Romulo Betancourt

Rómulo Ernesto Betancourt Bello (Guatire, February 22, 1908-New York, September 28, 1981) was a Venezuelan politician and journalist. He was de facto president of Venezuela between 1945 and 1948, coming to power through the coup d'état of 1945, and constitutional in 1959-1964.

Rómulo Betancourt is considered one of the most important Venezuelan politicians of the 20th century. His participation in Venezuelan politics began in 1927/8. As a student leader, he led, with other prominent young people of the time, the first popular demonstration against the dictatorship of Juan Vicente Gómez. Betancourt was one of the best-known clandestine opponents of Gomecism, a condition that cost him exile from the country until the dictator's death. Between 1931 and 1935 he was a member of the Political Bureau of the Costa Rican Communist Party. Later he was expelled during the governments of Eleazar López Contreras and by the military governments that took power from 1949 to 1958.

In 1941, together with other prominent leaders of the Venezuelan political left, he founded the Democratic Action party, which soon became the country's first political party for the rest of the century. In 1945, and given the refusal of the government of Isaías Medina Angarita to legalize the popular elections for President, he joined the civil-military coup d'état of October 18, in order to establish a transitional government that would guarantee the constitution of various decrees, emergency laws and free elections in the coming years for the president of the nation.

One day after the overthrow of Medina, on October 19, he was appointed provisional President of the Revolutionary Government Junta, made up of civilians and military. The main goals of the transitional government were: to establish free, direct, universal and secret suffrage, provide full guarantees to political parties, combat administrative corruption and alleviate the cost of living. His first term of government ended on February 15, 1948, after the election of Rómulo Gallegos.

In 1958 he returned to the country after the fall of the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez. In November of that year he announced his candidacy for the presidency of the republic with the support of Democratic Action, on December 7 he was elected president with more than 49% of the votes. On February 13, 1959 he assumed office. His second government was characterized by an openness to the stabilization of Venezuelan democracy, the promulgation of a new Constitution, agrarian reform, the development of the oil industry in Venezuela with its accession to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the strong investment in the educational sector and the cessation of relations with illegitimate or dictatorial governments of the world, known as the Betancourt doctrine.

In the same way he had to face internal and external attacks by guerrillas, labor strikes, coup attempts and assassination attempts financed by Latin American dictators. The end of his presidential term in 1964 was the beginning of an era of democratic governments. Currently, some Venezuelan historians call Betancourt the "father of Venezuelan democracy."

Childhood and youth

He was born on February 22, 1908 in Guatire, Miranda state. Son of a Canarian immigrant of French descent, Luis Betancourt, and a Venezuelan mother. He had two sisters: María Teresa and Helena.

In 1914 he began his primary education in private schools in his hometown. In 1920, the Betancourt family moved to the city of Caracas and he began his high school studies at the Liceo Caracas (current Liceo Andrés Bello), then directed by teachers such as Fernando Paz Castillo, Caracciolo Parra León and José Antonio Ramos Sucre.

At the age of 10, Rómulo was orphaned by his mother, who died after medical attempts to save herself from cancer. This episode constituted one of the most painful of his during his youth and adulthood.

In 1927 he began to study at the Faculty of Law of the Central University of Venezuela, and at the same time worked in a legal firm and in the College of Lawyers and Defenders. During his high school years and later as a university student he also dedicated part of his time to reading, writing stories and working as an assistant in his father's Administration business.

During Student Week, from February 6 to 12, 1928, he actively participated in the protests against the Government of the dictator Juan Vicente Gómez. These demonstrations were led by several student groups, among their fellow students are personalities such as Jóvito Villalba, Raúl Leoni, Andrés Eloy Blanco, Armando Zuloaga, Miguel Acosta Saignes, Pío Tamayo, Joaquín Gabaldón Márquez, Guillermo Prince Lara, Juan Oropeza, among others, who formed the so-called Generation of '28. From that moment, Betancourt became one of the most notable leaders of the clandestine anti-Gomecista opposition, which earned him imprisonment and subsequent banishment from the country.

Political baptism

In February 1928, the Student Federation, chaired by Raúl Leoni, organized the celebration of Student Week, which had the original objective of creating funds for the construction of the Student House, but which gradually took on the character of a protest against the Gomecista dictatorship, which ended in the imprisonment of Betancourt and the group of university leaders in the El Cuño Barracks, later transferred to the Libertador Castle in Puerto Cabello. Prisoners in a dark, windowless dungeon, where they were forced to wear irons (chains) on their feet and subjected to cruel conditions under which Betancourt turned 20 years old.

This prison lasted only a few days due to the good offices of citizens who advocated for the freedom of the group of students. Once released, on April 7, Betancourt again participated in an insurrectional movement against the dictatorship, which resulted in police persecution, the exile of opponents and the closure of the Central University of Venezuela.

First exile

Betancourt remained underground for two months, on June 6 he decided to escape to the island of Curacao. He dedicates much of his time to the study of Latin American history, the sources of socialist thought and knowledge of works related to imperialist penetration in Latin American countries. There he also decided to formalize his militancy in the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), a radical left-wing Marxist organization. After 4 months he separated from the party, after being criticized as a communist.

In the Dominican Republic he joined a group of exiles who intended to travel to the island of La Blanquilla, in order to join the expedition that, aboard the cruise ship Falke led by Román Delgado Chalbaud, attempted to invade the country and overthrow Gomez. But Betancourt embarks on a ship named La Gisela, which capsized before reaching the goal and saves, perhaps, its crew members from the fate suffered by those who managed to reach Cumaná: prison or death. After the failure of the insurrectional movement, he travels to Costa Rica, where he meets his future wife, Carmen Valverde.

