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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.***

Helicopter Crash***CARACAS, Venezuela - The man newly named to head Venezuela's Air Force in the wake of a failed coup against President Hugo Chavez has died in a helicopter crash along with three other generals, adding to the turmoil in the nation's armed forces. The armed forces on Saturday confirmed a Globovision television report that Gen. Gen. Luis Alfonso Acevedo had died. The television report said nine other soldiers had died in the crash late Friday night in a forested area about 15 kilometers (10 miles) north of the capital. Officials said bad weather was the likely cause.

Also killed were Gens. Pedro Torres Finol, Julio Ochoa Omana and Rafael Quintana Bello, as well as a captain, three lieutenants and two sergeants. Two other helicopters carrying army Commander in Chief Lucas Rincon and National Guard commander Gen. Francisco Belisario Landis were also forced to land, but none were injured in those craft.

The officers had attended a ceremony installing a new Navy chief, Vice Admiral Fernando Camejo Arenas. Chavez reshuffled the high command after he was ousted in a coup April 12 and reinstated on Sunday.***