1966 – The Pull Of The Land

Researching and writing about the Bogotazo — whose repercussions are with us still — elicited a few childhood memories which, for what it’s worth, I’ll document here.

I left Venezuela in 1966, fully intending to return to live there one day. See Playa Hicacos, 1966 for my personal recollections of that year in my childhood, which was yet another tumultuous year in Latin America.

My intentions never materialized because, as the Spanish aphorism puts it, “El hombre propone y Dios dispone” (“Man proposes and God disposes”), loosely based on Proverbs 16:9, but quoted in classic Spanish literature such as Don Quijote. So, although I was able to visit a number of times, especially summers during student years, I never returned to live there again.

Nevertheless, as Whittaker Chambers put it in his magisterial Witness, “No land has a pull on a man as the land of his childhood.” And that pull is still with me.

In that era, “globalism” was an unheard-of term. Large companies, such as Bethlehem Steel and United States Steel, were known as “American” companies, whereas today such seek to be known as “global” companies, with minimum, if any, loyalties to the United States, regardless of their founding or corporate headquarters.

American families were stationed in myriad and distant spots across the continents and the early schooling of their children was addressed by establishing schools modeled after those of the origin state of the company. So, for instance, the Bethlehem Steel school in El Pao was generally modeled after the norms of state schools in Pennsylvania. So, as an example, when those schools required standard tests for the elementary schools across the state, those very tests were also administered to us.

As far as I know those who attended the school in El Pao did well once they transferred to the United States.

And they usually transferred at an early age. I was 12 years old when it was my turn to transfer, and I was not an exception.

We travelled to Miami for annual leave, but my stomach churned a bit that year because I knew that at the end of that vacation, I would not be returning with my family to Venezuela. We nevertheless enjoyed our visit with family in Florida and the Northeast. I was happy to see the Langlois Motel in Miami again. Our family had been staying there for years and it was a favorite of the cousins and us.

What I most remember, though, was the farewell at the Miami International Airport. Back then we had no obstacles to staying with travelers in the Pan American Airways waiting lounge and then at the gate.

My father and mother said their farewells to my aunt and cousins, as did my sisters. Then they each embraced me and expressed their hope to see me again at Christmastime. I bravely succeeded in holding my tears and keeping my voice from cracking as I hugged back.

Then we waved good-bye as they left the terminal and disappeared into the plane.

My aunt and cousins and I walked back to the parking lot, exchanging few words, but I could tell they were a bit anxious about me. I just wanted to get back home and find a spot where I could be alone.

But my aunt had other plans. She drove us to Miami Beach. I asked why are we going there, especially at this hour? “Oh, just for a ride.” Then I understood she was doing her best to distract me. I was not a happy camper for that, but I kept it to myself. The radio played that week’s top song, “Cherish”, performed by The Association. It seemed a bit too treacly, even for a 12-year-old, but what did I know. It became one of the very top songs of that year.

Then “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles came across the airwaves. That song, about loneliness, was more in tune with my sense at the moment. As the only surviving relative of Eleanor Rigby put it in an interview in 2008, “A lot of time has gone by, and Eleanor’s side of the family has run out. They were ordinary, hardworking folk, the Rigbys — joiners, bricklayers, farmers, and the like — not the kind of people you expect to go down in history. And now there’s nobody left.”

That about encapsulates my anomie back then.

Days later one of my cousins told me they were very surprised I had not broken down. I assured her that I had indeed broken down — inside.

Months later I learned that on the plane, a gentleman who sat across the aisle from my father had leaned over and told him about having been left in the United States years before in circumstances very similar to ours. Only in his case, the parents were headed back to Germany. He had noticed our farewells and wanted to assure my parents that all would be well. But he did not sugar coat it: he said that, even after so many years, he still gently grieved whenever he thought of that day.

The reader should keep in mind that in 1966 communication with El Pao was via short-wave radio. Or mails. It was like going to the other side of the earth.

Psychedelic drugs and English fashion — Carnaby Street, Twiggy, Alfie — were “in” and for young folks it was difficult to tell the difference between genuineness and just plain marketing and promotion. Regardless, it seemed the world was going upside down and that the self-centeredness of Alfie generally reflected western mores at the time.

As the American and British scenes seemed to careen off course, South America was wracked by coups and a violent Cordobazo in Argentina, further Communist infiltration into the highest echelons of the military in Venezuela, and, by 1966, La Violencia had caused the abandonment of over 40% of the arable land in Colombia.

So, as we asked, “What’s it all about?” the seeds of upheaval continued to be sown in abundance in Latin America. And the harvest in Venezuela became most apparent in the 90s and to the present day.

Pan American ticket counter, Miami International Airport, circa 1960

Michael Caine in *Alfie*, 1966. The song was composed separately as a promotion song and became a surprise hit.

“Eleanor Rigby died in the same house where she had been born, was interred in the graveyard of St Peter’s Church, and had her name added prominently on an increasingly crowded headstone.” — *The Daily Mail.* She had married 9 years earlier and then discovered she could not bear children. She died of a massive brain hemorrhage a month after the outbreak of World War II. She was much loved by her family.

Towards the end of my childhood life in Venezuela, my father took us to Puerto la Cruz. Back then, this was a 5 or 6-hour drive but Puerto la Cruz was the closest city with an American consulate. She sits on the northeast coast of Venezuela, east of Caracas, west of Cumaná.

