A misery of slanting rain and snow buffeted the helicopter ride from Andrews Air Force Base to the White House lawn. But beneath the north portico, President Kennedy warmed his visitor with a welcome that went far beyond diplomatic platitudes. "You represent all that we admire in a political leader," said Kennedy to Venezuela's President Rómulo Betancourt. "Your liberal leadership of your country, your persistent determination to make a better life for your people, your long fight for democratic leadership . . . all these have made you, for us, a symbol of what we wish for our own country and for our sister republics. And the same reasons have made you the great enemy of the Communists in this hemisphere."
It was powerful praise for a onetime revolutionary who wandered the hemisphere in exile for nearly 20 years, who was himself a Communist in his youth, and was ordered out of Puerto Rico in 1955 by U.S. State Department officials trying to get along with a Venezuelan dictator. But the fires of violence have cooled in Betancourt. When he arrived in the U.S. for a five-day state visit, he was acknowledged as a firm friend and ally of the U.S., and as the Kennedy Administration's favorite Latin American.
No other chief of state south of the border has been under sharper attack from the extremes of left and right or fought them all off more courageously. From the moment Betancourt was elected to office in 1958 after the overthrow of Dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez, the Communists and a gaggle of the discontented have done their best to topple his government. In the economic fallout that came after the corrupt dictatorship's fall, there were many grievances to exploit; Communist-fired mobs roamed the capital; Communist gunmen murdered policemen, started backland guerrilla uprisings, even infiltrated the armed forces, touching off two bloody marine corps uprisings last year. If the Reds themselves were not strong enough to overthrow Betancourt, they hoped to make Venezuela's old-line military officers nervous enough about Betancourt's inability to keep order to do the job for them. But Betancourt made peace with his soldiers, and out in the countryside, peasants who elected him President loyally helped the government hunt down the guerrillas. Fidel Castro's Havana radio still cries daily for violent revolution. But the campaign has dwindled to desperate terrorist raids and publicity stunts like the hijacking of the freighter Anzoátegui (see next story).
Through it all, Betancourt has gone a long way toward building a new foundation for an oil-rich nation that has long been victimized by a succession of dictators. Betancourt spoke a proud boast in Washington last week: "For the first time in Venezuela's history as a republic, a freely elected President has completed four years of his term in office." He seems a good bet to complete his full five years, and politically strong enough to influence the choice of a successor next year to carry on one of Latin America's most successful programs of reform.