Six Crises

by Richard Nixon

  On the way to the Embassy, I felt as though I had come as close as anyone could get, and still remain alive, to a firsthand demonstration of the ruthlessness, fanaticism and determination of the enemy we face in the world struggle. I suppressed an urge to ask the Foreign Minister if he still believed that Latin American Communists were merely “harmless radicals.”

  As Pat and I walked into the Embassy residence, Don Hughes put into words what we all felt. “This is American soil and a little bit of heaven.”

  I knew again that the aftermath of the crisis could be just as important as the handling of the crisis itself. I steeled myself for the balance of the afternoon and evening to guard against making any mistakes which were avoidable.

  A few minutes after we arrived at the Embassy, we learned what happened at the Panteon Plaza. Bill Key, my administrative assistant, and a Secret Service agent had gone ahead to the Bolivar Tomb and there they saw several thousand people screaming for American blood. When two members of our Embassy staff arrived with the United States wreath for the Bolivar Tomb, they were surrounded, cursed, and manhandled before they could be extricated from the mob by a detachment of Venezuelan soldiers armed with fixed bayonets. The United States wreath was seized and torn to bits. Bill Key had sent back three separate warning messages in code through the Caracas Police Headquarters telling us to stay away. For some reason, none of these messages ever reached us. A subsequent investigation revealed that one group in the mob had a cache of homemade bombs which were to be used at the Panteon Plaza when I arrived with my party.

  By this time I was beginning to feel the accumulated fatigue from my lack of sleep on the whole tour plus the stress of the morning’s events. But I knew that, as in Lima, it was my responsibility to put these events in perspective in my meetings with Venezuelan officials and at the press conference which was scheduled for later. In view of the continuing threats of violence, I decided to cancel all scheduled visits and I invited those with whom I was to confer elsewhere to meet me in the Embassy.

  That afternoon and evening in Caracas was to be one of the most difficult periods of my public life. My personal desire was to get away from people, from problems, from crises—to get some time alone by myself in which to think and even just to sack out. But now I had to go through a period of explaining the significance of what had happened which would require temper control, judgment, and hard mental concentration which could prove even more wearing than the events of the morning.

  Outside, the Communist-directed crowds still were roaming the streets of Caracas. One band even tried to march on the Embassy shortly after I got there. The regular U. S. Marine Guard at the Embassy was supplemented by Navy, Army, and Air Force personnel, taken from our various military missions in Caracas, and the Embassy began to take on the appearance of a fortress.

  • • •

  My first callers were the members of the ruling military junta. Before they arrived, I made a minor decision which I have never regretted. Our battered limousine with its windows broken and fenders smashed was parked in front of the Embassy. One of the Embassy officials wanted to move it to the rear of the building so that the visiting Venezuelans would not be “embarrassed.” Bill Key objected and put the question up to me. Without hesitation, I told him, “Leave it where it is. It’s time that they see some graphic evidence of what Communism really is.”

  I received Admiral Wolfgang Larrazabal Ugueto, the Provisional President, and the five members of the junta with courtesy but with deliberate coolness. They had welcomed Communist support in the revolution against Perez Jimenez and now they did not know how to handle their Communist allies in the government. They would have to learn. I told them that freedom cannot survive in any coalition with Communists. My words apparently had very little effect on Larrazabal. The next year he ran for President with Communist support and was defeated.

  I next met with the political leaders of all the major parties of Venezuela except the Communist Party. One of them protested that after ten years of ruthless dictatorship they all abhorred the idea of developing another strong police force.

  This point, I discovered later, had been the major miscalculation of our own advisers in their estimate that Venezuelan security forces would be able to handle any demonstrations. They had failed to evaluate correctly the efficiency and state of mind of the Caracas police force: the country had just been through a bloody revolution and when the revolutionary forces won, their first targets for reprisals had been the brutal police of Perez Jimenez. Many of the Perez police were killed and tortured, probably with considerable justification. But, the result was that when the revolutionary junta took control, new inexperienced men had to be taken into the police and security forces. These men not only had relatively little experience, but they knew what happens to law enforcement men in Caracas when they oppose the people. Thus, when the mobs attacked my car, the police were reluctant to act. The explanation pointed up a lesson for all Latin American countries that there must be a balance between order and freedom. When there is an obsession for maintaining order, freedom suffers; but without some order there can be no freedom.

  Sitting next to me in that conference was Romulo Betancourt, who now is the President of Venezuela. I pointed out that too few people understood that the dictators of the left could be just as absolute and brutal in their denial of freedom as the dictators of the right. The Communists joined in the revolution against Perez Jimenez, not because of any dislike of dictatorship but only because they wanted to become the dictators.3

  I also met with a group of prominent American businessmen who had interests in Venezuela. To them I emphasized that while Communists had spearheaded the riots in Lima and Caracas, there were plenty of willing spear-carriers who were not Communists and that even if there were no Communists in South America, the problems of poverty, which lead to riot and revolution, still existed. It is essential, I told them, for American businessmen abroad to adopt practices which are above suspicion of any charges of exploitation of the workers.

