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The MNR had a Nazi smell. Its Army officers were strutting militarists. Two years ago Dr. Paz Estenssoro was arrested when Peñaranda's Government charged him and German Minister Ernst Wendler with plotting its overthrow.
Forceful Friends?
Yet the new Government fired a barrage of statements pledging support for the Atlantic Charter and the United Nations. When a TIME Correspondent appeared in the sun-room of the Government Palace, nearly all the Cabinet crowded around him, anxiously denied that they were influenced by Argentina, promised to help win the war. Said President Gualberto Villaroel, rubbing bloodshot eyes: "Democracy was fiction under Peñaranda . . . the Government was controlled by the capitalists [tin barons] . . . the people were getting nothing out of the national resources. We are going to have free elections. We will nationalize Axis firms [which Peñaranda did not do]. We are in the same war with the United States, which is our ally."
Forceful Facts.
Such declarations put the State Department in a fix. If it recognized the new Bolivian Government, might it not assure the position of a hostile regime, as it did when it hastily recognized the Ramirez Government in Argentina? If it withheld recognition, might it not drive the MNR into alliance with Argentina, which wants Bolivia in her anti-U.S. bloc?
The facts were that: 1) Bolivia's new Government, despite its anti-democratic elements, could conceivably be a real friend to the U.S.; 2) the State Department has no contact with any strong Bolivian group which might forward that friendship.
MNR contains two elements. The civilians supplying the brains and led by Dr. Paz Estenssoro, though not necessarily democratic, say they want to improve the condition of the Bolivian masses, thus strengthen the country as a whole. The militarists, supplying the force, want an Army Officers' Government like Argentina's.
The developed parts of Bolivia are mostly a bleak, cold barren plateau. Her population of about 3,500,000 is largely illiterate Indians who speak Aymara and Quechua, not Spanish. Her Government has been incredibly bad, averaging something like one revolution a year since her independence. When miners struck at Simon Patino's mines last year, President Peñaranda's soldiers fired into a crowd of 8,000, killing 19 by government count, 400 by other counts (TIME, Jan. 25). Bolivians have not forgotten this massacre, and one of the men they blame for it is the U.S. Ambassador, Socialite Pierre de Lagarde Boal.
Dr. Paz Estenssoro, while not democratic on the U.S. model, seems to favor enlightened social legislation. Perhaps in the past he would have welcomed U.S. collaboration; but the State Department, through Ambassador Boal, has allowed the U.S. to become identified in the public mind with the hated tin companies. To break their hold on his country, Dr. Paz Estenssoro made an alliance with Nazi-tinged Army officers, who have already shouldered him toward the background.
Forceful Doubt.
The U.S. buys Bolivia's tin, helps her with loans, technicians, Lend-Lease. But these favors do not touch the heart of the Bolivian people. When they stoned the U.S. Embassy, they were criticizing U.S. policy in the only way they knew how.