Last year Ecuador's freely elected Constituent Assembly chose a popular New Dealing President, tall, professorial José Maria Velasco Ibarra. But when the Assembly turned to its second task, framing a new constitution, it produced a national crisis. A strong left bloc in the Assembly led by Communist Pedro Saad proposed to change Ecuador's highly feudal economy into a socialist state.
Thoroughly alarmed, the conservatives struck back. Army and judiciary heads attacked the Assembly. So did a mob, presumably inspired by conservatives, which charged through the streets of Quito shouting: "Down with...
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