Brush with Death

Bound for Armed Forces Day ceremonies at Caracas' Military School, Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt rode through the city streets in the presidential limousine chatting to Defense Minister Josue Lopez Henriquez and Mrs. Henriquez, who were beside him. A onetime leftist grown moderate with the years, Betancourt came to power two years ago after the overthrow of the tyrant Marcos Perez Jimenez, and devoutly hopes to symbolize an end to the traditional violence of oil-rich Venezuela. Chauffeur Azael Valero swung the black presidential car onto the Avenida de los Proceres near the school. Ahead on the divided street sat a parked 1954 green Oldsmobile.

Suddenly, the Oldsmobile disintegrated into a thousand shreds of shrapnel, a blinding ball of flame, and a column of smoke 1,000 feet tall. Betancourt's car was hurled onto the center grass strip, and burst into flames. The President and his Minister managed to push open the left rear door and pull Mrs. Henriquez to safety. Badly burned, Chauffeur Valero and a presidential aide, Colonel Ramon Armas Perez, tumbled out of the front seat.

Betancourt, his face streaked with blood, went to nearby Central University Hospital. The first man he saw was an old doctor friend who rushed him to the fourth floor, treated him for first-degree burns on his hands and face. The President's hair and eyebrows were singed, but otherwise he was unhurt. Henriquez, too, had first-degree burns. But Colonel Armas, his face completely smashed by flying shrapnel, died almost immediately upon arrival at a first-aid station. A bystander was killed by shrapnel from the explosion.

Who had tried to kill Betancourt? Venezuelan intelligence agents had earlier warned the President that cronies of ousted Dictator Perez Jimenez had hired four ex-Nazi military engineers in Spain to do the job. Last week, after the blast, Betancourt also implicated an old enemy: Dominican Republic Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. The bombing was no amateur blast. It was set off by remote control, showing a technical skill with explosives. The plotters also had access to minute information about Betancourt's movements. Laid low by gall bladder trouble for a week before the Armed Forces Day celebration, Betancourt did not decide until the night before the ceremony that he would attend it.

Hoping to catch the assassins before they could flee the country, security agents closed down Venezuela's ports. To reassure the nation that he himself was all right, Betancourt showed himself to the press. His face was scorched, his fore head was peeling, his swollen lips were smeared with healing jelly, and his eyes behind his dark-rimmed glasses were puffy. But he waved his bandaged paws cheerfully, and within hours was back at Miraflores Palace.

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