The Colonel's Case

Almost before catching his breath in Havana, Venezuela's exiled President Romulo Gallegos had begun dishing out the blame for his downfall (TIME, Dec. 13). His most sensational charge involved "the notorious presence" of a foreign military attache at a Caracas barracks during the army uprising.

Last week Gallegos, still smarting, went the whole hog and named a name. The man, he said, was Colonel Edward F. Adams, U.S. military attache at Caracas. As a powerful supporter of the Pan American principle of nonintervention, the U.S. had to clear itself of the embarrassing Gallegos charge of meddling in Venezuelan politics.

Washington and the U.S. embassy in Caracas quickly set the matter straight. Colonel Adams had visited both the Ministry of National Defense and Miraflores Palace on the day of the coup, but his sole purpose was to get information about Lieut. Colonel Frank P. Bender, U.S. air attache, overdue on a search mission for a lost U.S. Army plane.

With the smoke blown away, two things seemed clear: Colonel Adams' visits might have been unfortunately timed, but were scarcely conspiratorial; ex-President Gallegos sounded like a man whose understandable sense of shock and political injustice had overbalanced his usual sense of judgment.

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