Approval

The U.S. last week granted full recognition to the revolutionary Venezuelan regime. So did most of the Hemisphere's other republics. At home, most Venezuelans were enthusiastic about their new, liberal, democratic Government.

In Miraflores Palace, under a portrait of the great Bolivar, provisional President Romulo Betancourt worked the livelong day, receiving delegations of idea-bearing citizens, soldiers, sheepish rightists. Even Venezuela's Communists, who had been caught napping, came with offers of peace.

Betancourt and his seven-man junta promised to step down when a new President is chosen by popular vote next spring. Meantime they were busy with plans to turn the income from Venezuela's fabulous oil wealth to the people's account through low-cost housing and better social security, and to weed out the grafters from previous regimes.

In ex-President Isaias Medina's files, the junta turned up secret lists enumerating $7,000,000 in bribes to deputies, high army officers, journalists. Also uncovered: an excellent photograph of careless President Medina in the company of naked prostitutes. The new Government said that the picture was too obscene for publication.

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