Under the Rubber Tree

So long (20 years) has Juan Vicente Gomez been Dictator-President of Venezuela that when he positively and repeatedly refused to circumvent his country's constitution "just once more" and accept a fourth term (TIME, May 13), the Venezuelan Congress knew not what to do. Visions of impending revolution, rapine and pillage beset the leaderless legislators. Bundling into motor busses, they rode out again last week from Caracas to Maracay, where the old Dictator, now 72, holds court on his model farm, a Latin-American George Washington at a tropical Mt. Vernon. Seated under his favorite rubber tree, the blue-spectacled Dictator listened to flattering, impassioned pleadings. At length he relented, partially. No, he would never be President again, not he, but he would remain Commander-in-Chief of the Army, if that would please his people.