THE AMERICAS: Walking Papers

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General Marcos Perez Jimenez, 44, the plump, well-manicured ex-dictator of Venezuela, got a rude order last week from the U.S. Immigration Service: get out of the country by April 15. Perez Jimenez has been living in a $300,000 mansion in Florida on a temporary visa and a diplomatic passport given him, in a show of chivalry, by the revolutionary junta that bounced him from office 15 months ago.

The fallen dictator is a source of embarrassment for the U.S. in its relations with the new, democratically elected Venezuelan government, which accuses him of looting and terrorizing the country. The State Department said that it had "conferred" with the Immigration Service on the expulsion order and agreed that it "is in accord with the best interests of the U.S." Perez Jimenez' Miami lawyer predicted that he could keep his client in the U.S. "for at least two or three years" before all legal devices are exhausted.