Big Snatch?

Bolivia last week had a kidnapping and a Presidential election. Of the two, the kidnapping stirred up the bigger sensation.

In broad daylight, fabulously rich Mauricio Hochschild, most political of Bolivia's three great tin magnates, got into a car with Adolfo Blum, his general mani ager. They drove to the Chilean Embassy in a suburb of La Paz to get a visa so Hochschild could go to Chile. Then they vanished, leaving only an empty car and an echoing mystery.

Wild rumors flew round Bolivia: Don Mauricio was in New York, was dead, was held by enemies. His tin company offered a reward of one million bolivianos ($23,000), but no news came of his whereabouts. One theory: Hochschild was murdered or kidnapped by friends of Labor Leader Jose Antonio Arze, his longtime enemy and short-time political ally, who was shot and nearly killed a few weeks ago. Another: Bolivian nationalists, who hate the big tin interests, resented the Government's letting Hochschild out of jail (for connection with an attempted revolution), and giving him permission to leave the country.

During the excitement, the Bolivian Congress met as an Electoral College. After some tense maneuvering, it promoted Provisional President Gualberto Villarroel to legal President. The relation between the election and Hochschild's disappearence, though rumored, did not leak out through tight Bolivian censorship.

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