I have a long and involved affiliation with Venezuela. In 1946, my mother, at the age of thirty, “joined the Foreign Legion” by hiring on to the Rockefeller Foundation to go to Venezuela to do rural indigenous development work. She was literally choosing to escape a turbulent five years on both the global and personal fronts and trade in her decade of work with the New York State Welfare Department for a new adventure. After six weeks of intensive Spanish lessons, she landed in Caracas (via Havana, which was the PanAm Clipper stop-over of choice in those days) to begin what would become a twelve year, life-changing stint of driving jeeps up into the mountains, building life-betterment programs for women and children of the indigenous population, and, on the weekends, living the high life in the very happening city of Caracas. To suggest that it was a life of excitement and contrasts in a global moment when the world was trying to calm itself after a half-century of war and evil-doing, would be an understatement.
During those years, Venezuela was going through its own transitions. Venezuela had several different rulers during the 1946-1958 period, which was itself quite turbulent. 1946-1948 was the “Democratic Period” with Rómulo Betancourt serving as provisional president after a military coup overthrew the previous government. Rómulo Gallegos was elected president in late 1947, and was overthrown in a military coup a year later, when a three-member military junta headed by Colonel Carlos Delgado Chalbaud took control. The triumvirate of military personnel controlled the government until 1952, when presidential elections were held that were free enough to produce results unacceptable to the government, leading them to be falsified, with one of the three leaders, Marcos Pérez Jiménez then assuming the Presidency . Pérez Jiménez ruled Venezuela as a dictator from 1952 until 1958. Pérez Jiménez was overthrown in a military rebellion in early 1958, and a seven-member military junta took control in January 1958, after which elections were held, paving the way for democratic rule to resume in 1959.
During that roller coaster ride, its important to understand that Rockefeller’s Standard Oil was the dominant player in developing the Venezuelan oil industry and building it into the largest oil exporter in the world, a status it enjoyed until the Petrodollar explosion in the early 1970s. So, its fair to say that the Rockefeller Foundation’s eleemosynary activities were perhaps commercially inspired, though they were, nonetheless, a positive force in the country that was trying to adjust to the modern world. But Venezuela in the 1950s was much less indigenous than most other Latin American countries, particularly compared to countries in the Andean region and Mesoamerica. The indigenous population is statistically small, with about two-thirds of the population mestizo (of mixed European and indigenous ancestry) or mulatto-mestizo (African, European, and indigenous); about one-fifth of Venezuelans are of European lineage, and one-tenth have mainly African ancestry . Pure indigenous Amerindians comprise only around 2 percent of the population. Several factors contributed to this including Colonial devastation (mostly smallpox), geographic patterns (the country is coastal Caribbean and yet has the mountainous interior of the Orinoco), and then the waves of immigration from Europe (especially in the post-WWII years) that further diluted the indigenous percentage of the population.
Part of that migration pattern involved a lot of Italians, escaping fascism and/or their participation in it. Among those were my grandparents and their two sons…one of whom, Silvano Andre, met my mother in some club in Caracas one weekend night. I have a picture of the smooth-dude Italian with his slicked black hair and his linen zoot suit, chatting up this sweet young, idealistic woman from Upstate New York who was trying to do good while having a bit of fun. The rest is family history. They married in 1949 and had three kids over the next five years, the last of which was me (Kathy was born in Ithaca, NY, Barbara was born in Caracas, and I was born on home leave in Florida…thereby establishing my American citizenship…and ability to run for President in the future…).
While my mother was busy saving the world, my father was trying to ingratiate himself with Pérez Jiménez to get infrastructure building contracts, all while our German/Venezuelan governess, Maria, was raising us kids in bilingual Venezuelan culture. We left Venezuela as a family in 1958, but returned to the region within a year (sans father, who was busy Californiarizing himself with a new wife) to live in nearby Costa Rica. During those times, we did visit the grandparents in Venezuela and my mother was busy trying to sell property and her golf club membership in Maracay (as I said, it was a time of great contrasts).
The next time I was in Venezuela was 1986 when I travelled there as the head of my bank’s Latin American operations, trying hard to reclaim $4 billion of sovereign debt that had been lent to countries like Venezuela, ostensibly to aid development, but really so banks could recycle their excess Eurodollar deposits from Middle Eastern oil exporters that were eating Venezuela’s oil exporting lunch. Is it any wonder that these loans were misappropriated by corrupt politicians in places like Venezuela and eventually put into suitcases to participate in massive capital flight to places like Miami? Of note was that in 1992 I was put in charge of our bank’s global private banking business, trying hard to get our market share of those suitcases of money to reinvest…and the world just keeps on turning with ever-growing contradictions.
Today we are heading to Windsor Castle with some friends, among whom is a pal who is Venezuelan by birth and American by naturalization (via Miami…though I don’t think he arrived in a suitcase…). The news is filled with yet more news of politicians fucking with Venezuela and Venezuelans. While Nicolás Maduro ravages the economy after a dozen years in power following his mentor Hugo Chávez’s dozen years of kleptocracy, Donald Trump, who feels put-upon by only having had five years in office and ten years in “power” and having only stolen several of the many billions of dollars he plans to gather, the southern Caribbean and Venezuela are again the latest playground for politicians trying to extend their natural political lives and garner their not-inconsiderable wealth. Meanwhile, Trump’s other big distraction play (other than his bogus drug enforcement action on small Venezuela fishing boats) has his ICE-led Gestapo forces rounding up any illegal aliens or legal citizens who have any affiliation with Venezuela. Our pal loses sleep over his “Born in Venezuela” notated U.S. Passport (his second in his decades of citizenship) and those moments when he goes back to his home from travel abroad through whatever customs and immigration people are staffing the airport of his arrival.
So, last night, I awoke in a light sweat with my first nightmare in a long time. I was being rousted by an immigration agent asking me about my youthful and parental connections to Venezuela. He told me it was all a very “serious” issue. And then I calmed down because I remembered that I am in process for dual Italian citizenship…and the world just keeps on turning with ever-growing contradictions.