Falcón: A Fight for Democracy in the 1960s

Falc n is a work of fiction based on an actual event. In the 1960s, the Government of Cuba was in league with the Soviet Union to subvert democracy in the western hemisphere. Venezuela was an early target of that effort. On November 1, 1963, an area resident discovered an arms cache on a remote beach of the Paraguan peninsula. Bazookas, machine guns, and other weapons were destined for the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberaci n. The FALN were leftist guerrillas using kidnapping and armed attacks on civilians and security forces to force cancellation of national elections scheduled for December 1, 1963. Then a close ally of Venezuela, the United States provided technology, training, weaponry, and specialists such as a criminologist to beat back the FALN. In 1963, the author was working in the US AID mission in Caracas. He is a Fellow of the Organization of American States and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies in Washington.