René Barrientos Ortuñ (1919-1969), populist Bolivian president from 1966 to 1969, identified himself with the forgotten Indian masses, allied Bolivia closely with the United States, crushed Che Guevara's guerrillas, and was killed in a mysterious helicopter crash.

René Barrientos Ortuño was born at Tarata, a village near Bolivia's second city, Cochabamba, on May 30, 1919. His father was of Spanish ancestry and his mother was Indian, and she ensured that her son's first language was Quechua, which would later endear him to a huge Indian constituency. Following the death of his father when he was very young, he was sent to a Franciscan orphanage, striking out when he was 12 and putting himself through a private high school by working odd jobs. Upon graduation, he entered the military academy in La Paz.

Before he could graduate, however, he was bitten by the political bug and was expelled for...