Foiled Again

EARLY FRIDAY MORNING, A VENEZUELAN STATE radio-TV channel broadcast a tape of Lieut. Colonel Hugo Chavez Frias declaring that President Carlos Andres Perez had been deposed by a coup. Premature: Chavez Frias, who led a failed coup in February, is still in jail, and by dawn Perez was broadcasting that this attempt too had failed. But then rebel planes bombed the presidential palace, and inmates staged an uprising in a Caracas prison. Saturday morning, government officials were reporting nearly 100 deaths. Sporadic fighting continued, but with the capture of several coup leaders and the surrender of other rebels, the beleaguered Perez (his disapproval rating in a recent poll hit an astonishing 92%) seemed safe. Able to govern? Well . . .