Gomez' Joke

In Venezuela gnarled, 74-year-old General Juan Vicente Gomez is still IT. By a freak Constitutional amendment (passed at his behest) he is Commander-in-Chief of the Army and is not responsible to the President of Venezuela. Presumably by General Gomez' order last week the Venezuelan Congress demanded, received and accepted by unanimous vote the resignation of President Juan Bautista Perez, elected only two years ago for a seven-year term.

In Peru, where Dictator Augusto B. Leguia was last year deposed (TIME. Sept. 8) a leading Lima paper La Prensa commented last week: "General Gomez makes 'Presidents' and maintains them in office until he is bored by the joke. . . . Joking aside, the tyranny in Venezuela has such a grotesque aspect that we must congratulate ourselves that even in the worst of the Leguia regime we did not have anything like it!"

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