In 1930, in Barranquilla, under the influence of the Mexican thinker José Vasconcelos, visiting the city, and with the proximity of the first centenary of the death of the Liberator Simón Bolívar, together with Raúl Leoni, Valmore Rodríguez and restless Colombian intellectuals like the playwright Luis Enrique Osorio, he participates in the creation of the Unionist Alliance of Gran Colombia. He travels to Peru and Bolivia where he strengthens ties with the Aprista Party founded by Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre.

In 1931 he founded the Left Revolutionary Alliance (ARDI) in Barranquilla, a party that Betancourt himself described as leftist and socialist. At that time he also confronted the Marxist-Leninist groups formed by the Venezuelan exiles in Mexico and Havana, by maintaining that:

Revolution against gomecism cannot be based on the exclusive work of the working class, but on a class alliance.

The same year, he wrote the Barranquilla Plan, signed by exiles of various shades of the new left and which consisted fundamentally of the analysis of the Venezuelan situation from the perspective of Marxist dialectics. Throughout his exile, Betancourt did not stop denouncing the oppressive and dictatorial nature of the Venezuelan government to the Latin American governments.

From 1931 to 1935, a stage of ideological radicalization of the biographer began. In April of that year he settled in Costa Rica, where he would live for around 4 years. There he became a professor at the Popular University and was a member of the Costa Rican Communist Party, he also became director of the party's newspaper, Trabajo . This insertion into communism is worrying to his colleagues in ARDI, a party from which he had distanced himself.

Betancourt had decided to stay in Costa Rica until his return to Venezuela, and that was the case, since he had great sympathy with the liberal Costa Rican Government and where he helped found the Communist Party. However, in 1933 the Government of Costa Rica issued an order to expel Betancourt from the country when he was classified as a communist. Betancourt did not comply with the order and lived in hiding in that country for the rest of his stay.

In 1934 he married Carmen Valverde, from whose union his only daughter Virginia Betancourt would be born.

Rómulo Betancourt returned to the country on January 5, 1936 after the death of the dictator Juan Vicente Gómez.

Return to Venezuela

Upon his arrival in Caracas he immediately joined political activity. Congress had already designated General Eleazar López Contreras as provisional president and then ratified him as constitutional president. Although it is true that López opened a path for the modernization of the Venezuelan political situation, and that he also initiated a more democratic regime in the country, he did not fail to resort to authoritarian actions on several occasions, and persecute his strongest opponents..

On his arrival Betancourt offers an interview in which he says that the democratic left opposition should:

Create a political party of democratic orientation and popular roots, to channel popular dynamics into disciplined action standards.

Likewise, he joined the organizing commission of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), from which he retired after a month.

After having ventured with the Venezuelan communists organized underground, he joined the nascent Venezuelan Organization Movement (ORVE), founded by Alberto Adriani and Mariano Picón Salas. He established himself as Secretary General of that political movement. On the other hand, the sympathizers of Marxism formed the Progressive Republican Party (PRP), which the Orvist described as "extremist."

In April of that year, the leftists decided to form a united bloc, the April Bloc, which the Orvistas supported. The objective of the front was to have the Congress of the Republic definitively elect López Contreras as constitutional President, of whom ORVE was not a supporter, but rather a constructive and democratic opposition. But they saw following the constitutional thread as a priority. Once López Contreras is legitimized, he begins the repression against the opposition. Betancourt regretted the act of which he was never fully confident and took the blame for having supported that decision.

In June of the same year, a strike began against Congress's approval of a Public Order law. Betancourt participated in it and was imprisoned for 15 days.

At the end of 1936, the governor of the Federal District, Elbano Mibelli, revoked the operating permit of the ORVE and PRP parties, for promoting the strike.

After failed appeal attempts before the Federal and Cassation Court, the political leaders of the aforementioned party groups decided to form a united front that would bring together ORVE, PRP and the National Democratic Bloc (BND) of Zulia, which It was called the National Democratic Party (PDN), a non-Lopecista democratic left front. Betancourt was elected as Secretary of organization of the party. The Government also prevented the legalization of the latter.

In March 1937 the Government definitively revoked the PDN's permit and immediately issued the order to expel Betancourt and 46 other opponents from the country, but he opted to go underground again, even assuming another identity. The Government's excuse was that Betancourt was a communist. In the following two and a half years, Betancourt established the clandestine reorganization of the PDN and assumed the position of General Secretary of that organization, after Jóvito Villalba had been banished from the country. Betancourt's main task was to execute a massive plan to recruit new militants throughout the country, a fact that he achieved, since in two years the PDN had already established itself as one of the most important political forces in the country.

On October 20, 1939, the police arrested him and he was exiled to Chile, although Betancourt had already been willing to surrender.

Second exile

In Chile Betancourt lived his second exile, which lasted less than a year and a half. There was a president who sympathized with him, Pedro Aguirre Cerda, who ruled there. In the southern country, he intensifies his production of analytical articles and publications about the Venezuelan situation. In his writings, he also begins a period of reflection on the American and world situation, given the constant expansion of the fascism of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, of the which Betancourt supported the thesis of the Latin American and inter-American union of forces, in case of any threat of Nazi invasion on the American continent.

