VENEZUELA: Further Study

Casting about for a civilian front man to head their regime and give it some badly needed prestige, members of Venezuela's military junta last week looked hopefully at Dr. Arnaldo Gabaldón, famed organizer of Venezuela's outstandingly successful fight against malaria. They wanted Dr. Gabaldón, a nonparty man, to take the place of President Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, assassinated during an abortive revolt in Caracas (TIME, Nov. 20).

Gabaldón tentatively accepted the job, but added one condition: all political parties must be represented in the new government. Hard-bitten Lieut. Colonel Marcos Pérez Jiménez, the junta's boss, spurned the terms as "too idealistic." This week the junta installed German Suaréz Flammerich, ex-ambassador to Peru and a nonparty man like Gabaldón, as its new president. Flammerich presumably made no idealistic conditions. As for elections, which Venezuela has long hoped for, Boss Pérez Jiménez said that was a problem calling for "further study."