Word: betancourts
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When Venezuela's President Rómulo Betancourt leaned forward to embrace visiting Argentine President Arturo Frondizi in Caracas, one photographer captured the scene from an opportune angle. There, jutting out of Betancourt's pocket, was a pistol butt. The picture raised questions of why a head of state should pack his own pistol. But in Latin America, where the bullet is often more decisive than the ballot, no politician has a better right to fulltime self-protection than Venezuela's embattled chief executive...
...fiery revolutionary in his youth, Betancourt won the undying hatred of many conservatives and unreconstructed military men. As a more moderate reformer and courageous anti-Communist in his later years, he has earned himself an equal number of enemies from the left. Among his many narrow escapes...
...Imprisoned in leg irons by Tyrant Juan Vicente Gómez in 1928, Betancourt faced almost sure torture and death, was only spared because of spontaneous strikes by sympathetic citizens...
...Ousted from power by the army in 1948, Betancourt for two weeks eluded patrols with orders to shoot him down, finally made it to sanctuary in the Colombian embassy...
...Exiled in Havana in 1951, he was attacked on the street by a man who attempted to jab poison into Betancourt's left arm with a hypodermic needle...