Even abroad, Betancourt continued to constitute the guidelines followed by the representatives of the Pedenista party in Venezuela. There were several letters sent by him to President López, in which he appealed against the decision not to legalize the party, thus ratifying his status as a moderate left-wing democrat, not a communist. In a letter to López Contreras, he emphatically says:

Mr. President, I am writing to you requesting from your Government the visa of my passport, to return legally to Venezuela as soon as possible. I don't even think I need to insist on what my ideological position is. You know her for a long time, and you know that nothing, absolutely nothing, links me to the Communist International, or the so-called Communist Party of Venezuela. I have a confessed and defined democratic position, which does not fit with the spirit or the letter of our Constitutional Charter.

Rómulo Betancourt

There was never a time when he would not stop promoting the integrationist democratic left doctrine of the PDN. In December of that year he gave his vision speech for Latin American unity at the Caupolicán Theater in Santiago, Chile. Following this, he gave several lectures at the University of Chile and other summits of socialist parties. There he also established links with leaders of the Chilean Socialist Party, among whom were Óscar Schnake, Salvador Allende and the right-wing Arturo Alessandri. In this way Betancourt managed to establish himself as a prestigious and respected personality within the Latin American left.

After leaving that country in January 1941, the Chilean socialists paid him a farewell tribute. But before returning to his country, he spent a month between Argentina and Uruguay, in order to give lectures at the University of La Plata and the University of Concepción, he also received tributes in both countries.

Second return to Venezuela

On February 5, 1941 he arrived in Venezuela, in the final months of the López Contreras Government and the term of his expulsion having expired. He immediately promoted the symbolic candidacy of Rómulo Gallegos in order to oppose it to the ruling party represented by Isaías Medina Angarita, who was elected by Congress in May of the same year.

On March 8, 1941, his father, Luis Betancourt, died. In a letter that Rómulo sent to a close friend, he said:

The death of the old man has been a hard blow (...) There's a certain remorse accent in my sadness. The old man ambitioned me to be a lawyer and perform in life everything he had dreamed of. I chose this rough road, which is already definitive in my life. And by the way I sacrificed it to him. (...) I could never give you the satisfaction of material comforts and the concerns that have been made suffered so much. The only compensation he had was to see me with a clear and straight line of personal and public honesty, translating to facts the rules of conduct he always taught me. I live in jobs and worries. On the one hand facing a series of economic commitments, difficult to cope with for who, because of their political position, has no facilities to operate in a medium like this, where people are so afraid to get so badly hit by the government. On the other hand, political work, which in the opposition rests on the shoulders of very few.

Rómulo Betancourt

On the other hand, given the freezing of any response from the Government for the legalization of the PDN, the party leadership decided to form a new democratic party, it was decided to name it AD (Democratic Action), and it was legalized in June of the same anus. After the opening of full operation of the political parties, Betancourt accesses the position of General Secretary of the so-called White Party. The new party was described by Betancourt as democratic, multi-class, nationalist, integrative, Americanist and anti-imperialist, with a Leninist ideology.

In the rest of the Medinista Government, AD and Betancourt maintained a moderate but firm position regarding some political and economic aspects that they considered urgent to modify, among them, the diversification of national production; the obligation to the transnational companies exploiting Venezuelan oil to pay a much larger sum of money to the Venezuelan state, as compensation for the activity they had carried out since the Gómez dictatorship in a minimal and not sufficient sum of money and the constitution of free elections for President.

In 1944 Betancourt was elected Councilor for the San Agustín Parish of Caracas.

By 1945 Democratic Action had become the first opposition political force in the country. The deepening of his doctrine began from the countryside to the city, the Venezuelan peasantry was the strongest bastion of the party. The requests made by the opposition to legalize free elections were not listened to by the government, which ended in a coup d'état, also known as the October Revolution, in which Betancourt was involved and managed to overthrow the Medinista government on October 18. October 1945.

«Revolutionary Government Junta»

Coup d'état of 1945

Rómulo Betancourt had participated fully in the conspiracy against the Government of Medina, and later as leader of the movement, which occurred after the clandestine pact of a part of the High Command of the Army personalized mainly under the figures of the majors Marcos Pérez Jiménez, Carlos Delgado Chalbaud and Mario Vargas with the leadership of Democratic Action.

On October 17, 1945, the Adecos held a meeting in the Nuevo Circo de Caracas, in which they warned their followers of the danger that the country was running if Dr. Ángel Biaggini, political standard-bearer of the party of Government and the non-decision of the Executive to legalize popular suffrage. Betancourt closed the rally saying:

It is undoubted that this country no longer wants to see, respecting and deeply esteeming the Army, generals in chief or generals of brigade in the Presidency of the Republic. The Venezuelan who studies knows it, and the other Venezuela intuits it, because, "although they do not know how to read it", that the art of governing is flexibility, spirit of compromise, dialogue clarified between the magistrate and the people (...) Is it that a free people, a people of liberators, can continue to admit that every five years is a man or a clique that imposes him ruler? Is it that no one else can govern Venezuela than some of the few remaining men of the political group that comes monopolizing the Presidency of the Republic? Is it that we are collectively a nation of conical demented or servils, forced to always be led by the falling of a few tutors, when we see all the peoples of the earth giving themselves their own governments?

Finally, on October 18, the plot was carried out, after Medina Angarita's refusal to grant the legalization of free suffrage and the launch of Biaggini's candidacy. The military and civilians involved in the movement launched a coup d'état that was impossible to stop.

On October 19, at eight at night, the minutes of the new Government were signed. Through a Government Board (Junta Revolucionaria de Gobierno) the constitutional thread was restored and at the same time the changes considered necessary by the Board would be promoted. That day, the civil-military board was established in the Miraflores Palace, which carried out the functions of the Executive Branch of the Nation. Chaired by Rómulo Betancourt, and made up of civilians: Luis Beltrán Prieto Figueroa, Raúl Leoni, Edmundo Fernández and Gonzalo Barrios and by the military: Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, and Mario Vargas.

