ABSTRACT
The Anglo-American hegemons considered the Villarroel regime a threat to the Allied war effort. Counterrevolutionary schemes were afoot. The forged “Belmonte letter” was a strand in a propaganda web spun by British agents to deceive the US State Department and induce President Franklin Roosevelt to enter the war and prevent a German invasion of the British Isles. The British propaganda campaign sought the overthrow of the Villarroel regime and the return of the Rosca to assure control of the strategic raw materials. The National Revolution was dedicated to the reclamation of Bolivian sovereignty as stipulated in both the RADEPA and MNR statements of principles. The Anglo-American plan for the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, executed seven years after the overthrow of the Villarroel regime, reveals marked similarities with the Bolivian experience: both nationalist governments were committed to the perilous mission of redressing the problems of underdevelopment through the exercise of sovereign rights to recover control of subsoil resources.