  At a press conference late that afternoon, I made these same points and others in answer to questions. I remarked that one Venezuelan political leader had suggested to me that the murderous mob action had been due simply to students tasting freedom for the first time and becoming intoxicated with it. I pointed out that some of the “students” that I had seen must have been pretty dumb because the ones leading the mob were old enough to have been in college for twenty years. They had used the same slogans, the same words, the same tactics that “student” demonstrators had used in every country in South America I had visited, which was absolute proof that they were directed and controlled by a central Communist conspiracy.

  I again made in Caracas the point I had made in Lima—that those who led the riots had no claim to be loyal Venezuelans because they owed their loyalty only to the international Communist conspiracy. As proof of their attitude, I pointed out that they not only jeered and showed no respect for the American national anthem but that they had showed the same lack of respect when the Venezuelan national anthem was being played.

  When one questioner charged that the United States was giving “sanctuary” to Perez Jimenez and Pedro Estrada, I pointed out that there was an extradition treaty between our two countries and that the United States would be more than glad to ship the two men back to Venezuela for trial whenever the present Venezuelan Government wanted to resort to the proper procedures.

  I concluded the conference by emphasizing that despite the day’s incidents “I came to Venezuela as a friend and I leave as a friend.”

  That evening Mrs. Nixon and I had dinner in the privacy of our room in the Embassy residence. Now at last I thought we could relax after a nerve-wracking day. But just after nine o’clock, Rubottom and Edward J. Sparks, our Ambassador in Venezuela, came to the door and asked to talk with me on an urgent matter. Rubottom reported that he had just received a news report from Washington that had put us in the middle of another crisis: Pr
esident Eisenhower had just dispatched airborne troops to Caracas to insure our protection.

  This took me completely by surprise. No one had consulted me or anybody in my party. We had heard nothing from the White House, State Department, or Pentagon. I asked Rubottom to check the story through official channels and a short time later he brought back a transcript of a statement issued by the Defense Department:

  As a precautionary measure two companies of airborne infantry and two companies of Marines are being moved to certain U.S. bases in the Caribbean Area. The movement is being undertaken so these troops will be in a position to cooperate with the Venezuelan Government if assistance is requested. Orders for the troop movement were issued by the Chief of Staff, Army; and the Chief of Staff, Air Force; and the Chief of Naval Operations, Navy; after consultations between the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of Defense with the President.

  By this time, the Venezuelan radio was reporting that an enormous American troop movement was on its way to Venezuela. Realizing the propaganda impact of this development, Ambassador Sparks and I issued a joint statement to take the sting out of the next day’s press stories. We said that a very limited troop movement was being made from one American base to another so that troops would be available to Venezuelan authorities if needed. But we added that we were sure the Venezuelan Government had the situation well in hand and neither the junta, the American Ambassador, nor I saw the necessity for outside assistance to keep order.

  As expected, the announced troop movement caused a great outcry throughout Latin America. Yet from President Eisenhower’s vantage point his decision was right. He recognized his responsibility to protect American citizens and American officials whose lives were endangered abroad and he acted decisively. What had happened, I learned later, was that about noon that day, immediately following the mob attacks, the Embassy had flashed word to the State Department indicating that the Caracas security system had disintegrated, that mobs were loose, that I was under attack, and that the situation appeared hazardous or at least unclear. The report was rushed to Christian Herter, then Under Secretary of State. He alerted the White House and the Pentagon.

  At that point, communications between Washington and our Embassy in Caracas were cut. It was a complete breakdown, for some reason, and Washington could get no further word of what was happening here. As President Eisenhower, himself, explained, he ordered the troop movement as “the simplest precautionary type of measure in the world . . . we knew nothing of the facts. We could get no reports from the outside . . . and not knowing what was happening, and not knowing whether the Venezuelan Government might want some aid from us, we simply put it at places where it would be available.” The next morning the President got through to me by telephone. We had a long conversation in which I reported on the day’s events, assured him of our safety and of my belief that the Venezuelan Government had the situation in hand. He had been greatly concerned by the early reports and he was relieved to learn firsthand what had happened. Characteristically, he closed our talk saying, “Give my love to Pat.”

  • • •

  The Caracas newspapers were covered with advertisements and formal messages from prominent officials and organizations expressing mortification and apologies over what had happened the day before. One advertisement appealed to me particularly because it indicated that my comparison between democracy and Communism in my talks of the day before had had some effect. The ad said bluntly: “What would happen to Poland if the Poles did to Khrushchev what we did to Nixon?” All morning long, scores of beautiful bouquets of flowers and hundreds of wires and personally delivered messages arrived from Venezuelans in all walks of life apologizing for the incidents of the day before.

