Vice Presidential Coup in Bolivia 1964

By 1964, Bolivian president Victor Paz Estenssoro had come to rely increasingly on the military, whose role as a peacekeeper had made it an arbiter in politics. But this support was to prove unreliable; the military was already planning to overthrow him. On November 4, 1964, the recently re-elected president was deposed by a military coup. Army General René Barrientos Ortuño, Paz Estenssoro's vice-president in the elected government, and air force General Alfredo Ovando Candia occupied the presidential palace and declared themselves co-presidents. But as the crowd, which had gathered outside the palace, persisted in shouting its preference for the more charismatic Barrientos, Ovando allowed Barrientos to assume the formal title alone, while he occupied the post of commander in chief of the armed forces.

Barrientos insisted that his assumption of power was not a counterrevolutionary move and promised to restore the revolution to its "true path," from which the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario -- MNR) had deviated during its twelve-year rule. Nevertheless, his government continued many of the policies of the second Paz Estenssoro administration, including the IMF stabilization plan and the Triangular Plan. The emphasis on reducing social costs remained in effect.

References

Timelines of War, 479; Military History, 146; Bolivia - A Country Study.

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