesced in designating Venezuela’s entire financial sector for sanctions, something it had long resisted strenuously. I was glad to get the right result, but the time lost in internal debate was equivalent to throwing Maduro a lifeline. In the meantime, in late March, Russia sent in new troops and equipment, labelling one shipment as humanitarian, and trying to obfuscate what its presence amounted to.48 There were strong indications more were coming over the next several months. At that same time, however, Brazil’s Defense Minister, Fernando Azevedo, was telling me that the end was in sight for Maduro. I also met in my office with Honduran President Juan Hernandez, who was similarly optimistic, in contrast to the situation in Nicaragua, on his border.
On March 27, Guaidó’s wife, Fabiana Rosales, arrived at the White House for a meeting with Pence in the Roosevelt Room, for which we hoped Trump would drop by. She was accompanied by Marrero’s wife and sister, and after photos and statements to the press by Rosales and Pence, we were instead ushered into the Oval Office. Trump greeted Rosales and the others warmly, and the press mob then lumbered in, for what turned out to be a twenty-minute, live-broadcast event. Rosales thanked Trump, Pence, and me for our support (saying, “Mr. Bolton, it is an honor to count on you as we do”). Trump did a good job with the press, saying, when asked about Russian involvement in Venezuela, “Russia has to get out,” which made a strong impression and was exactly what I hoped he would say.49
Even more interesting was the discussion after the press left, as we listened to Rosales describe how bad things were in Venezuela, and Marrero’s wife tell the story of the secret police breaking into her house and dragging her husband off to the Helicoide, its now-infamous Caracas headquarters building, which also served as a prison. As the discussion continued, Trump told me twice, regarding the Russians, “Get them out,” and, with respect to the Cuban regime, “Shut them down [in Cuba],” both of which instructions I welcomed. At one point, Trump stressed that he wanted the “strongest possible sanctions” against Venezuela, and I turned to look at Mnuchin, who had come in for another meeting. Everyone, Venezuelan and American, laughed
, because they knew Mnuchin was the main obstacle to doing what Trump said he wanted. Pence asked Rosales what was happening with the Venezuelan military, but Trump interrupted to say, “It’s very slow. I thought they’d have come over already.” Rosales answered with a description of the extreme violence she was seeing, and the close connections of Venezuela’s military to Cuba.50 After the Rosales meeting ended, Trump said to Mnuchin and me, “You can’t hold back now,” and I said, “Steve and I are both looking forward to it as soon as he [Mnuchin] gets back from China.” I was sure Mnuchin was enjoying this as much as I was.
The most unexpected outcome of the meeting was Trump’s perception that Rosales had not worn a wedding ring and how young she looked. The second point was true, although she seemed as resolute as they come, but the first I hadn’t noticed. Later, when Guaidó’s name came up, Trump would comment on the wedding ring “issue.” I never did understand what it signified, but it was not good, in Trump’s mind. He thought Guaidó was “weak,” as opposed to Maduro, who was “strong.” By spring, Trump was calling Guaidó the “Beto O’Rourke of Venezuela,” hardly the sort of compliment an ally of the United States should expect. It was far from helpful but typical of how Trump carelessly defamed those around him, as when he began blaming me for the opposition’s failure to overthrow Maduro. Perhaps Trump forgot he made the actual decision on policy, except when he said he was the only one who made decisions. Still, at the moment with Fabiana Rosales, Trump’s performance in the Oval was the most emphatic he had given to date on Venezuela. Too bad the relevant Treasury and State Department subordinates hadn’t also been there to see it.
One gambit was a string of tweets from me to Defense Minister Padrino, trying to inflame his Venezuelan patriotism against the Russians and Cubans, urging him to “do the right thing” by his country’s Constitution. It appeared we got through. In response to a reporter’s question, Padrino answered, “Mr. Bolton, I tell you that we are doing the right thing. Doing the right thing is doing what’s written in the constitution… Doing the right thing is respecting the will of the people.”51 That was all we needed to start a new line of tweets that “the will of the people” was to get rid of Maduro, which was certainly true. At least we could now say we were inside Padrino’s head, and perhaps others’. In fact, Rosales said to Abrams after the Trump meeting, “The regime wonders if the US military threat is credible, but they are most afraid when John Bolton starts tweeting.” Now, that was encouraging!
In Venezuela, the Opposition and key regime figures were developing a play with the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, the equivalent of our Supreme Court, to declare the National Constituent Assembly, Maduro’s fraudulently elected “legislature,” illegitimate.52 If Venezuela’s top court, packed by Maduro cronies and hacks, and led by one of his nominally strongest supporters, delegitimized Maduro’s sham legislature, it would dramatically undercut Maduro across the board in Venezuela. At the same time, Venezuelan civilians had now broken through barricades put up by Maduro’s National Guard on the Simon Bolivar International Bridge near Cúcuta, the crossing point into Colombia, thus reopening contact with the outside world. The National Guard had simply scattered, and there were unconfirmed reports that provincial governors in several border provinces seemed to be taking matters into their own hands, but only temporarily. Final totals from the February 23 effort were that as many as fourteen hundred Venezuelan Army, National Guard, and police had defected,53 and we still had no doubt the vast bulk of the remaining military firmly supported Guaidó.
If we wanted to win, we had to step up our game considerably. At an “informal” meeting of the principals I organized on April 8, Mnuchin was now more flexible, and we agreed on torqueing up pressure on Russia both within the Western Hemisphere and outside it, in Ukraine or the Baltics, for example, or on the Nord Stream II pipeline. He offered to press Russia’s Finance Minister over the weekend at the annual International Monetary Fund/World Bank meetings, which was progress. With estimates of total Venezuelan debt owed to Russia and China (primarily Russia) as high as $60 billion, or even higher, they obviously had a lot at stake, more so if the Opposition took power.54 I just hoped Trump wouldn’t object to our upping the ante with Moscow.
