A General in Charge

The conferences in the presidential palace continued almost without a break for 48 hours as the military revolt spread across the country. Finally, rather than risk a full-scale civil war, Victor Paz Estenssoro, 57, President of Bolivia, climbed into his bulletproof Cadillac lor a tire-screeching ride to La Paz's El Alto Airport. There, pale and somber, he followed his beautiful wife Maria Teresa, 32, and four children aboard a military C-47 and flew off to exile in Lima, Peru. The camera of the lone photographer who snapped the departure was seized by an air force officer. "Why spoil everything?" said the officer, confiscating the film. "We want to make it nice for him."

Thus ended, at least temporarily, the political career of one of Latin America's most fascinating and controversial statesmen. Paz was one of the organizers of the 1952 revolt that overturned the tin barons and emancipated the Bolivian population from virtual serfdom. As President for all but four years since then, he pushed through needed tax reforms, redistributed land, built roads and hospitals, and began a program to resettle 500,000 Bolivians from the barren plateau to the more fertile valleys. A firm friend of the U.S., he gave ardent support to the Alliance for Progress, created so favorable an economic climate that foreign capital began to flow in, bringing a modest boom.

Stretching the Constitution. Yet in Bolivia's hotheaded politics, where emotions soar as high as the Andes, Paz made many enemies. Last year he rammed through a questionable constitutional amendment allowing him to run for a second consecutive term. In protest, opposition parties, and even many of his own party members, handed in empty ballots in the May election. As the hostility increased, Paz in September declared a state of siege, imposing press censorship and packing several of his loudest critics off to exile. Next Paz quarreled with his Vice President, Rene Barrientos, 45, an ambitious air force general who bitterly complained of Paz's dictatorial ways.

Resentment flared into the open two weeks ago as students and miners rioted in half a dozen towns. But with the army on his side, Paz squelched the uprising. Then last week, the army's crack Ingavi Regiment revolted in La Paz-and rebellion flamed through garrisons all around the country. From his home town of Cochabamba, where he had gone to avoid Paz, Barrientos openly denounced the President as ruthless and called on him to resign.

Realizing that he lacked the support to hang on, Paz decided to flee, leaving General Alfredo Ovando Candia, 46, commander in chief of the armed forces, to pick up the pieces. For 24 hours anti-government rioters surged through La Paz, looting, burning and sniping at army troops sent to keep order. Before it was over, 45 were killed, 160 wounded. Out of hiding came Leftist Juan Lechin, 51, Paz's archrival and boss of most of the country's 35,000 tin miners. Adding to the chaos, his miners demanded the re-establishment of union control of the mines.

Enter General Sob. To govern the country until elections could be held, Ovando announced a military junta, naming Barrientos and himself as co-Presidents. But Ovando, a colorless soldier, had not reckoned on the big ambitions of Barrientos. Entering La Paz to a hero's welcome, Barrientos sped to the presidential palace. Within four hours he appeared alone on the balcony, told a wildly cheering crowd that Ovando, "with his usual unselfishness, has resigned." He, Barrientos, would rule alone as President.

An outspoken antiCommunist, Barrientos has been a friend of the U.S.

ever since he took his pilot training at Randolph Field in Texas. He understands the need for reform and development, promises free elections as soon as possible. But many observers fear that he lacks the ability to deal with the country's complex economic problems, and his speeches often show a disturbing demagogic tone. He becomes so emotional on the platform that his nickname is"General Sob."

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