How Democracy Triumphed Over Dictatorship: Public Diplomacy in Venezuela (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: How Democracy Triumphed over Dictatorship: Public Diplomacy in Venezuela Elizabeth Caldwell Seastrum How Democracy Triumphed over Dictatorship: Public Diplomacy in Venezuela. By Robert Amerson. Washington, DC: The American University Press, 1995. 256 pp. $64.50/Cloth, $26.00/Paper. What would it be like to be a young embassy press attaché in a Latin American country during revolution and the near death of your country’s vice president at the hands of an angry mob? Robert Amerson (SAIS Bologna ‘61), a retired Foreign Service Officer and former professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, tells us in his book, How Democracy Triumphed over Dictatorship. The book covers the years 1955–59 when the author served as press officer at the American Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela. The city was booming as money, much of it American, flowed in, and oil flowed out—all under the US-supported dictatorship of a pudgy, clever military man, Perez Jimenez, or “PJ.” But was the dictatorship so benign? Amerson writes about the whisperings of secret police activity, including torture and imprisonment of political opponents, which made knowledgeable Embassy officials nervous. Yet, at the Ambassador’s gala July 4 reception, the young attaché caught a glimpse of a “tall good-looking fellow,” speaking impeccable, idiomatic English, who was the head of the Seguridad Nacional, or secret police, and one of the most powerful men in the country. Could such a charming man lead an organization with such an unsavory reputation? With a gripping sense for story-telling, Amerson reveals a world of complex and diverse characters, at the same time probing themes such as Cold War foreign relations, the role of the individual diplomat in shaping foreign policy, and the tensions between freedom, anarchy, and repression. He also offers frequent insights into life in the Foreign Service. For example, when the new Ambassador—an Eisenhower Republican businessman with a penchant for entertaining guests by balancing on a bongo board—butchers the local language, sees foreign policy in black-and-white Cold War terms, and cozies up to the charming head of the secret police, what can an Embassy person do? Cringe and bear it—and maintain contacts with the full Venezuelan political spectrum in the meantime. [End Page 242] Amerson relates how, throughout 1957, underground opposition against PJ grew, leading to successful revolution in early 1958. Angry mobs attacked the headquarters of the Seguridad Nacional, where citizens discovered haggard and emaciated prisoners and hideous instruments of torture. Anarchy threatened until the underground opposition, now openly revealed as the Junta Patriotica, assumed control. The leader of the underground, a young journalist that Amerson knew named Fabricio Ojeda, became an important member of the new government. Amerson describes a lunch with him in those heady days, noting that this successful “revolutionary” still wore a light blue suit with a necktie, standard dress for a reporter. “No Fidel Castro, this one,” observes the author. And indeed—unlike its Caribbean island neighbor, Cuba—Venezuela escaped mass bloodshed and the swing from a dictatorship of the right to one of the left. Amerson contrasts the Cuban revolution with that of Venezuela, where a broad coalition of forces, rather than any single personality united to throw off the dictatorship. He also credits the skill of President Romulo Betancourt, elected in the aftermath of the revolution, in mediating the forces of the right and left. Not, however, without grave challenges. In May 1958 Eisenhower’s young Vice President, Richard Nixon, took an eight-nation swing through Latin America. Amerson admits that Nixon’s strident anti-Communism did not impress him favorably, but he recognizes that government workers are expected to suspend personal views to serve their government. When the Nixon entourage arrived at the airport, they were greeted not only by the usual honor guards and public officials but also by a jeering crowd, which had forced its way on to the airport balcony. While the band played the Venezuelan national anthem, a cloud of white flecks—spit...rained on the Nixons. Then, as the motorcade proceeded downtown, the crowds lining the streets turned violent. Amerson credits Nixon for quick thinking that saved lives—for Nixon himself instructed the...