[Cincinatus' Wife]

Chavez recoups his base***Nuñez, the lawyer, was at the Miraflores presidential palace April 12 when Carmona issued his decrees. He said the army's commander, Gen. Efrain Vasquez Velasco, who was a key figure behind the uprising, was flabbergasted. "He was very, very against the decrees. He said that he had to consult with other commanders about whether or not to support the new government," Nuñez said. Another problem was that Vasquez and other top officers who rebelled did not exercise direct control over troops. Instead of taking control of the Miraflores palace, arresting pro-Chavez officers and securing the countryside, they wasted time squabbling over political appointments, said Fernando Ochoa, a former defense minister.

By April 13, commanders of key military installations in Caracas and Maracay had declared their opposition to Carmona. As demonstrators took to the streets of Caracas and other cities to demand the return of Chavez, loyalist soldiers took control of the presidential palace. "I have never seen so many mistakes in so little time," said Tarre, the analyst.

Gen. Lucas Rincon, the overall commander of the armed forces who had earlier announced the president's resignation, proclaimed his loyalty to Chavez. Carmona was placed under arrest, and before dawn Sunday, Chavez was back in his old job. Nestor Gonzalez, an army general who had expressed support for the uprising, said the coup's failure will likely produce even more fractures within the armed forces. "It's hard to understand how a general can say one thing at one hour and the next hour say something else," Gonzalez told reporters. "The leadership is weak. It has no credibility."

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"We have legitimate reasons to feel proud of our armed forces," said Miguel Madriz, a retired lieutenant colonel who took part in Chavez's 1992 coup attempt and now directs the pro-government Fifth Republic Movement political party. Madriz believes that reports of dissent within the armed forces have been deliberately exaggerated by the opposition to confuse officers and foment unrest. He said he called 11 military commanders around the country during the uprising and that all of them backed Chavez. Yet talk on the streets of Caracas often centers not on whether the military will again rise up against Chavez, but on when. That kind of speculation concerns Cesar Gaviria, the secretary-general of the Organization of American States, who was dispatched to Venezuela last week to help resolve the crisis.***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Chávez's new moderation: True conversion or tactical retreat? Do you believe in miracles?*** Will Venezuela's populist President Hugo Chávez tone down his inflammatory rhetoric and stop harassing the press following the failed military coup that tried to topple him? Or will he become a full-blown dictator as soon as the world looks another way?

I have asked these questions to more than a dozen well-placed regional diplomats in recent days, after Chávez said he had learned a ''major lesson'' from the bloody events that shook his country April 12 and that he would set up a national reconciliation commission to seek an understanding with his political opponents.

Judging from what I heard, Chávez -- a former coup plotter who was elected in 1998 and vowed to stay in power until 2021 -- may go in any of the following directions.***