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Summer Session Kansan
Tuesday, July 23, 1963
U.S. Attitude Changes
Betancourt's Image Improves
CARACAS, Venezuela —(UPI)— Romulo Betancourt is a symbol of changing times.
Once, nearly 10 years ago, Betane court was sniffed at by the U.S. State Department as a "radical leftist."
NOW, 55 AND approaching the end of his term as President of Venezuela, he has won the acclaim of the United States.
When he was received at the White House last Feb. 19, President Kennedy told him: "You represent all that we admire in a political leader."
Years ago Betancourt flirted with Marxism, but when he went to Washington, Kennedy called him the "number one enemy of international communism in this hemisphere."
THE UNITED STATES, impressed with the reforms he has achieved in always-explosive Venezuela, now is reported considering him as the man needed to help bolster the sagging Alliance for Progress program once his term expires next March.
Betancourt has said nothing about post-presidential ambitions (under the constitution he would not even be eligible to run for another 10 years) beyond expressing the wish to take an extended vacation and do some writing. But he long has been an open and fervent admirer of the Alliance and had launched Venezuela on major social and economic reforms envisioned by the Alliance before President Kennedy announced the program.
Betancourt was born Feb. 22, 1909, in the mountain village of Guatire, 25 miles east of Caracas. As a law student at Caracas' Central University, he was a leader in clandestine movements against Juan Vicente Gomez, the "Tyrant of the Andes" who ruled Venezuela for 28 years. Among his companions were two later rivals - Jovito Villaba, now president of the major opposition party, and Gustavo Machado. For his subversive activities, Betancourt was inailed, then sent into exile in Costa Rica, where he met and married Carmen Valverde, a kindergarten teacher. There Betancourt had his flirtation with communism. Machado, boss of the Communist party in Venezuela today, claims he has conclusive proof of Betancourt's membership in the party in Costa Rica, and charges that he handled courier assignments for the party.
BETANCOURT himself denies that he ever was a card-carrying member of the party and is quoted as saying it was a "case of youthful attack of smallpox that left me immune to the disease."
To a newsman in Mexico who attempted to needle him about his Marxist past, Bettancourt retorted:
"I am not a one-book man, and Marx was only one of many which I have read."
In 1935, following the death of Gomez, Betancourt returned to Venezuela and set about creating a political organization. His first attempt — Organization Venezolana, a hodge-podge of liberal leftists — was snuffed out by a decree of the general who succeeded Gomez in the presidency.
FROM 1937 TO 1939 — when he again was forced into exile-Betancourt organized the "Partido Democrata Nacional," fore-runner of the party he heads today, "Accion Democratica."
In 1941 and in 1945, he engineered a palace revolt which toppled the even-handed and popular government of General Isaia among Marcos Perez Jimenez.
Betancourt ruled the country for the next three years as provisional president and began to put in motion some of his schemes for social and economic reform. Years later he
was to say, "tried to do too much too fast."
IN 1948, Gallegos was elected president of the country, only to be ousted eight months later in a military revolt. One of the chief plotters was Perez Jimenez. Two years later the chief plotter was assassinated and Perez Jimenez claimed power for himself, until he, in turn, was ousted by another military coup in $958. He now is in a Miami jail awaiting the outcome of extradition proceedings on charges of stealing $13 million in public funds.
In 1958, Betancourt returned and won his party's nomination for the presidency, winning the elections on Dec. 7 that year, polling 49 per cent of the vote in a three-way fight.
BETANCOURT'S four and a half years of government so far have been a succession of crises. The real triumph is that he — and elective democracy — ever got this far.
No elected president of Venezuela ever has lasted so long.
In four and a half years, he has had to:
- Put down four major military rebellions.
- Ride out the disintegration of a three-party coalition when the second largest partner in his government left the party in a squabble over Cuba policy.
- Battle continuing subversion and violence, at first largely from the rightist remnants of the Perez Jimenez clique, but lately from the Communists with vocal and active support of Fidel Castro.
- Survive at least two attempts on his life, one of which nearly succeeded and left his hands and face scarred for life.
Perhaps even more remarkable than the mere fact of survival is what Betancourt has been able to accomplish despite the pressures on him. He has steered the country through a severe economic recession into a clear recovery.
He has undertaken massive expansion of the school systems, so that nearly twice as many children are in classrooms today as in 1958, and illiteracy has been chopped from more than 40 to 23 per cent. He has laid the base for industrialization of a country which grew rich — and totally dependent — on a single commodity, oil.
AND HE HAS stolen the thunder — and popular support — of the communists, by providing reform through peaceful, democratic means. This explains their resorting now to violence.
For Romulo Betancourt, the big test will come, however, early in
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That is when Romulo Betancourt is supposed to turn over the presidency to a freely-elected successor, to be chosen in elections late this year.
That has never before happened in Venezuela. And if it does happen, if democracy is given a solid foundation, then Romulo Betancourt's greatest ambition will have been realized.
The appointments of Robert G. Carlson and Richard Lyle Schowen as assistant professors of chemistry at the University of Kansas were announced recently by Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe.
Chem. Staff Adds Two
Both have earned the Ph.D. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the past year.
Carlson, a specialist in organic chemistry, held fellowships from the National Institutes of Health for three years, 1959-62. His work on the synthesis of alloegibberic acid will result in three publications, one already in print.
Schowen will be in charge of KU research on nucleophilic reactivity toward the silicon atom.
Boeing Awards
Boeing Company scholarships totaling $2.450 will go to six University of Kansas students in business and engineering during the 1963-64 academic year.
Two $500 awards in business will go to entering KU students Freddie Van Bratcher, Wichita junior, and to Michael Breeding, Blue Rapids freshman.
Engineering scholarships, all renewals, will go to Roger Baker, Highland, Calif., junior; $500; John E Hutson, Kansas City, Kan., senior; $300; James A. Lucas Jr., Mapleton junior; $300; and Frank Salber, Russell junior; $350.
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