Cool Eye for Dictators

A U.S. District Court last week ordered Venezuelan ex-Dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez to stick close to his Miami Beach mansion for 60 days so that he can be in court when his successors make their case for extraditing him on charges of murder, embezzlement and complicity in murder and embezzlement. As the out-of-season strongman put up $25,000 bail, a Miami Beach neighbor, Radio Station Owner A. Frank Katzentine, squawked loudly: "If he is such a bum, why did the U.S. decorate him [in 1954] with the Legion of Merit?"

Perez Jimenez--bemedaled then, beset now--symbolizes a growing U.S. distaste for dictators. For decades the U.S. was accused of buttering up strongmen. Eager to thaw anti-Yankee Juan Peron, for example, the State Department sent Latin American Chief Henry Holland to Argentina in 1954 to toast the dictator for "purest sincerity." The U.S. propped Nicaragua's Anastasio ("Tacho") Somosa, who seized power after the Marines pulled out, on Franklin Roosevelt's theory that "he may be an s.o.b., but he's ours." In Peru, Military Strongman Manuel Odria got the Legion of Merit for running a tight economy. The reason for such friendly gestures was typically stated in Perez Jimenez' Legion of Merit citation. It commended him for his "spirit of friendship and cooperation" and for his "sound foreign-investment policies"--in a- word, for stability.

As dictators toppled in the past two years, the U.S. attitude shifted. By the time Vice President Nixon flew back from last year's Caracas stoning, he openly advocated nothing more than a cool, correct handshake for dictators. Milton Eisenhower made the recommendation even stronger in his report to his brother after a swing through Central America in mid-1958. "We have made some honest mistakes with dictators," said Milton. "For example, we decorated several of them. Whatever reason impelled us to take those actions, I think, in retrospect, we were wrong."

The U.S. received Perez Jimenez on a visitor's visa in 1958, after the temporary military regime that succeeded him gave him a diplomatic passport and officially requested a U.S. visa. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service began expulsion proceedings in March that were still going on last week, when Venezuela, now under elected President Romulp Betanceurt, finally applied for extradition. Under terms of a 1922 treaty, Venezuela must convince a U.S. federal court that the charges against Perez Jimenez are strong enough to warrant trial, and that the crimes are not political.

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