  Two important questions had to be decided on that morning. One was how and when to leave Caracas that day and the other was whether or not to attend a luncheon the provisional government wanted to give in my honor as a sort of face-saver. Behind these choices was the assumption that the Communist organizers might have regrouped their forces and that the Venezuelan police could not deal with them any better this day than they had the day before. Major Hughes and our military people worked out a plan by which our party would use a helicopter and three C-47 planes to shuttle from a small airstrip near the Embassy residence to the Maiquetia Airport where my government DC6-B and a Panagra Airliner chartered by the press group were awaiting our arrival. I ruled out this plan because Ambassador Sparks told me that Perez Jimenez had escaped from Caracas and the wrath of his countrymen by helicopter from that same small airstrip. I did not want any such odious comparisons made after my departure.

  The ruling junta pleaded that we accept their luncheon invitation so they could make a public display of the cordiality the government felt toward me and my party. They gave us the strongest assurances that we could depend upon them to get us safely to the Maiquetia Airport. I accepted their invitation with some trepidation because I knew that the luncheon was to be held in the sumptuous Circulo Militar which was on the other side of Caracas from the Embassy.

  Admiral Larrazabal and his colleagues came to the Embassy to escort us to the luncheon in a motorcade that looked like an invasion armada. Their black limousine was flanked by armored vehicles and twelve truckloads of battle-ready troops. We moved across town without incident. The luncheon was lavish and even by Latin American standards protracted far beyond my expectations. At three o’clock in the afternoon, I reminded my host that we were late for our scheduled departure. He nonetheless insisted on showing me through the plush military club. He guided me through every nook and cranny of the place, including the kitchens and quarters for the officers and the enlisted men. I kept looking at my watch and my patience was beginning to wear thin when finally at about 4:30 a Venezuelan Army colonel came up, saluted, and said, “All is ready.” Then I realized why the luncheon had been extended so deliberately. The Venezuelan authorities intended to take us out of Caracas along the same streets by which we arrived so that they could show that they were capable of maintaining order.

  If the government had been lax the day before, they were leaving nothing to chance on this day. Not only did we have the superabundant military escort but our own vehicles had become arsenals. On the floor of the car in which Admiral Larrazabal and I rode were submachine guns, revolvers, rifles, tear gas cannisters, and clips of spare ammunition. There was hardly room for our feet. As we sped through the streets, the city seemed deserted except for tanks or armored vehicles stationed at every intersection. I observed only four or five civilians during the entire ride and they were holding handkerchiefs to their noses. I thought at first that this might be another way of expressing an insult and then someone explained that at various points along the route tear gas had been used to clear the streets.

  At the airport, Mrs. Nixon and I stood for a moment at the doorway of the plane waving the customary good-by. As I looked down on the empty terminal building, the Venezuelan government officials and the military force which had escorted us, I could not help but think, “When we had arrived, there had been no order and too much freedom in this capital of Venezuela; now when we leave, there is complete order and no freedom. Both situations are bad, and yet symbolic of the problems of so many of the Latin American nations.”

  • • •

  The White House had asked us to delay our arrival until the next morning, May 15, so that a welcoming reception could be arranged. Consequently, instead of flying directly to Washington, we stopped over at San Juan, Puerto Rico for the night. It was dusk when we landed in San Juan. There had not been time to give any advance notice of our arrival but Governor Munoz-Marin, his wife, and a large group of Puerto Rican officials gave us an enthusiastic welcome. The Governor rushed up the steps of the plane and gave me an embraso with the words, “You were magnificent in Lima and Caracas.” As his wife, Mrs. Munoz-Marin, kissed Mrs. Nixon, she said, “You are safe here. You are home now.”

  By this time the radio repo
rts had flashed the word of our arrival throughout the city and as we proceeded to the Governor’s residence, the streets were filled with cheering spectators. We enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of Munoz-Marin’s hospitality after our rugged experiences of the last forty-eight hours.

  In his conversation with me he urged that the United States Government be patient and understanding during this period of transition for so many South American countries when they were throwing off the yoke of dictatorships. “My people,” he said, speaking of his Spanish background, “have many fine qualities. But the art of government has been one which at times has been most difficult for them to learn. They find it hard to maintain that elusive, delicate but all-important balance between order and freedom.” On the other hand, he urged that the United States Government, while following its traditional policy of non-intervention, be wary of giving the appearance of favoring dictatorships of the right or the left in Latin America. It all came back to the policy of a formal handshake for dictators and embraso for leaders of free countries which I was to propose thereafter in Washington.

  • • •

  Fifteen thousand people greeted us when we arrived at the National Airport the next morning. President Eisenhower put protocol aside to meet Mrs. Nixon and me at the airport. He was accompanied by the entire Cabinet. The Democratic as well as Republican leadership of Congress was there. Several large groups of Latin American students studying in the Washington area also were on hand, carrying placards of a very different nature from those we had seen. In my airport remarks, I tried to bring home the theme that for every unfriendly face we saw in Latin America we saw a thousand friendly ones.