One Crash Too Many

Few Latin American Presidents ever traveled their constituencies quite as thoroughly or as constantly as Rene Barrientos Ortuno of Bolivia. Barrientos chose this peripatetic presidency, which carried him even into isolated outposts, because he was a man of action; an ex-air-force officer, he infinitely preferred an airplane cockpit to his desk at Quemado Palace in La Paz.

Barrientos was also a man of vision who hoped to include in his own brand of forceful democracy the Indian campesinos whose Quechua dialect he spoke so well. "I have the idea that every citizen must be a participant in building his country," he once said. "In order to be a participant, he must know what the problems are and how they can be solved. In order to know, he must receive information and believe it. The destiny of telling the campesinos has fallen on me, a good friend of theirs." By plane and helicopter, Barrientos pursued his destiny, often dropping unexpectedly out of the sky on some Indian village like an ancient god.

Final Wave. Barrientos liked to brag that he had walked away from 25 air crashes of one kind or another. Last week, making one of his rural visits, he failed to survive the 26th. Traveling by helicopter with a pilot and military aide, he landed on a basketball court in the Andean village of Arque. He dedicated a school honoring John F. Kennedy and a new public health dispensary, presented money for a town water-supply system and paused briefly for refreshments and handshaking. Then, with a final wave, he departed for the village of Tacopaya, 25 miles away. Rising to clear the high hills around Arque, the helicopter struck telephone and telegraph cables, bounced back and crashed into a dry riverbed. When horrified villagers reached the burning wreckage, the three men aboard were dead.

Bolivians were stunned by the death of their President, at 49, on a placid afternoon. "He was unique," said TIME Latin America Correspondent Mo Garcia, who knew him well. "Strong enough to dominate, bold enough to face down the educated intellectuals, simple enough to inspire confidence and trust among the overwhelming majority of his people who have yet to become a part of the national fabric. He gave Bolivia a long period of stability." Hearing the news, tens of thousands of Bolivians left their homes and journeyed to La Paz to honor Barrientos.

Denied Admission. Barrientos seemed so likely to finish the remaining 15 months of his four-year term--a South American rarity--that his sudden death left the government in confusion. Vice President Luis Adolfo Siles Salinas, 43, hurried to Quemado Palace at the news --and was denied admission by guards who did not recognize him. "Let him in," barked an officer. "He is the President." Army Chief Alfredo Ovando, who with Barrientos had overthrown Victor Paz Estenssoro in 1964 (Barrientos won an election in 1966), was in Washington on a visit. The U.S. Air Force immediately offered him a C140 jet to fly home quickly. While Siles and Ovando and other dignitaries escorted Barrientos' body to La Paz Cathedral, Bolivians mourning the past also began to worry about the future.

Even before Barrientos' burial, some campesinos who revered him were agitating against Successor Siles. They complained that the new President, whose father and half-brother have also held the office, represents "the old oligarchy"; in a tearful ceremony, the traditional baton of the "maximum chief" of the Indians was passed to Ovando and not to Siles. Siles, a lawyer trained both in South America and Spain, is no oligarch but believes in a more legalistic democracy than Barrientos practiced. He may not be as forceful a ruler as was Barrientos. Ovando, 50, who has the support of Bolivia's ineffectual army and of the campesinos, is eager to succeed Siles, either at the end of his 15-month term or perhaps before. Perhaps the strongest tribute to Barrientos' regime was the simple fact that Bolivians for so long have not had to worry about such intrigues.

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