HAITI Hexed President
Behind sandbag barricades and rifle-toting guards, Haiti's strong-willed President Francois Duvalier lay last week in his white palace, seriously ill of a heart attack. Out of fear that the truth would embolden opposition elements to start trouble, his aides stuck to a diagnosis of "grippe," but only succeeded in starting dangerous rumors—that Duvalier was paralyzed, was already dead, or had left the country. Superstitious blacks in the Port-au-Prince slums whispered that the President's ouangas (voodoo charms) had lost their power.
The attack, a moderately severe coronary occlusion, struck a fortnight...
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