The roar of the crowd, the whistling, the hooting, and the razzberries continued through both the Star Spangled Banner and the Venezuelan hymn ***

The howls of the crowd became deafening. Someone threw his razzberry at the Vice President. Others did the same. Then the spitting began.

"It was the damnedest thing I ever saw in my life," one witness recalled. "There was a regular rain of spit coming down on us."

RED STORM OVER CARACAS

The Nixon motorcade proceeded to the outskirts of the Caracas workingclass district to the Avenida Sucre. There it was, for some unexplained reason, stalled in a noon-hour traffic jam composed of buses whose drivers are affiliated with a Communist-dominated union. Riding a stake truck ahead of the motorcade, Robert T. Hartmann, Washington bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times, observed the following:

Wild with anti-American fury, a mob of several hundred youths led by older men charged the closed Cadillac limousine and shattered all but two windows, dented the body, and tried to open the door and pull Nixon out ***

The rioters bombarded the Nixon car with heavy rocks, jagged cans, eggs and tomatoes, and beat the windows to smithereens with clubs.29

It was clearly evident that the traffic jam was not accidental but premeditated. "It was no accident," later declared the Vice President. "There were two trucks. They collided and the drivers just walked away." The mob had been organized well in advance.

According to the findings of William Hines:

This time the mob went wild. Screaming, beating on the halted lead car with sticks, pieces of scrap iron, and brickbats, howling *** foul imprecations, spitting, throwing rocks, the bravos tried to get into the Nixon car.30

The next scheduled stop was the Panteon, the resting place of the Venezuelan liberator Simon Bolivar. Again the organized crowd of demonstrators was prepared. The street was packed with bannercarrying youngsters of from 13 to 23 years of age, looking for trouble. The Vice President decided to abandon the Panteon appearance. When his military aids arrived there, however, not knowing of the change of plans, this is what they found according to Mr. Hines:

The place was a shambles. The supposed patriots-guarding the sacred tomb from the "yanqui" enemy-had run wild. They had hoisted a black flag of mourning. They had draped anti-American slogans across its front. They had befouled its steps with garbage.31

The picture is amplified by Hartmann of the Los Angeles Times: Meanwhile, at the Panteon, agitators had worked the crowd to fever pitch. Waiting Nixon, they began abusing the soldiers stationed there, peppering them with stones and sticks. Assistant U.S. Naval Attaché Louis Scleris was pummeled and kicked when he brought the wreath Nixon was to lay, and had to be escorted from the square between bayoneted ranks of soldiers. The mob tore the wreath to shreds.

"If he [Nixon] had gone in there, he'd never have come out alive," an American eyewitness asserted.32

THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF VENEZUELA

The basic policy of the Communist Party of Venezuela is primarily that of latching itself on to nationalist movements, penetrating and manipulating them to its own advantage, in line with the current international policy of Moscow. Tribuna Popular has declared that "without the Communist Party there can be no united front." The party claims 12,000 members and 14,000 student auxiliaries. Through a powerful underground organization, with its inner discipline and cunning, this tiny minority, operating in a highly explosive atmosphere, is in a position to mobilize forces far beyond its numerical strength.

The Communist Party, U.S.A., is the senior party in the Western Hemisphere, maintaining supervisory authority over other Communist Parties of the area. It is significant that the Worker of February 24, 1952, official organ of the CPUSA, has devoted considerable attention to the Communist Party of Venezuela. Regarding its united front with other groups, the Worker declared:

In the political field the trend toward unity between the Communist Party and the country's largest political party, Democratic Action *** has been greatly accelerated. *** The influence of the wing that favors a united front with the Communists is growing. *** This wing includes Andres Eloy Blanco, former Foreign Minister and Venezuela's leading poet.

The Worker described the strength of the Communist press in Venezuela:

When the party was legal it had one daily paper, Tribuna Popular, with a cir culation of about 12,000. Today the party publishes illegally 4 printed weeklies and about 25 mimeographed papers in various parts of the country. Tribuna Popular has a circulation of 12,000-15,000 copies. Since each copy is passed around, the actual number of readers is much larger.

