Recognition

Accepting the inevitable, the U.S. last week recognized the military governments of Venezuela and El Salvador. Before doing so, the State Department had gone about as far as it could to discourage power-hungry army men elsewhere in Latin America. At the order of President Truman (TIME, Jan. 10), it had put off the Venezuelan recognition for two months. But when it asked other Latin American governments for advice, their almost unanimous answer was, in effect: "Face the unpleasant facts."

Recognition had a few strings attached. The State Department carefully noted that it was making no "judgment whatsoever as to the domestic policy" of the governments concerned. And the revolutionary juntas were warned that the U.S. expected them to: 1) live up to their international obligations, and 2) liquidate themselves at the earliest opportunity by holding free and democratic elections.

U.S. recognition seemed likely to solve few of the Venezuelan junta's problems. Just a week after the junta used tear gas to break up a student demonstration at Caracas' Central University, it countered a sudden oil workers' strike in the state of Zulia by jailing union leaders and threatening strikers with loss of social-security benefits. Foreign observers wondered if the walkout was a dress rehearsal for more serious trouble.

At week's end, the junta found itself involved in diplomatic wrist-slapping with Chile. The Chilean government asked the Council of the Organization of American States to consider Venezuela's refusal to let ex-President Romulo Betancourt leave Caracas' Colombian embassy, where he had been since the coup. Replied the junta: 1) Betancourt had just been given a safe-conduct, and Chile knew it; 2) Chile had been guilty of an "unfriendly act" in even mentioning the subject. To make it stronger, the junta called its ambassador home from Santiago.

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