Word: betancourts
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...program, supplementing Venezuela's annual $1.3 billion budget, is Leoni's way of "consolidating and widening" the economic boom that began in 1962 under Rómulo Betancourt. Leoni will use the money to develop the country's interior, stimulate more private enterprise and relieve unemployment (still running 13.7%) by creating 20,000 new jobs. Some 90% of the funds will go toward increasing Venezuela's productive capacity and developing its "basic social capital," meaning everything from electric power to new schools. The other 10% will go for public health and for shoring up debt-plagued...
...drolly advised former Venezuela President Rómulo Betancourt during a White House call that he should be careful during an upcoming cross-country auto trip because "we've got a lot of crazy drivers in this country"; he commanded Democratic congressional leaders at a legislative breakfast to "switch about twelve votes" in the House so that the Administration's once-beaten pay-raise bill could pass; he told a dead-broke Kentuckian on the porch of his shack to "take care of yourself, now"; and he quietly asked New York's Republican Senator Kenneth Keating during...
...Failure. One of the strengths of Betancourt's government, especially in the first years, was its partnership with the country's second-ranking COPEI, a middle-road Social Christian party that is ably led by Caracas Lawyer Rafael Caldera. In last December's elections, A.D. slipped to 33% of the vote (from 49% in 1958) while COPEI increased its share from...
...unlike Betancourt, Leoni and other A.D. leaders were in no hurry to bring Caldera into a new coalition. Jealous of COPEI's rapid growth, A.D. leaders offered Caldera's party only a few governorships and some minor Cabinet posts...
...negotiations dragged on, Betancourt himself argued for a bigger role for COPEI. He arrived at a party meeting with a tape recorder. "I know what I'm going to say here now will prove historic," he said, and then proceeded to read the riot act. "My government would not have survived without COPEI's support. Yours will not either. So get that support." Then he left, promising to play back the tape at a future date...