Caracas Chronicles

This is a story, shaped by real events, about my time in Venezuela as a U.S. Army Attaché (1999–2002). Some names, places, and details have been adjusted—either to protect individuals, respect official boundaries, or reflect the way memory bends with time. Like all stories told long after the events, this one lives somewhere between what happened, what was remembered, and what can still be said.

I arrived in Caracas in June 1999, just after Hugo Chávez won the presidency. It was a magical time in Venezuela. The weather was perfect, the people were vibrant and hopeful, and the new president had captivated the nation. There were parades, concerts, and ceremonies that filled the city with energy. Sometimes it felt like the very streets of Caracas were breathing, alive with the dreams and illusions of a new beginning.

My schedule as Army Attaché quickly became overloaded with events—three to four a week, including evenings—but I didn’t mind. The Venezuelans were warm, funny, and generous. They loved to gather, tell jokes, drink, and laugh. There was a brightness to life that felt contagious.

At most public events, Chávez was the immediate center of attention.
He usually showed up late and was quickly surrounded by a crowd.
Especially at military functions, the younger officers pressed around him like disciples.

He had a way of talking with people.
You could see it up close or from across the room.
When he spoke to a group, he always singled out individuals—finding a way to connect with each one.
Family, hometown, baseball—something small but personal that made them feel they mattered, that their moment with him was different from anyone else’s.

At first, I kept to the edges, watching. Interested, but cautious.

One night, I heard him talking baseball. That was my opening.
I called out a question about the Yankees and Mariano Rivera.

He stopped, looked over, and grinned.
”Ah, el gringo sabe de béisbol,” he said.

He motioned me into the circle.
And just like that, it began.
After that, whenever he spotted me at an event, he’d wave and say, “Let the gringo colonel come over.” We’d talk baseball, always baseball. He knew every stat, every rivalry, every legendary player from both Venezuela and the United States.
When he spoke about the Caracas-Magallanes rivalry, it sounded less like sports and more like a campaign from a long-ago war.

But after the warm-up, the tone would always shift.

“Why does your president hate me?” he’d ask.

I stuck to the line. “He doesn’t hate you.”

“Then why won’t he meet with me?”

“That’s above my pay grade,” I’d say. “I’m here to represent the Army.”

He never let it drop.

By then, I had already built a relationship with a senior Venezuelan military officer. We met often, away from the noise, talking about what was happening inside the country.
He knew Chávez well—knew his moods, his strengths, his blind spots. Through him, I started to understand how divided the armed forces were, and just how much uncertainty there was beneath the surface.

A message for Bush

One evening, at a private dinner in this officer’s home, a man introduced himself to me as a psychiatrist. He said he had treated Chávez after the failed 1992 coup. He told me how Chávez had furnished his prison cell with two chairs and a small table—and how, for hours, he would sit and talk with the spirit of Simón Bolívar, who, he claimed, occupied the other chair. The psychiatrist said it without a hint of doubt.
In Caracas, where history and myth often shared the same breath, it almost made sense.

From time to time, word would reach me: “The man would like to meet.”

It would always happen the same way.
At a military ceremony, or some embassy event, an aide would find me quietly.
We would slip away, to a different location each time—an apartment, a quiet office, a government building after hours.

And there it was again: Chávez and me, sitting across from each other, the aide hovering just outside of earshot, ready to jump in if needed.

He always called me Ronald. Always opened with baseball. Always gracious. Then he’d turn serious. U.S.-Venezuelan relations. Latin America’s future. He said he wanted a quiet channel, someone outside the diplomatic noise. He asked that our conversations remain private. I agreed.

The private meeting was scheduled for 10 a.m. on September 11, 2001, but it never happened. That morning, the world changed.

This continued through 1999 and 2000. By 2001, the meetings slowed. He was consumed with governance. But that summer, he called again. He had a favor to ask.

He wanted me to help arrange a visit to Washington. He had an urgent message to deliver to President George W. Bush. He wouldn’t say what it was, only that it was sensitive. I told him I couldn’t arrange such a visit on my own. He nodded and summoned his aide to prepare authorizations for four Venezuelan officers to accompany me—an official visit, with an unofficial meeting quietly built in.

Everything was set. I traveled to Washington with the Venezuelan delegation. The private meeting was scheduled for 10 a.m. on September 11, 2001, but it never happened. That morning, the world changed.

In the aftermath of 9/11, there were efforts to reschedule. But the urgency had evaporated. The U.S. turned inward. Other priorities took hold. Later visits were official, polite, carefully choreographed. But the personal appeal—Chávez’s request to meet Bush—remained unanswered.

And slowly, the door closed.

The perfect storm

Behind the formal visits, something else was brewing.
The military was restless. Corruption was everywhere. In my visits with senior officers, I saw what passed for normal.
A general approving a $28,000 payment to a jeweler for his girlfriend’s capricious buys.
Another signing off on a new car, paid for with government funds.
No secrecy. No shame. Just a shrug and a laugh.

I remember one general turning to me after signing the paperwork, giving me a crooked smile:
”What can I say? She’s beautiful.”

I traveled with another official who liked to window-shop through Washington’s upscale malls.
He’d never buy anything while I was there.
But later, his aide would go back and buy whatever he had admired—always cash, always from public accounts. When I asked about it once, the aide just shrugged.
”He works hard,” he said. “He deserves a few small tokens.”

