Having recently returned from the Middle East, I was no longer a neophyte traveler. Even so, I can say honestly that going to new places far from Texas was thrilling and quite edifying. This four-part trip required a good deal of advance planning, and yet it all worked out. I met with and interviewed Alejandro Junco de la Vega in Mexico City, Enrique Gonzalez Colombari in San José, Costa Rica, Fernando Belaúnde Terry in Lima, Peru and Victor Hugo Limpias Ortiz in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Junco, Gonzalez and Limpias were men with fascinating life histories, but I am going to focus here on Belaúnde.
Like the other three, Belaúnde was a graduate of the University of Texas. He had earned an architecture degree in 1935 and went on to live in Mexico City and Paris, designing fancy houses, writing, speaking and gaining adherents. Back in Lima after a long exile due to his father’s political activities, he ran for president in 1956 and nearly won; some people say Belaúnde’s main opponent stole the election. In any event, he was elected in 1963, was deposed, sent into exile—again—and came back to win the 1980 election. Belaúnde finished his second term and was not run out of town at the point of a gun. He was given countless honors along the way and graced the cover of Time magazine on March 12, 1965.
As with my earlier visit to Cairo, the U.S. State Department had warned American citizens against visiting Lima. Robberies, murders and car bombings by Shining Path guerillas kept many people away. Not me. I had to see this famous and historic city and meet the former president. Maybe I was lucky, but I never had the slightest trouble during my three days there.
That’s not quite true since I had trouble with Belaúnde himself. I was fully prepared, with more than three pages of questions and topics for us to discuss. Well accustomed to being interviewed and deciding how he should be portrayed in the media, he seemed oblivious to my predicament. I had come a very long way to see Belaúnde, but he found ways of avoiding questions. Once, he and his wife invited me to a high-class social gathering. I do not deny that it was pleasant and enjoyable, but it stole precious time from our tape-recorded sessions. In another instance, in his office, he was clearly stalling, aware that I needed to get to the airport and fly to La Paz. Belaunde was flipping through a book that showed houses his government had built: “Here are some houses we built, here are some more houses we built…” etc. Highly displeased, I went to the window and gazed outside. Terribly rude behavior, but I had to do something to bring him back to the task at hand.
Oh, I fondly remember several scenes from that trip. Quite a hubbub arose in my little hotel, the Hostal Torreblanca, the first time Belaúnde and his driver arrived to pick me up. He and I bought bottles of a soft drink called Inca Kola and sat on a bench overlooking the bright blue Pacific Ocean, just chatting. And then there was the tour he gave me of downtown Lima, known at various times as the City of Kings, the City of Gardens and the City of Balconies. Its architecture was quite impressive, and don't forget—he had studied architecture at UT. Belaúnde’s driver took us to the Presidential Palace, the Plaza de Armas (where he once gave a speech to 200,000 people), the Archbishop’s Palace and so on. I walked with him in and around these buildings, and several people came rushing out of nearby houses to greet him and shake his hand. Others were snapping photographs of el jefe pasado (“the former boss”) and his North American visitor. Now that was interesting!
Add Comment