Autobiography - The Galindo Group

Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 71
service career. As I write this book, he is running for the position of Lieutenant
Governor, the second most powerful post in our state.
General Torres, more than any of his predecessors, allowed the acronymical
communists pretty much a free rein to do what they could to intimidate any opposition
from the right. I received threatening midnight phone calls with promises to beat me up,
kidnap my children, rape my wife and/or kill us all. Chuso’s house was bombed,
fortunately when everyone was at the back and no personal damage was inflicted.
Luckily, the threats against my family and me never became reality.
Barrientos was not the only high ranking officer who had lost his life after the defeat of
Guevara. General Zenteno, the field commander of the operation when Che fell, was
assassinated point blank in the streets of Paris, France shortly thereafter. Other junior
officers who had fought in that campaign and remained steadfast in their beliefs were
shunted away from the command of troops, including my cousin, Lt. Eduardo Galindo
whose battalion covered Guevara’s possible escape route. Most of the officers who had
fought well in the field quickly either became scared or effectively admitted that they
fought Guevara because he was a foreign invader and not because they disagreed with
his views. Even Gen. Torres was later assassinated in Buenos Aires, probably for
having failed to keep Bolivia in the communist orbit.
Despite all these fears, nay, because of them, the rumor mill was always full of hatching
plots under the direction of one general or another. Not many of the officers with
significant commands were willing to break with Army discipline and show an overt
inclination to fight against a total communist take-over that was obviously in the making.
We didn’t know with certainty who could be trusted.
Eventually an anticommunist coup was secretly scheduled for January 11, 1971. The
leaders were a general by the name of Valencia and one by the name of Banzer. Both
commanded the loyalty of important officers in the armed forces. Bolivia’s three main
cities are La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. The operation was coordinated to start
simultaneously in all three towns. Chuso and Bepi’s group was at the command center
in Cochabamba.
On the appointed morning Lucy appeared at the guardhouse of Cochabamba’s air base
before dawn to deliver the signals to the officer inside allied with us. In order to
persuade the guards at the gate that her intentions were not political, she dressed as a
very attractive vamp. She was a head-turning blue-eyed blonde with a great body
anyway, but when she was dressed as she did that morning nobody could think of
anything else but her. She had no difficulty drawing our contact to her jeep where she
passed on the adopted codes and schedules. Following the instructions thus delivered,
our officers controlled the air base without firing a shot and Chuso and Bepi and their
people took over the political prison and police headquarters, also without any
bloodshed.
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