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With unwavering backing from the liberal Alliance for Progress, President Víctor Paz proceeded to create a development-oriented authoritarian state, dedicated to the transformation of Bolivia into his vision of a modern nation. Left-wing and right-wing conspiracies against his government abounded in mid-1964, but the beleaguered reformer survived thanks in large part to the Johnson administration’s fierce resistance to a military coup. Relentless US pressure for the Paz regime to break diplomatic relations with Cuba, however, would pull the rug out from under Paz’s Machiavellian modus vivendi with domestic communism. As more factions on the Bolivian Left began warming the anti-Paz conspiracy, the country’s military leaders increasingly turned a deaf ear to Washington ’s injunctions. Facing a society in nearly total rebellion, Paz’s generals finally balked. Rather than turn their guns against their countrymen in the name of development, the Bolivian High Command pushed Paz Estenssoro to resign in early November 1964. Dozens of intricate conspiracies failed to bring down Bolivia’s Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR; Revolutionary Nationalist Movement) during its twelve years in power. For the country’s selfstyled revolutionary nationalists, it was cruel irony that they should fall to a halting, haphazard coup waged by one of their own, General René Barrientos. Bolivia’s Break with Cuba The Johnson administration was deeply frustrated by Bolivia’s refusal to break relations with Cuba. After Brazil’s new military leaders sent Cuban emissaries Chapter6 RevolutionaryBoliviaPutsOnaUniform The 1964 Bolivian Coup d’État 160 C H A P T E R 6 packing in April 1964, only four Latin American countries remained immune to US pressure: Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, and Bolivia. As the highest per capita recipient of Alliance for Progress funds, Bolivia’s insubordination was embarrassing, and US officials were unsympathetic to Paz’s claims that a break with Havana would push the Left further into a conspiratorial alliance with his right-wing enemies. President Paz had long seen his unspoken modi vivendi with Havana and the Bolivian Communist Party as a lynchpin in his survival strategy. His eventual capitulation revealed the extent to which the MNR’s revolutionary mysticism had been hollowed out in favor of technocratic ideologies of modernization and economic development. More important , Paz’s abrogation of his gentleman’s agreement with Havana pushed the remainder of Bolivia’s strongly pro-Cuban Left into open confrontation with his government. Just after Brazil’s military government broke relations with Cuba in April 1964, Ambassador Henderson explained to President Paz that sooner or later Paz would “have to face up to [the] anomaly of continued relations while committing himself to the Alliance for Progress.” The Bolivian president responded that there was talk in Washington of reconciliation with Castro, and he told Henderson that he did not want to break relations with Havana only to be “faced shortly thereafter with a new US-Cuban rapprochement.” Henderson recommended that Johnson write a personal letter to Paz, “correcting any misapprehension about [a] possible new trend in US policy and urging him to consider his position on Cuba in light of” the Brazilian coup d’état. He added that “Paz had responded well in the past to personal letters from US presidents and might be receptive presently to an approach on [the] Cuban issue.”1 Henderson even provided a draft letter that would highlight what he saw as the importance of economic development over political ideology, recommending that Johnson stress his “unswerving determination to carry forward the policies of the Alliance for Progress, dedicating all the resources we are able to apply to further our common objective.” The letter would then stress the “urgent need to take strong, meaningful actions” against Cuba for backing insurgency against Bolivia’s anticommunist neighbors. Henderson’s draft letter to President Paz went on to warn that, in its “campaign to bring about the overthrow of the governments of this hemisphere, [Cuba was] giving priority to governments that are striving for basic social and economic reforms,” and it implored Paz to help Washington “combat the threat of communist subversion so that the partners in the Alliance for Progress may devote even greater resources to the economic development and well being of our peoples.”2 R E V O L U T I O N A RY B O L I V I A P U T S O N A U N I F O R M 161 During a short trip to Washington in mid-July, Henderson held...

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