Adeco Triennium

The board came into effect according to Official Gazette number 21,841. Its immediate action was to fill the power vacuum generated after the coup d'état against President Medina Angarita. Before being formed, its members agreed that they could not aspire to the Presidency immediately at the end of the period.

The main objectives of the new Government were to proclaim various emergency decree laws, among which we can name: the establishment of a Constituent Assembly after electoral consultation that would provide the Republic with a new Constitutional Charter; grant the right to free, direct, universal and secret voting to all Venezuelan citizens - men and women - over 18 years of age for the election of the President and members of Congress; the fight against corruption through the creation of the Civil and Administrative Responsibility Court; the lowering of the cost of living; the change in oil policy with the increase in taxes on foreign companies; agrarian and educational reforms; the full exercise of freedom of expression and thought; freedom of full function for political parties and organized unions; the abolition of forced conscription for military service and the breaking of relations with non-democratic governments.

Upon assuming power, the board decreed that the oil companies had to pay an extraordinary tax that went from 12 to 20% on the profits obtained and that the following year it was increased to 28.5%, at the end of the period The increase in the tax on transnational companies up to 50%, known as “fifty-fifty”, was being discussed in Parliament. This increase in taxes, together with the increase in production that at the end of the Government was 500 million barrels of crude oil per year, generated a period of prosperity that had not been achieved by any predecessor Government. This in addition to the fact that Venezuela became the main supplier of oil to the allies during the wars carried out in Asia and Europe.

The period of the Revolutionary Government Junta was also characterized by a rise of the union movement. During this period, hundreds of unions were founded and the Venezuelan Confederation of Workers (CTV) was created, which became the main labor union in the country. Since then, oil workers have been at the head of the union movement, who in 1946 celebrated the first collective contract with transnational companies.

Investment in the education sector increased considerably. An educational reform was undertaken that guaranteed public primary education for the entire population. An aggressive literacy campaign was undertaken, especially among the Venezuelan peasantry, with which the literacy rate in the country skyrocketed like never before. According to Betancourt: "If the people are the sovereign, the sovereign must be educated." The country also received tens of thousands of European immigrants displaced by World War II during this period. The Betancourt Government committed to providing shelter to the displaced and signed the treaty of the United Nations International Refugee Organization.

On April 1, 1946, the Supreme Electoral Council (current National Electoral Council) was installed for the first time and on December 17, the new Constituent Assembly was established. With the legislative elections held that year, the Government emerged victorious, as Democratic Action won the largest number of seats in the National Constituent Assembly (137 of 160 constituents), in the Congress of the Republic (83 of 111 deputies) and in the Senate of the Republic (19 of 25 senators). This Adeca majority allowed the Government to advance the laws that were considered urgent by the board; the Assembly was chaired by Andrés Eloy Blanco. The opposition also had representation in the National Parliament with the parties: COPEI, URD and PCV. The new Constitution came into force on July 5, 1947 and in this way the first presidential elections in Venezuela were dated, which would take place on December 14 of the same year.

Despite the entire climate of democratic openness, there was no shortage of coup revolts and military conspiracies that managed to be effectively quelled by the Government. Some of them were even perpetrated by Government officials and by civilians such as Jóvito Villalba, a former PDN colleague and friend of Betancourt's youth. Others financed by foreign governments with which the Revolution had broken relations, such as the attempted assassination of Betancourt ordered by the dictators Rafael Leónidas Trujillo of the Dominican Republic and Anastasio Somoza García of Nicaragua. Likewise, civil protests heated the street with measures later considered by Rómulo Gallegos as "evident sectarianism and political intolerance", such is the case of educational decree 321 that considered different evaluation systems for public and private schools. Betancourt himself recognized years later:

We were on the verge of collapse and falling into the abyss on the occasion of Decree 321.

However, the work of the Government was supported mostly by the population, which reflects the strength acquired by Democratic Action as the party with the greatest militancy in the country and the most voted. In December 1947, Venezuelans went to the polls for the first time to elect the president of their nation. Rómulo Gallegos of AD (Democratic Action) was elected by universal, direct and secret vote.

Election of 1947

On February 15, 1948, Betancourt handed over power to his party partner, Rómulo Gallegos. It was the first time that a president gave the presidential sash to another elected by popular vote in Venezuela. Gallegos promoted a regime of harmony and broad constitutional guarantees, according to his supporters he somehow followed the changes generated during the Betancourist Adeco Triennium, including the increase in the tax on transnational oil companies up to 50%, known as "fifty-fifty.".

Betancourt, on the other hand, assumed the General Secretariat of Democratic Action and worked on international affairs with the new Government. He was also the envoy of his party to represent the country at the IX Pan-American Conference, held in Bogotá, in which the Charter of the Organization of American States was approved and where Betancourt exposed his democratic Americanist thought, and his ideas of non-recognition of dictatorial regimes, anti-imperialism, the integration of Latin American countries and non-intervention in the internal affairs of nations. He insisted on these ideas again during the OAS summit in September of that year in Washington, D.C..

On May 30, Betancourt is elected President of Democratic Action. On November 24, Gallegos' own Minister of Defense, Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, commands a new coup d'état and overthrows President Gallegos. Because of this, Betancourt obtained asylum in the Colombian Embassy on December 1, and on January 23, 1949 he left the country for the United States, his third exile.