The Worker paints a glowing eulogy of Eduardo and Gustavo Machado, the two outstanding leaders of the CPV, from the time they were students:

After a visit to the Soviet Union, Gustavo went to live in Mexico ** Meanwhile, Eduardo had gone to the United States to work with the Anti-Imperialist League.33 He was twice deported, but managed to spend several years in the United States. There he married Gertrude Allison, daughter of Alfred Wagenknecht, one of the founders of the U.S. Communist Party.

After being deported for the second time, Eduardo and his wife went to the Soviet Union where he worked and studied for several years, specializing in political economy.

It would seem from the Worker account that Gustavo Machado had considerable military experience, after his return from the Soviet Union:

*** the elder [Gustavo] joined the Sandino forces in the jungles of Nicaragua * * *. In 1929 he became a member of a group of 250 men off the northern coast of Venezuela, invaded Venezuela in an effort to overthrow the Gomez dictatorship.

For 4 months they waged guerrilla warfare against superior forces. After their defeat Gustavo went to Colombia, from where he helped organize the Communist Party of Venezuela ***. In 1937 he was expelled [from Venezuela] for activity in connection with the oil strike. He returned to Colombia, where Eduardo also had gone.

Cited as subversive by Attorney General Francis Biddle in "Re Harry Bridges," May 28, 1942, p. 10.

60068-60

Washington Star reporter Wiliam Hines interviewed Gustavo Machado on May 19, 1958, with reference to proposed changes in the Venezuelan Cabinet subsequent to the resignation of two juntists who withdrew in protest against the Government inefficiency displayed in the Nixon affair. Mr. Machado demonstrated the degree to which his party had penetrated and intervened in the affairs of the ruling junta. He told Mr. Hines that his personal choices for the junta were Rene de Sola, Minister of Justice; Julio de Armas, Minister of Education; and Numa Quevedo, Minister of the Interior and head of the Venezuela police organization. Mr. Hines added the following

comment:

The leftwing nature of these men's views and the jobs they held made them fit nicely with Communist plans for further confusion.34

Despite the fact that the Communists publicly and consistently disclaimed responsibility for the violent outrages which occurred, the Tribuna Popular declared:

At 12:30 it was announced that the demonstrators had won a victory: the footsteps of Nixon would not defile the sacred precincts where repose the ashes of the liberator.

COMMUNISTS CAPITALIZE ON RIOTS

In its manipulation and exploitation of mobs, the Communist Party of Venezuela kept keenly in mind certain central aims which it sought to realize. On May 17, Tribuna Popular published a chronological list of 152 years of alleged crimes of American imperialism.

The political bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela with customary guile and in the face of the facts, categorically condemned "the fib sent from Washington both with regard to a possible attempt against the life of Mr. Nixon, as well as the use of violence against him personally and his party." It considered the statement, made by Mr. Nixon to the press "accusing the Venezuelan Communist Party, as an open interference in our internal affairs."

Although disclaiming responsibility for the Caracas outrage, the Politbureau hailed the spectacle at Maiquetia Airport and in Caracas proper, claiming that "the student masses and the people in general were expressing their just objection."

The Politbureau further branded Mr. Nixon's trip to Venezuela as "a decided provocation against the patriotic sentiment of the Venezuelan people." The Tribuna held the demonstration to have been “a legitimate expression of the national feeling of repudiation of the voracious North American foreign policy."

The paper further condoned the rioting by declaring:

By means of the press and radio and through the intellectuals, political parties, student organizations, etc., all Venezuela made obvious for several consecutive days her displeasure at Mr. Nixon's visit *** We do not hesitate in affiliating ourselves with that great march of the students and people

**

The Communists employed the timeworn device of blaming the other fellow when the Tribuna Popular ascribed responsibility to the reactionaries "so that they can later blame the Communists and adherents of other ideologies." 35

4 Washington Star, May 29, 1958. 35 Tribuna Popular, May 17, 1958.