While a student at the University of Caracas, Betancourt was jailed (1928) for his activities against the dictatorial regime of Juan Vicente Gómez. Released after a few weeks, he continued to demonstrate against Gómez and was exiled, remaining abroad until 1936. During this period he wrote a book about his experiences and briefly joined the Communist Party in Costa Rica.
He returned to Venezuela in 1937 but was again exiled in 1939; he was permitted to return in 1941, in which year he helped found Acción Democrática, a left-wing anti-Communist party that came to power in 1945 following a coup against the government of Gen. Isaias Medina Angarita.
Appointed provisional president after the coup, Betancourt established a new constitution and inaugurated a program of moderate social reform, providing land for the peasants and exercising greater control over the petroleum industry. He resigned in 1948 to permit the election of a successor, but a coup a few months later, led by Marcos Pérez Jiménez, drove him once again into exile.
Betancourt spent the next 10 years in the United States, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Costa Rica, directing the remnants of the outlawed Acción Democrática. Jiménez was overthrown in 1958, and Betancourt returned to Venezuela and was elected president. Harassed by pro-Cuban Communists on one side and frightened conservatives on the other, he steered a middle course, passing an agrarian law to expropriate large estates, initiating an ambitious program of public works, and fostering industrial development to prevent complete dependence on petroleum revenues. He retired as president in 1964 and lived for eight years in self-imposed exile in Switzerland, finally returning to Venezuela in 1972 and campaigning unsuccessfully for reelection to the presidency in 1973. At the time of his death he was visiting New York City.
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