It wasn’t hidden. It wasn’t even unusual.
It was just how the system worked—and everyone seemed to think it would always be that way.

Meanwhile, the whispers of rebellion were getting louder.
Between September 11, 2001, and April 2002, I met regularly with different factions who claimed to lead the opposition to Chávez.
Some were nothing but talk.
But there was one group that had real leadership—and a real plan.
They weren’t just whispering anymore.
They were making lists of people to be detained. Plotting which media outlets to seize. Deciding which military units needed to be brought under control.

For the first time, it felt serious.

The U.S. position was clear: if you overthrow a democratically elected president, expect non-recognition and sanctions.

They responded, “We don’t want your blessing. We want you to understand why we act, so you won’t have to do what you say.”

Revolts have rhythms. In December 2001, one general presented a full timeline. Then another raised a hand and said, “We can’t do this over the holidays. Christmas and New Year’s will make it hard.”

Momentum stalled. It restarted in January. Then it paused again for Carnival. I remember thinking: They want to overthrow their democratically elected president, but not if it interferes with the holidays? By then, I doubted they were serious enough to succeed.

There was another option—a respected civilian politician with a strong following. I met with him often. One night, we went to dinner. When he entered Tarzilandia, the popular restaurant in Caracas, the entire room stood and applauded. It was electric. We talked many times about a transition. He never budged. “I was born into a democracy,” he told me, “and I’m not going to be the one to end it.”

Still, he remained a powerful voice of opposition. I always suspected there was more to his calculation. I thought Chavez had some power over him, something personal, but it made no difference. He just never acted—was it all just talk?

When the military option came in April 2002, it failed spectacularly.

Points of no return

The opposition didn’t fail for lack of passion or purpose. They failed because of vanity. Each man wanted to lead. None wanted to follow. They whispered behind each other’s backs more than they conspired against Chávez. And in the end, they lost. And the country lost with them.

Chavez came back with a vengeance and Venezuela started down a long path to personal destruction that continues today.

I would be remiss if I didn’t disclose two things.

First, what prompted me to write this now was the untimely death of the civilian politician I believed could have changed the course of Venezuelan history. I wanted one more conversation with him—to talk about what could have been, and to ask once again why he didn’t step forward when the people were clamoring for change. While we were coordinating the meeting, he fell seriously ill and passed away. I will always regret not calling him sooner.

Second, I was drawn into the rebellion against Chávez—both in the media and in government circles. On the second day of the coup against him, I received a call from one of the senior leaders of the rebellion. He asked me to come to Fuerte Tiuna, the main military installation in Caracas. They wanted to ask for my help.

I got permission from the embassy to go and listen. When I arrived, it was clear the rebellious troops had secured the fort. Inside the main building, I was led into an auditorium packed with senior officers—dozens of them. They were shouting over each other, arguing about how to handle Chávez and his close associates.

I had been photographed at Fuerte Tiuna by the press. My picture made headlines for a few days, presented as evidence of U.S. complicity in the rebellion. But the truth? It wasn’t that at all.

Some wanted him forced out under duress. Others just wanted him out of the country, quickly and quietly. I don’t think they intended for me to see that level of internal division, but we just stumbled into the scene. 

Eventually, I met with the senior officer that had called me. He asked me to convey a message to the U.S. ambassador: the opposition wanted the ambassador to mediate Chávez’s departure by sitting at a table with both sides until an agreement could be reached on who could leave, how much they could take, and when they could depart.

I delivered the message. The ambassador consulted with Washington, and the decision came back: the U.S. would not mediate directly. Instead, we recommended that a respected religious leader in Venezuela take on the role.

We never learned how far that idea got. But Chávez returned. So, clearly, it didn’t go the way the opposition hoped.

I had been photographed at Fuerte Tiuna by the press. My picture made headlines for a few days, presented as evidence of U.S. complicity in the rebellion. But the truth? It wasn’t that at all. Still, I was declared an “enemy of the state.” The Chávez government even built displays to each of us—Venezuelans and foreigners alike—with our supposed crimes engraved. They were placed in Parque Bolívar.

I couldn’t resist, so one day I went to the park to see what I looked like as an enemy of the state.
When I stood beside my display in Parque Bolívar, it felt less like a symbol of oppression and violence against the people, and more like a relic of a failed regime—a regime that refused to fade into history, where it belonged.

In Caracas, nothing ever truly ends—not revolutions, not rebellions, not even memories, and especially not the bittersweet taste that is life for millions of Venezuelans today. A few months later, as I was preparing to leave Venezuela, I asked the Venezuelan colonel in charge of military diplomats what it really meant to be an “enemy of the state.” I asked if that meant I could come back someday—maybe in two or five years.

He was clearly agitated at my impertinence, but leaned in, looked me straight in the eye, and said:

“Don’t ever return to Venezuela.”

I haven’t been back since.

And if you wonder, when you reach the end of this story, whether what you have just read is real, know this: it is no longer just my story. It belongs to you now. Whether you believe it or not, it now lives where all stories of times and places that no longer exist find themselves—somewhere between what happened, what was remembered, and what was lost along the way.