October 12, 1949

Caracas, Venezuela

"Terrorist for hire"

These ordinary people injured in a terrorist bombing have great power. Much influence. It manifests itself in what is called public opinion. They may not care about the Palestinians. They certainly don't care about some members of the Red Army [a Japanese terrorist group]. But throw a grenade among them and they care very much.

In 1949 in Caracas, Venezuela, when it came time for José Altagracia Ramirez Navas to choose a name for his first son, he went through the usual Spanish names and decided against all of them. Navas was determined that his son should bear the name of one of his personal heroes, and so he called him Ilich, after the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov (1870–1924), better known as Lenin. Perhaps baby Ilich's fate was sealed on the day of his naming, for he grew up to bedevil governments and...