Claver-Carone and Story were hearing that April 20, the day before Easter, might be the target date for the negotiations to shatter the regime. Even the head of the secret police Manuel Cristopher Figuera, we heard, believed that Maduro was finished.55 Talks with several senior Venezuelan military leaders, including Defense Minister Padrino, were becoming increasingly operational: not about whether Maduro would be ousted but about how it would happen.56 These military leaders were also in consultation with top civil authorities, particularly Moreno,57 which boded well for proceeding against Maduro and those who still showed loyalty to the regime. This was important, because real change required more than just throwing Maduro out of office. My impression was that much of the negotiation centered on what a “transition” period would look like, which was very dangerous, since Chavista movement supporters would still control key government institutions even after Maduro’s ouster. I understood the tentative sequence was that the supreme court would declare the Constituent Assembly illegal; Maduro would then resign; the military would recognize Guaidó as Interim President; the National Assembly would be recognized as Venezuela’s only legitimate legislature; and the supreme court would remain in place. This was not perfect, and there were certainly risks in my judgment that eliminating Maduro but having the regime remain in power could be the hidden objective of some regime figures involved.
On April 17, at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida, I spoke to the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association commemoration of the anniversary of their invasion of Cuba fifty-eight years before, in a failed effort to overthrow the Castro regime. The Brigade 2506 vets were a potent force in Cuban-American politics in Florida and around the country, and this yearly gathering was a big attention getter, something aspiring politicians never missed if at all possible. I was able to bring them news, at long last, of the end of the waivers of Helms-Burton title 2, thus allowing suits against the owners of property expropriated by the Castro regime, and the full enforcement of title 4, which could deny them visas to the US, a major problem for foreign corporations that now owned much of that property. There were a number of other noteworthy measures we were announcing against both Cuba and Venezuela, especially those targeting Venezuela’s Central Bank. The overall impact was to show how resolved the Administration was against the “troika of tyranny,” even though I was the only one in the packed Biltmore ballroom who knew how little resolve there was behind the Resolute desk.
After slippages for various reasons, the new target date for the Opposition to act became April 30. I felt time was rapidly moving against us, given Trump’s evident worries about Guaidó and the wedding ring “issue.” Earlier mistakes, like Guaidó’s leaving the country, the February failure by the Opposition and Colombia to force their way across the border with humanitarian assistance, and the closure of Embassy Caracas were all on my mind. In any event, with April 30 fixed, and coming the day before Guaidó’s previously announced mass country-wide demonstrations on May 1, perhaps the decisive hour was about to arrive.
Indeed, it was. Pompeo called me at 5:25 a.m. on April 30 to say, “There’s a lot of movement down in Venezuela,” and said that, among other things, Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez had been released from his long-standing house arrest by the relatively new head of the SEBIN, a key secret police agency, General Manuel Cristopher Figuera. Pompeo said Padrino had gone to meet Guaidó, and he was planning to tell Maduro shortly that it was time for him to go. Padrino was said to be accompanied by three hundred military personnel, which indicated he had broken free of the Cubans, although we learned later that this information (both the purported meeting and the military personnel) was incorrect. The supreme court part of the plan (declaring the Constituent Assembly illegitimate) had still not happened, but other
pieces seemed to be falling into place. I was already prepared to leave for the White House and departed slightly earlier than normal, expecting a full day of turmoil. By the time I reached the West Wing, Guaidó and Lopez were at La Carlota air base in central Caracas, which had reportedly defected to the Opposition. Guaidó tweeted out a video message announcing the start of “Operation Liberty,” calling on the military to defect and civilians to come into the streets to protest. But soon thereafter, we heard that the information about La Carlota air base was inaccurate, and that Guaidó and Lopez were never actually inside the base. Moreover, reports that military units supporting Guaidó had captured at least some radio and television stations, if they ever were true, were shown to be untrue within a few hours.
Confusing and contradictory reports continued through the morning, a “fog of war” phenomenon in these kinds of events, but it became increasingly clear that the endlessly discussed plan between the Opposition and key regime figures had come apart. The first wire service reports did not arrive until about 6:16 a.m. We were hearing that the supreme court members had been summoned by Moreno to play their assigned role, which would in turn trigger Padrino’s moving into action. But it turned out, however, that the judges did not follow through. By the afternoon, my assessment was that senior regime civilian and military leaders with whom the Opposition had been negotiating, such as Moreno, were all recoiling from the effort because they thought it had been launched too soon. General Cristopher Figuera said that he personally alerted Padrino to the timetable’s acceleration, but he could tell Padrino was nervous about the change of plans.58 The timetable had moved up, but only because on Monday night the Cubans had likely gotten wind of the conspiracy, thus motivating those involved on the Opposition side to move forward outside the understood sequence. All the evidence, in my assessment, showed who was really in charge in Venezuela, namely, the Cubans, who had informed Maduro. As word spread within the regime’s top levels that the security of the plan had been breached, supreme court President Moreno became increasingly nervous, resulting in his failure to have his court delegitimize Maduro’s Constituent Assembly as planned, thus spooking the senior military leaders. Lacking “constitutional” cover, they hesitated, and the release of Lopez on Tuesday morning only further increased the senior military conspirators’ unease. I thought that these generals may never have intended to defect, or had at least hedged their bets enough that they could jump either way on Tuesday, depending on what course events took.