Third exile

Betancourt's third exile lasted almost ten years. The coup action against Gallegos began almost a decade of dictatorial military governments in Venezuela. On December 7, 1948, Chalbaud outlawed Democratic Action and ordered the expulsion of its leaders. Betancourt makes a first stop in New York, to then go to Washington and denounce to the OAS the illegitimate regime that assumed control in Venezuela. At the beginning of 1950 he moved with his family to Havana, where he assisted in the organization of the Pro-Democracy and Freedom Congress. In an interview Betancourt names his two main duties as an exile:

To make America known what happened in Venezuela and to work intensely for the liberation of our people.

He himself described his exile outside Venezuela as "a room in a cheap hotel." Those years of exile were of intense activity, both intellectual and political.

On April 18, 1951, a group of hitmen hired by the acting Venezuelan Government tried to assassinate him, through a lethal injection. Betancourt emerges unharmed from the attack. In March 1952, Cuban President Carlos Prío Socarrás was overthrown, so Betancourt requested asylum at the Guatemalan Embassy and criticized the violent seizure of power in Cuba at the hands of the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Due to this fact he traveled to Costa Rica, where he remained until 1954.

During that decade, Betancourt did not stop denouncing to the international community the repressive nature of the militarist regime, and maintained constant communication with the clandestine leadership of AD (Democratic Action) in Caracas, suggesting the "resistance" guidelines that they should follow. against the dictatorship, including stimulating conspiratorial actions in a cautious manner and never forgetting the main weapon of the party, that of mass mobilization.

In April 1953 he made a trip to Bolivia, there he attended a meeting with President Víctor Paz Estenssoro, one of the leaders sympathetic to Betancourt. In May of that year he met in Viña del Mar with the Chilean president Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, and a session was held in the Senate of that country in his honor. In June of the same year he was received by the Senate of Uruguay to give a speech in the House of Representatives. On October 23, 1953 he gave a speech in the United States, at the annual celebration of the Socialist Party of that country.

On July 26, 1954 he left for Miami, to later reside on the island of Puerto Rico. There the Government of Luis Muñoz Marín assigns him asylum and permanent protection, after discovering a group of alleged Venezuelan police officers on the island. On June 6, 1955, he attended the funeral of his lifelong companion, Andrés Eloy Blanco, in Mexico. The authorities of that country also alerted him about a possible assassination attempt on his person. In 1956, the Mexican Economic Culture Fund published the essay Venezuela: politics and oil, the circulation of which was prohibited in Venezuela by the dictatorship of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez.

On January 24, 1957, he organized a meeting of Democratic Action exiles in Puerto Rico. On October 28 of that year he moved to New York after experiencing an internal and external discredit campaign on the Puerto Rican island. In the United States, he asks the OAS to condemn the Venezuelan state for the situation of political prisoners in its country, and asks for their amnesty before all its member states.

On December 9 he meets with Jóvito Villalba and Rafael Caldera in New York. Both, leaders of the URD and COPEI parties respectively. There they agree to form a great unitary front against the dictatorship prevailing in Venezuela. On January 23, 1958, a coup d'état broke out in Caracas that managed to remove Pérez Jiménez, thereby convening a Civic-Military Government Board chaired by Rear Admiral Wolfgang Larrazábal. Betancourt supports the constitution of the junta and returns to Venezuela on February 9. That day he gives a speech in El Silencio, in which he says:

I return to my homeland with the conviction of fostering a political truce.

1958 presidential campaign

Upon arrival in the country, he made a national tour of all the states of the country in order to rebuild the base and militancy of Democratic Action, which were fundamentally the peasantry, workers and students. On October 31 he signed as a representative of AD (Democratic Action) together with URD and COPEI the Puntofijo Pact, one of the longest-lasting political agreements in Venezuelan history. This association had as its objective a minimum common government pact, respect for constitutionality and the formation of a Government of national unity that included the three signatory parties.

Betancourt did not make public his aspiration for the Presidency of the Republic until November 21, 1958, but it is no less true that he always had that intention since he set foot on Venezuelan soil again. That day he formalized his candidacy for the first magistracy in the Nuevo Circo de Caracas, before thousands of supporters. Rómulo Gallegos spoke at that rally:

I trust the triumph of Rómulo Betancourt. I have unwavering faith in political talent and moral righteousness. And I give him that trust and hope in this desire that I will formulate in the presence of him: may you be, may you become the President of the Venezuelan concord!

The other two candidates in that election were: Wolfgang Larrazábal of the Democratic Republican Union party and also supported by the Communist Party of Venezuela and Rafael Caldera of COPEI. The slogan used by AD for Betancourt's electoral campaign was "Against fear, vote Blanco." His campaign was little promoted on television, but he did use the radio significantly.

On December 6, just one day before the presidential elections, the candidates of the Puntofijo Pact parties met again in order to reaffirm their commitment to respect the stipulated agreement. On December 7, 1958, Rómulo Betancourt won the Presidency of the Republic with a vote of 1,284,092 votes, 49.18% of the votes cast. In his speech to the nation as elected president of the Republic before the Supreme Electoral Council, Betancourt said:

Conciudadanos: This is an hour of deep emotion for me, because I know that I am assuming responsibilities to my country and to history. Time of emotion, because a sector of the Venezuelan people dispensed me the honor of choosing me their president, in free unobjetable elections. And excitement of knowing how grave my responsibility is. By my own awareness of my limitations, in the sense of responsibility to the Republic, for allegiance to the solemn acts and commitments acquired by Venezuela, this Government will not be exclusive and sectarian. It will be a government of broad base of Venezuelan unity.

