Mobs were still racing through the streets of Caracas as Rear Admiral Wolfgang Larrazabal took the first step toward building a new government for Venezuela. As Pérez Jiménez' DC-4 vanished over the mountains, the slim, unruffled naval chief set up an emergency military junta of four colonels representing the army, air force, national guard and the military schools, put himself at its head.
Before it could even begin to function, the all-military junta brought down a storm of protest from civilian rebels fearful of a new military dictatorship. Larrazabal named two civilian members, Top Industrialist Eugenic Mendoza and onetime University Professor Bias Lamberti. To reassure the civilians even further, Larrazabal then named a 13-man Cabinet with only one military member: Air Force Colonel Jesús Maria Castro LeÓn, a leader of the original anti-Pérez Jiménez plot. The civilians and some members of the armed forces were still displeased. Two junta colonels, they protested, were merely holdovers from the Perez Jimenez administration. Larrazabal fired them and put them on the first plane for Curagao.
Future Troubles. By his actions Larrazabal proved a willingness to compromise that stems from a nonpolitical, independent background. The well-mannered scion of an old naval family, he steered clear of the military group that originally brought Pérez Jiménez' junta to power in 1948, held minor posts (naval attache in Washington, head of the Caracas Military Club) under the dictator, was named supreme commander of the navy only a fortnight ago by the hard-pressed strongman.
Larrazabal's difficulties in forming even this first, most temporary kind of government gave a strong hint of greater troubles to come. Since its beginning in 1830, Venezuela has been controlled by a long line of strongmen. To make the possibility of civilian government even more remote, Pérez Jiménez and his police saw to it that threatening political organizations were flattened as soon as they appeared, and their leaders jailed, exiled or gunned down.
Future Hopes. Even though Larrazabal promised free elections "as soon as possible," the memory of Pérez Jiménez' persecution left Venezuela's long-harassed politicians still a bit gun-shy. In exile in New York, a joint "Great Civic Front" was tentatively pieced together by Venezuela's three foremost political leaders: Rómulo Betancourt, 49, president of a semimilitary government from 1945 to 1948 and head of the left-wing Democratic Action Party; Rafael Caldera, 41, leader of the Copei (Christian Social) Party; and Jóvito Villalba, 49, head of the middle-of-the-road Republican Democrat ic Union. Together, the three politicians framed a plan for a period of mutually shared noncompetitive politics to avoid the possibility of partisan political strife that could open a way for the return of dictatorial control.
But despite their plans for Venezuela's political future, the three leaders were in no hurry to dash home to put them into effect all at once. Instead, Betancourt and Caldera waited patiently while Villalba went ahead to test the ice.