Early in August, Assistant Secretary of State Braden candidly explained the U.S. position to the new Bolivian ambassador, Ricardo Martínez Vargas, his longtime friend and a former member of Patiño’s board of directors: the State Department, though “favorably impressed by the composition and declared objectives of the junta” and desiring to aid and extend recognition to it, could not do so until both “adequate police control in La Paz” was established and the asylum situation was resolved. Martínez Vargas countered by suggesting that any “genuine, unanimous popular uprising of the people” was bound to “result in a strong demand that ‘criminals be brought to justice’ ” but agreed to impress upon the junta that “its good name abroad” and recognition could not be “disconnected” from the treatment of those seeking asylum.7 Monje eventually relented despite his desire to see the supporters of Villarroel tried and punished. Under pressure from both Buenos Aires and Washington, members of the junta approached the Tripartite Committee and apparently asked that it respect the sanctity of embassies. The students agreed and went so far as to act as embassy guards; they were even given soldiers to command.8
For Ambassador Flack and the State Department, this was “unequivocal evidence” of the junta’s authority and a “great credit” to its members. Indeed, Flack believed that this “commendable demonstration of authority” was also
a sufficient pretext for the United States to accord immediate recognition, which would create a “distinctly favorable psychological moment . . . beneficial to the junta in the maintenance of public order.” President Truman agreed. Monje and the junta continued to pleasantly surprise the Truman administration, by allowing MNR members to go into exile, by calling elections for the beginning of 1947, and what was perhaps most significant, by announcing on 11 October that none of their number would run for office, guaranteeing at least a modicum of impartiality.9
To support the new regime, U.S. diplomats found themselves at odds with their counterparts in La Paz, especially the Brazilians, who “had asked that we go slow, mainly for the purpose of not encouraging revolutions and the spilling of so much blood.” Indeed, weeks after U.S. recognition was secured, it became clear the junta’s control over even La Paz was far from complete. On 27 September, Luis Oblitas, a deranged young ex–army officer, burst into the Palacio Quemado brandishing a gun and threatened to kill Monje. According to Time, “the President, unbuttoning his vest and spreading his arms,” told Oblitas, “Fire. I am here by the will of the people.” When Oblitas hesitated, he was immediately arrested by the police. A mob quickly formed, seized the soldier, and hanged him from a lamppost in the Plaza Murillo; Monje and his compatriots were reduced to the role of “spectators.” Not content, the mob then stormed a prison and seized Major Jorge Enguino and Captain José Escobar, the officers accused of perpetrating the 1944 Oruro executions. After each being given a bottle of Coca-Cola, they were shot and then also hanged from the lampposts. In the words of Mesa Gisbert, “no authority impeded this new aberration.”10 In seeking quick recognition to bolster the return of liberal constitutional oligarchy, the State Department had, in the end, cared little about the degree of control the junta actually had.
Nonetheless, recognition did pave the way for emergency food shipments, military sales, and the final ratification of Ambassador Andrade’s tin contract—all of which would strengthen the authority of the new government. Ambassador Flack had done what he could to ensure that the oligarchs of the junta and not the popular forces of the Tripartite Committee gained legitimacy and control over La Paz and the nation. While he was exuberantly hailing the newly recognized government as an “irreparable blow” to the “formation of an anti–United States bloc so dear to Perón’s heart,” his superiors were acting to ensure that postrevolutionary Bolivia did not succumb to counterrevolution or Argentine pressure.11
Although U.S. nonrecognition of the new government had been as benign, supportive, and short as it could be, initial signs suggested that the Argentines were taking advantage of the transition period “by creating a food crisis” and “general economic chaos,” either to foment a counterrevolution or simply to avenge Villarroel. Immediately after the revolution, Bolivian diplomats in Buenos Aires reported rumors that Peronists might “besiege” Bolivia “through hunger.” In the next weeks, Argentine food shipments to Bolivia did indeed drop “off sharply” and ceased altogether on 7 August, for fear of “uprisings of miners and Indians,” according to Argentine diplomats, but there was far more to the story.12 Later in August, Peronists closed the border with Bolivia entirely and stopped issuing export permits; this created a “critical situation” that was “worsen[ing] by the day.” In the most notorious case, Argentine customs officials turned back twelve rail cars of wheat bound for Bolivia. Bolivian diplomats first concluded that these steps were part of a concerted Argentine policy until Perón’s foreign minister convinced at least some of them that Argentina was simply following the U.S. lead on nonrecognition.13
As the situation became “much more grave” by the day, however, the Bolivian chargé in Buenos Aires, Ernesto Daza Ondarza, seems to have spent every waking moment trying to ascertain the real reason critically needed food was not crossing the border. Periodic shortfalls in Argentine grain and meat shipments to Bolivia were nothing new; these had grown more pronounced toward the end of the war. Now, however, Argentine diplomats were placing blame for the recent “suspension of transport to Bolivia . . . exclusively [on] the grave transportation problem from which Argentina suffer[ed].” Several officials pointed to a shortage of rolling stock; others suggested that a recent sixty-day campaign to reduce the cost of living in Argentina was draining off food originally destined for export to other South American nations. One railway official taking this view told the chargé that nothing could be done without a direct order from Perón’s cabinet. The director general of transportation explained that Argentine railways had deteriorated and that the line into Bolivia was in “the poorest condition of all the rail lines in Argentina.” He assured Daza Ondarza, however, that he would contact Perón to obtain permission to ship “all that Bolivia needs.” Perón apparently responded with an order that “special preference” was to be given to rail shipments bound, not for Bolivia, but for export overseas to Europe.14
When Chargé Daza Ondarza approached Argentine customs officials, they expressed surprise that wheat and meat were being held up at the border, noting that only certain minor products were subject to export prohibitions. They directed him to Minister of Industry and Commerce Rolando Lagomarsino, who could reopen the border with a stroke of the pen. Lagomarsino, in a manner Daza Ondarza described as “Florentine,” claimed to be “very surprised” at this “new development” and directly contradicted the customs officials. Such contradictions and apparently deliberate obfuscations supported the thesis that the Argentines were simply applying pressure on the junta, but it remained unclear toward what end. As the State Department noted wryly: Perón had “Bolivia over a barrel” but was “nimble” and “adroit enough to put on, from all outward appearances, an irreproachable front.”15
After weeks of bureaucratic runaround and deepening shortages, Chargé Daza Ondarza believed he had finally discovered the real source of the problem. Well aware of Peronist “sympathy with the fallen government” and the daily “attacks on the Bolivian revolution” that appeared in the peronista press organs, he had long suspected “political factors.” And, indeed, after giving him yet another recitation of the sad state of Argentine railways and yet another round of “assurances and promises,” a deputy minister of foreign affairs asked Daza Ondarza “about those seeking asylum.” When the Bolivian responded by asking whether this was not the “essence