We always looked forward to trips there because such trips would invariably include at least one visit to the spectacular beaches on the coast of Sucre to the east of the city. That trip, in 1966, marked the last time I ever visited a beach in Venezuela, not counting those in Canaima, which are river beaches.

Childhood memories are notoriously unreliable. However, over the years I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a few “round-the-world” sailors who agree that this area of Venezuela contains some of the world’s most picturesque, but unknown, ocean spots.

On that visit, my father drove us for what seemed like hours snaking our way through the high coastal mountain ranges over some unpaved roads affording us breathtaking vistas of this striking cordillera and crystalline seas far below. We eventually arrived at Playa Hicacos. We had it all to ourselves. The water was cold (not cool but cold). However, we quickly warmed up and enjoyed our day at the beach. That last beach outing has remained indelible in my memory and I’ve judged all other beaches by that standard. Most others fall short — unfair, I know, to judge the rest by a childhood memory, but indulge me on this, please.

I had little idea that year was a tumultuous one for South America. Signs of political agitation were almost everywhere, not only in Venezuela but in practically all large cities of the continent. Scrawlings on walls — this I do recall — ranged from “Castro is a traitor!” to “Vote Communist!” and, of course the ubiquitous, “Yanqui go home!”

That was the year of The Beatles’ Rubber Soul and I remember hearing “Michelle” here and there at stops during this and other trips — including the one to Maracay alluded to in an earlier post (“Coffee”). That was also the year the same Beatles released an album cover posing as butchers with mutilated dolls and cut meat. It was later pulled, which reflects the fact that, even in 1966, an anteroom year for the Hippies and Woodstock shenanigans, sensibilities were more respectful than today.

I also recall lots of ruckus about a gal named Peggy Fleming who skated on ice, spectacularly. I now understand that she was a key figure (no pun intended) envisaging the return of the USA to figure skating dominance after the entire 18-member team was killed in a plane crash in 1961.

And large scale anti-Vietnam War protests also began to take shape that year.

But news from South America was sparse. You had to be living there to hear about Communist guerrilla bands attacking landowners in Peru or the rumors of Juan Peron’s return to Argentina and the upheavals that led to the military coup, with labor support (!), which deposed its president.

In Chile, Eduardo Frei was president. He downplayed the Communist threat and, like many South American intellectuals, would chide the Americans for being so “childishly afraid” of a non-threat. It was a turbulent year in Chile culminating 4 years later with the election of Salvador Allende with 36% of the vote; an election which had to be decided by the legislature who voted him in, after receiving assurances by Allende that he would not go full Communist. Assurances which went promptly out the window. Such was the shock and such was the disaster, that Eduardo Frei himself came to support Allende’s ouster by a military coup in 1973. The Chile situation did get press in the United States in the 1970’s, but as usual it was very incomplete and much too colored by Hollywood.

In Colombia, lawlessness had its own peculiar name: La Violencia. In 1966, as in prior years, President Guillermo Valencia sought to explain to US diplomats and legislators and dubious journalists that the violent guerrillas causing havoc in the country were Communist-inspired and supported (there was plenty of evidence for this, including Cubans embedded with the guerillas and pamphlets espousing the Communist line).

Perhaps La Violencia’s most despicable exponent was Pedro Antonio Marín, known as Tiro Fijo (Sure Shot). The prior year he had waylaid a bus, and killed thirteen of its passengers (including two nuns). This was followed by an attack on a nearby village. He and his men murdered the mayor and police chief and then preached revolution to the stunned villagers. Marín was the chief leader of the Communist FARC, which he founded in 1966. His toll of known murders exceeded 200 by the end of the 1960’s, then grew exponentially thereafter.

In Venezuela President Betancourt, a former Communist who had been betrayed by Castro (here, besides written propaganda, the evidence included weapons, explosives, and ammunition smuggled in from Cuba), had denounced Castro to the Organization of American States (OAS) and demanded sanctions, thereby earning the eternal hatred of his erstwhile comrades. The FALN (a Communist group akin to Colombia’s FARC) was active, but Betancourt clamped down, hard, in the early 60’s including outlawing the Communist Party. The damage to infrastructure and commerce, including oil pipelines, was great; however, by 1966, things were somewhat calm, business was good, travel was open, and the National Guard checkpoints along critical highways gave us a sense of security. Acts of violence still occurred, but not as seriously as earlier in the decade.

It was an intense year. But as a child, I knew little of all that and certainly had no premonition of the storms which were about to burst in the few short years that followed.

My only concern (whenever I would think of it, butterflies would fly in my gut) was that this would be my last year living at home. That day in Playa Hicacos was fun and peaceful and strikingly beautiful; sort of an oasis, a recreational rest midst the gathering storms. Looking back, I now suspect my father’s desire was to provide opportunities to create memories to cherish in the years ahead. Not only for me, but for him as well.

In September of 1966, at the end of annual family leave in Miami, I bid farewell to my mother and father and siblings as they boarded the Pan American jet which would transport them back to Venezuela. I remained in Miami, Florida for schooling, as did most of my cousins.

As for Playa Hicacos, I later learned that, in 1973, the entire area was designated a national park, Mochima, and I hear it’s as beautiful now as it was back in the day when I visited.

There are some things that never change.

Tag: 1966

Leaving Venezuela — 1966

Playa Hicacos, 1966