Constitutional government (1959-1964)

On January 25, 1959, Betancourt held a meeting in his capacity as President-elect with Fidel Castro, who was coming to the country for the celebration of January 23, the day the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship fell. On February 13 of that year he was proclaimed Constitutional President of the Republic, for the period 1959-1964.

Political aspects

Betancourt had to face one of the most difficult periods of government in contemporary national history, having to make the definitive transition from the republic to democracy.

In compliance with the agreement of the Common Minimum Program, Betancourt formed his Government Cabinet with representatives of his party, Democratic Action, and the political movements: Christian Social COPEI and Democratic Republican Union (URD). Thus, two ministries were designated for AD (Democratic Action), two for COPEI and three for URD. The latter withdrew from the pact in 1960. The pact continued between AD, COPEI and independents.

The Betancourist coalition cabinet stood out for being made up of various intellectuals and renowned professionals from national public life, such as: Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo, Mariano Picón Salas, Rafael Pizani, Andrés Aguilar, Luis Beltrán Prieto Figueroa, Arnoldo Gabaldón, Ramón J. Velásquez, Raúl Leoni, Carlos Andrés Pérez, Octavio Lepage, José Antonio Mayobre, Leopoldo Sucre Figarella, among others. Among the state governors appointed by Betancourt, Luis Piñerúa Ordaz, Enrique Tejera Paris and Luis Augusto Dubuc stand out.

During his mandate Betancourt had to deal with the splits within his party that gave rise to the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), the National Revolutionary Party (PRN) and the ARS Group (AD-Oposition), these divisions led to AD lost the majority in the Chamber of Deputies for the new legislative period.

In this period the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) was also outlawed for linking to the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), in an arms struggle against its Government. On January 23, 1961, he promulgated the new Constitution, similar to the one approved in his first Government, which had been repealed by Pérez Jiménez. This constitutional charter governed the destiny of the nation until 1999. In December 1961, he received John F. Kennedy during the first official visit of a president of the United States to Venezuela. On the occasion, Kennedy and Betancourt signed the Alliance for Progress agreement, an aid program designed by the US Government to counteract the advance of the Cuban Revolution in Latin America.

Economic aspects

The economic management was focused on the economic independence of the country and the stimulation of industrial development by applying the ECLAC model regarding import substitution promoted by the Minister of Finance José Antonio Mayobre. In 1960, the Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons, Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo, signed in Baghdad, Iraq, the act of creation of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), with which a strategic alliance in oil matters was established with exporting countries. of crude oil, such as: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran. That same year, President Betancourt decrees the creation of the Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana (CVG) and the Venezuelan Petroleum Corporation (CVP).

On May 4, 1961, a series of economic measures were published, including exchange control, a 10% decrease in public wages and salaries in order to reduce spending and budget deficits, and the devaluation of the bolivar.. During this second period of the Betancourist Government, the labor rights of Venezuelan workers and employees are restored, including access to housing and a general increase in salaries. According to the Central Bank of Venezuela, at the end of this Government, the marks of previous years in terms of positive figures for economic recovery had been surpassed, the economic growth rate fluctuated between 4 and 5%.

Public works

During Betancourt's second administration, a large amount of the nation's money was invested in the construction of new public schools and high schools; more than 3,000 schools and 200 high schools were built throughout the country. School enrollment increased from 0.85 million students (in 1958) to 1.6 million in 1963, more than 90% of the total student population attended classrooms.^{[citation required]< /sup>}

In 1962, major works were inaugurated, such as the General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge over Lake Maracaibo, known as the Bridge over the lake, which had been started under the Government of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, but not had been concluded. The El Pulpo Distributor was also inaugurated in the city of Caracas, as well as other road infrastructure works throughout the country. Construction of the Guri Dam and the first suspension bridge over the Orinoco River, the Angostura Bridge, began.

The construction of the Parque del Este in Caracas was completed in 1961, which became the largest urban park in the capital. The Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research (IVIC) was created, which was originally the Venezuelan Institute of Neurology and Brain Research (IVNIC), founded on April 29, 1954 during the Government of Marcos Pérez Jiménez. Betancourt traveled the more than 4,563 km of roads built or paved during his administration and strengthened the opening of immigration to Venezuela. ^{[ citation needed ]}

Destabilization attempts

The Government had to face a series of attacks, protests, general strikes, invasion by paramilitary groups, coup attempts and even assassination attempts against President Betancourt. The outbreaks of street violence mostly occurred at the beginning of the new Government; As a result, constitutional guarantees were permanently suspended and public demonstrations were limited in order to maintain public order. The constitutional guarantees were restored months before the 1963 elections. In the face of constant protests and revealed conspiracies of the FAN, Betancourt, at a rally celebrating his third year in office, said:

I'm a president who doesn't give up or give up.

Coup attempts

During the second period of Rómulo Betancourt's mandate, three important coup attempts by military insurgents took place, which were: El Carupanazo, El Porteñazo and El Barcelonazo. On June 26, 1961, a military outbreak took place in Barcelona, called El Barcelonazo. This movement is led by Major Luis Alberto Vivas and captains Rubén Massó, José Gabriel Marín and Tesalio Murillo. The rebels managed to capture Governor Rafael Solórzano and assaulted the AD (Democratic Action) headquarters in Anzoátegui State, the Puerto La Cruz police command and several radio stations. After the deployment of military forces loyal to the Government, the insurgents' aggression was stopped. At least 50 people died as a result of this incident.

