VENEZUELA: Revolt

The battle sounds so recently stilled in Europe and Asia re-echoed last week in Venezuela. Lend-Leased U.S. planes and armored cars were among the weapons. When the shooting eased off, rebels were in control and Venezuela had a new Gov ernment, advertised as leftist and prodemocratic.

The revolution had been well planned. At four o'clock one afternoon a group of young Army officers revolted in Caracas' San Carlos barracks. By nine o'clock they had forced their way into the strategic Escuela Militar (military school) and Miraflores Palace, the Presidential residence. They had also captured President Isaías Medina Angarita.

Fighting raged on through Caracas' steep, narrow streets the next day. Pro-Government Communists broke into a local barracks, appropriated guns and uniforms. From a new, six-story housing project they attacked the rebels. Loyal cavalry joined the assault. But rebel planes, swooping low to drop bombs squarely on the attackers, settled the issue.

Suspicious of city revolutions, the tough Andinos (Andeans) of the west held out for awhile, then joined the rebels. So did the garrisons around the great Maracaibo Lake oilfields. The revolution had won, but the price had been heavy: 100 to 300 dead, 300 to 1,000 wounded.

Acción Democrática. Although young, Army officers had apparently inspired most of the fighting, the men behind the revolution were chubby, liberal Rómulo Betancourt, new Provisional President, and shy, famed novelist Rómulo Gallegos Freire. Their Democratic Action Party was the political instrument.

Betancourt and Gallegos had been exiles in the days of tyrannical dictator Juan Vicente Gómez. They had returned to Venezuela to help prod President Eleázar López Contreras along the path of measured democracy. For a time they had gotten along with his successor, Medina. But they had broken with Medina when he failed 1) to tackle the nation's economic problems squarely, 2) to change the constitution so that the President could be elected by direct suffrage.

In rich but hungry Venezuela, oil is everything. The nation's cut from its oilfields, leased to U.S. and British companies, had done away with Venezuela's foreign debt and buttressed the national treasury with a whacking $100,000,000 reserve. But as farmers drifted from the countryside to oilfields and cities, food production dived and prices rose. In the last ten years the successive governments' chief solution was to run the public payroll from 7,000 to 35,000 employes.

This week President Betancourt said that of course he weald not be so foolish as to interfere with the country's oil economy. Oil-company spokesmen in Caracas seemed to be happy.