Hugo! Read Online Free PDF Page A

he announced in a seductive voice to
his wife on national television, "Marisabel, tonight you're going to get
yours." Venezuelans are among the friendliest and most outgoing people
in the world, and love to make jokes. In the barrios many found Chávez's
comment hilarious, although feminists overseas hardly chuckled.
    He hosted a weekly television and radio program named Hello, President . It was the only program in Latin America and perhaps the
world where ordinary citizens could call in and talk to their nation's
leader about their problems, live and nationwide. His shows went on for
hours, and so did many of his speeches. He sang songs on the program,
cracked jokes, recited poetry, reminisced about his childhood, announced
cabinet changes, launched policy initiatives, and quoted everyone from
Jesus Christ to Simón Bolívar toJohn Kenneth Galbraith.
    He trotted the globe. He threw out the first pitch at aNew York
Mets baseball game while wearing a warm-up jacket with Venezuela's
national colors. He rang the bell at theNew York Stock Exchange.
He sprinted along the Great Wall of China. He played baseball withCastro in Havana. He disarmed world leaders such asVladimir Putin,
dropping into a karate stance the first time he met the Russian leader to
show he knew Putin was a black belt.
    He was a gifted communicator and storyteller. EvenMichael Skol,
former US ambassador to Venezuela and no fan of Chávez, acknowledged
that "he has a charisma, an ability to speak and be impressive
and empathetic, which I have never seen the match of anywhere in
Latin America, or for that matter in the United States." He was a one-man
whirlwind,"Hurricane Hugo," sleeping barely a few hours a night,
working seven days a week, downing up to two dozen cups of espresso
a day to keep the adrenaline pumping, running his aides and allies
ragged with telephone calls at one or two o'clock in the morning. If
New York was the city that never slept, Chávez was the president who
never rested.
    Beneath the jokes and the songs and the pranks and the outrageous
comments was a profoundly serious man. He was on a mission
to change Venezuela and the world in the name of social justice. Even
his enemies could not doubt that his instinct to help was genuine, even
if they thought his approach was misguided. He spent years reading
voraciously and absorbing the thoughts of revolutionaries from Bolívar
to Mao to Ernesto "Che" Guevara. He wasn't easy to define. He was a
mix of many things: capitalism and socialism, conservative economics
and liberal social programs. When asked to define himself, he once said
simply, "I'm a revolutionary."
     
    He gave an unforgettable performance at theUnited Nations General
Assembly in September 2006, emerging onto the world stage for
good. In an appearance that rivaled Nikita Khrushchev famously
banging his shoe on the podium during an address in 1960, Chávez
calledGeorge W. Bush "the devil." He accused Bush of "talking as
if he owns the world," and suggested that a psychiatrist analyze his
speech of the previous day. "Yesterday, the devil came here. Right
here. Right here," Chávez said on the floor of the normally sedate
United Nations, setting off titters. "And it smells of sulfur still today,
this table that I am now standing in front of." He made a sign of the
cross, which in Venezuela is a common practice not only to show
one's Catholic faith but also to ward off evil spirits. Then he brought
his hands together as if praying and looked up at the ceiling. The
South American showman still wasn't finished. "Yesterday, ladies and
gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the
gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he
owned the world."
    The next day, invoking triumphant visits by his mentor Fidel Castro
in 1960 and 1965, Chávez traveled to Harlem. He addressed a throng of
cheering supporters in theMount Olivet Baptist Church, announcing
that he was more than doubling his program to