The Carupanazo was a military uprising that took place on May 4, 1962 in the city of Carúpano, led by the Marine Infantry Battalion led by Captain Jesús Teodoro Molina Villegas, Major Pedro Vegas Castejón and Lieutenant Héctor Fleming Mendoza. President Betancourt demanded the surrender of the subversives and began the deployment of loyal battalions of the National Navy and the National Aviation forces, which managed to block the action of the coup plotters. The next day 400 people involved were arrested. The participation of the PCV and the MIR in this event was proven, so both parties were banned.

Less than a month after the first attempted coup d'état, another military rebellion occurred again that was baptized as El Porteñazo. On June 2, 1962, the uprising took place at the Puerto Cabello naval base, commanded by the captains: Manuel Ponte Rodríguez, Pedro Medina Silva and Víctor Hugo Morales Luengo. Betancourt ordered the immediate mobilization of the Aviation forces and the National Army, which militarize and bomb the city. On June 3, a death toll of 400 and hundreds of wounded was announced. The military leaders of the movement are arrested and the Government restores order in the Buenos Aires city. Due to this fact, those soldiers who sympathize with communism and the extreme left are purged from the Armed Forces.

Paramilitary groups

Betancourt also faced opposition from extremist groups and armed units with a Marxist-Leninist tendency. The PCV and MIR parties were active protagonists in the coup events and other sabotage against the government, for which many of their members were arrested. The communist export of armed struggle financed by Fidel Castro throughout the American continent also had its origins during this time, thus the so-called Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN) were formed in Venezuela, a subversive guerrilla group guided by the thought of the Cuban leader.

These paramilitary groups were also involved in a failed Cuban invasion on the windward coast, for which the Venezuelan Government definitively broke its diplomatic relations with Cuba and protested before the Organization of American States (OAS) for the lack of respect for its sovereignty. On September 29, 1963, the El Encanto train was attacked, a terrorist action in which it was claimed that the then PCV deputy, Teodoro Petkoff, had participated.

Murder attempt

During his term Betancourt was the victim of an assassination attempt, after several attempts had also been made to assassinate him during his third exile. A group of members of the Venezuelan extreme right financed directly by the Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, along with a small group of Venezuelan military personnel, were involved in a failed attempt to assassinate the acting Venezuelan president.

On June 24, 1960, during the celebration of the anniversary of the Battle of Carabobo, a brutal terrorist attack occurred against the life of Rómulo Betancourt in Caracas. At approximately 9:30 in the morning, a bomb in a parked car exploded as one of the presidential escort vehicles passed close to the official vehicle, which was heading towards Paseo Los Ilustres. The attack left the head of the Colonel Ramón Armas Pérez Military House, produces severe burns and deformation of President Betancourt's face and destroys the presidential vehicle. The day after the attack, Betancourt, in a message to the nation from the Miraflores Palace, with his hands bandaged, said:

I want to tell the people of Venezuela that they must have full confidence in the stability of their Government and in the decision of the president he chose to fulfil his mandate, as I have been saying and today I reiterate, until 19 April 1964. I have never ignored the risks involved in giving serious democratic guidance to the country (...) I have no doubt that in yesterday's attack he has his bloody hand the Dominican dictatorship. But that dictatorship lives its pre-agnostic hour, they are the last coletas of a prehistoric animal incompatible with the twentieth century.

The terrorist act was reported to the OAS, to condemn the Government of Trujillo for violating human rights within its nation and for financing terrorist attacks on a head of state.

Betancourt Doctrine

Upon taking the oath of office in front of the Congress of the Republic in the Federal Legislative Palace, Betancourt made his political perspective clear and proclaimed what is today known as the Betancourt Doctrine (a name that he himself rejected), with the following words:

We will ask for cooperation from other democratic governments of America to ask, together, that the Organization of American States exclude from their own the dictatorial governments because they not only affront the dignity of America, but also because Article 1 of the Charter of Bogotá, a constitutive record of the OAS establishes that only the governments of respectable origin born of the popular expression, through the only legitimate source of power, can form part of this organism. Regimes that do not respect human rights, which violate the freedoms of their citizens and tyranny them with the support of totalitarian policies, must be subjected to rigorous sanitary cord and eradicated through the collective peaceful action of the international legal community.

Rómulo Betancourt

This proclamation is understood as an instrument of protection for democratic regimes, the result of the free election of the people. It rejects the constitution of non-democratic or illegitimate Governments, which has its meaning in the breaking of diplomatic relations with those dictatorial countries and proclaims the alliance with those who practice democratic politics in their towns.

Under the action of the Betancourt Doctrine, Venezuela maintained good relations with democratic governments, especially with the Government of John F. Kennedy in the United States, Luis Muñoz Marín in Puerto Rico, Manuel Ávila Camacho and Adolfo López Mateos in Mexico and Alberto Lleras Camargo in Colombia. In turn, it cut diplomatic relations with the Governments of Spain, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti.

Recent years

On September 14, 1963, new presidential elections were held, in which Raúl Leoni of Democratic Action was the winner. On March 11, 1964, Betancourt handed over his presidential sash to his lifelong friend, Raúl Leoni. At this event Betancourt said:

It may be said that I have made many mistakes and uncertainties in my President's management, because infallibility and aptitude to attain always are not virtues ever given in a human being. But Venezuela will recognize, I am sure of it, because I have dominion over my convictions, as during the years I fulfilled my mandate... I acted with creative commitment, with faith if you want to be fanatized, for the glory of Venezuela and the happiness of your people.

He decided to withdraw fully from the political life of his country after handing over his position. He lived for several months in New York, London and Naples, then settled in Bern, the capital of Switzerland. He dedicated those years to intellectual activity, to the production of new publications of his authorship and to writing his memoirs. However, he was always aware of the Venezuelan situation. In 1967 he returned to the country due to the splits in AD (Democratic Action) and the lack of unanimity in the party over the choice of the candidate who would participate in the next elections to be held in 1968. Those elections were lost by AD. Rafael Caldera of COPEI won by a narrow margin of votes. When Betancourt learned of the defeat of his party, he said in a sarcastic tone "We will come back", as a reference to a soon return of Democratic Action to the Government.

During these years, tributes and entertainment were also paid to him in the United States. He was awarded honorary doctorates by Harvard University, University of California and Rutgers University.

In 1968 he married his second wife, Renée Hartman. In 1972 he returned to Venezuela, Betancourt in any way denied running for the first judgeship again. In 1973, Carlos Andrés Pérez de AD was elected president of the Republic, with whom Rómulo expressed dissatisfaction due to the scandals that subjected his Government and CAP's links with Fidel Castro.

In 1973 he obtained his seat as senator for life of the Republic and later supported some measures taken by Pérez, such as the nationalization of oil. On September 13, 1976, Democratic Action elected him Life President of the party.

In 1978 he received an Honoris Causa Doctorate from the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico. That year AD (Democratic Action) lost the presidency again to the candidacy of Luis Herrera Campins of COPEI.

His last years were spent between Caracas and New York. Coincidentally, he had left for New York after an invitation from President Herrera Campins to attend a baseball game at Yankee Stadium where he was very happy and with the liveliness that was characteristic of him. A few days later, on September 24, 1981, he suffered a stroke and on the 28th of the same month he died at 4:17 in the afternoon at Doctor's Hospital in New York, at 73 years of age.

His remains were transferred to Venezuela. Veiled at the House of Democratic Action in El Paraíso in Caracas, all honors were paid to him. At his funeral, the coffin was carried on the shoulders of sympathizers from the center of Caracas to the Cementerio del Este in La Guairita, located about 10 km away.

On his death, US President Ronald Reagan said:

I speak on behalf of all Americans by expressing our sadness for the death of Rómulo Betancourt. More than anything else, he was a Venezuelan patriot; a close and special friend of the United States. During the 1950s, he regarded the United States as a refuge while in exile, and we were proud to have received it. We are honored that this brave, whose life dedicated it to the principles of freedom and justice—a man who fought against left and right dictators—has spent the last days of his life on our beaches. We join the Venezuelan people and those who love freedom around the world, in mourning for their death.

Publications

• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1932. Who we are with and who we are against. San José de Costa Rica – Costa Rica.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1937. A republic for sale. Future Publisher. Caracas – Venezuela.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1940. Venezuelan problems. Future Publisher. Santiago de Chile – Venezuela.
• Rómulo Betancourt. 1948. Democratic tradition of a revolution. Addresses and conferences delivered in Venezuela and abroad during the tenure of the presidency of the Revolutionary Board of Government of the United States of Venezuela. National printing. Caracas - Venezuela 2 volumes.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1949. The case of Venezuela and the fate of democracy in America. Editorial Culture. Mexico City – Mexico.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1951. Thought and action. Printers Beatriz de Silva. Mexico City – Mexico.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1954. Venezuela: an oil factory. Mexico City - Mexico.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1956. Venezuela, politics and oil. 1.a ed. Editorial Fondo de Cultura Económica. Mexico City – Mexico.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1959. Position and doctrine. 2a ed. Editorial Cordillera. Caracas- Venezuela.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1964. The democratic revolution in Venezuela: Government documents chaired by Rómulo Betancourt. 1959-1964. Imprenta Nacional, Caracas - Venezuela 4 volumes.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1966. coups de Estado y Gobiernos de fuerza en América Latina: la experiencia dramatic dominicana. Editorial Arte. Caracas – Venezuela.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1969. Towards a democratic and integrated Latin America. 3rd ed. Taurus. Madrid –Spain.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1975. Venezuela owns its oil. Editions Centauro. Caracas – Venezuela.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1978. Latin America: democracy and integration. Editorial Seix Barral. Barcelona – Spain.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1978. Venezuelan oil. Barcelona. Editorial Seix Barral. Barcelona- Spain.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1978. Selected works. Editorial Seix Barral. Barcelona - Spain: 4 volumes.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1978. Venezuela, politics and oil. 4a ed. Editorial Seix Barral. Barcelona – Spain.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1979. On October 18, 1945: genesis and realizations of a democratic revolution. Editorial Seix Barral. Barcelona - Spain.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1982. Memory of the last exile, 1948-1958. Centauro. Caracas – Venezuela.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1987. Men and Villains. Grijalbo. Caracas – Venezuela.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1988-1991. Archive of Rómulo Betancourt. Fundación Rómulo Betancourt. y Ediciones de la Presidencia de la República. 3 volumes. Caracas - Venezuela.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1990. Political anthology. Fundación Rómulo Betancourt Caracas. Venezuela.
• Betancourt, Rómulo. 1991. Venezuela's second independence. Fundación Rómulo Betancourt. Caracas - Venezuela. 3 volumes.

Tributes

• Since 1981 he has been working at his home in Guatire, the Public Library Don Luis and Misia Virginia.
• In tribute to Betancourt, they named a parish of the municipality of Cabimas del Estado Zulia,
• For many years the Parque del Este (Caracas), the library of Parque Arístides Rojas and the Autopista de Oriente, were named in their honor. This changed during the presidency of Hugo Chávez.

Documentary sources