page_title: Attack on Richard Nixon's motorcade
section_title: U.S. mobilization
hierarchical_section_title: Attack on Richard Nixon's motorcade / Tour in Venezuela / U.S. mobilization
caption_attribution_description: The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Tarawa (CVA-40) underway at sea on 18 December 1952. Note: the official description reads "... underway in the Mediterranea Sea, north of the Straits of Messina, Sicily, on 18 December 1952. She has F2H Banshee jet fighters on her catapults." However, this cannot be correct as Tarawa returned from the Mediterranean Sea to the U.S. on 11 June 1952 and left again on 7 January 1953. On neither deployment she carried F2H-2 Banshee fighters. Fighter Squadron 62 (VF-62) flew F2H-2 with the tail code "F" (as shown here). This was the tail code of Carrier Air Group 4 which was deployed to the Mediterranean Sea aboard USS Coral Sea (CVB-43), 19 April to 12 October 1952, and USS Lake Champlain (CVA-39), 26 April to 4 December 1953. Assuming that the date is correct, the carrier was working up for her coming deployment off the U.S. East Coast.
context_page_description: An attack on Richard Nixon's motorcade occurred in Caracas, Venezuela, during his 1958 goodwill tour of South America, undertaken while Nixon was Vice President of the United States. The attack on Nixon's car was called, at the time, the "most violent attack ever perpetrated on a high American official while on foreign soil". Close to being killed while a couple of his aides were injured in the melee, Nixon ended up unharmed and his entourage managed to reach the U.S. embassy. The visit took place only months after the overthrow of Venezuelan dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez, who was awarded the Legion of Merit and later granted asylum by the United States, and the incident may have been orchestrated by the Communist Party of Venezuela. U.S. Navy Admiral Arleigh Burke mobilized fleet and Marine units to the region, compelling the Venezuelan government to provide full protection to Nixon for the remainder of the trip.
  The attack was denounced by all major Venezuelan presidential candidates standing in that year's election, except for the incumbent leader Admiral Wolfgang Larrazábal.
context_section_description: Upon learning of the incident, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Arleigh Burke ordered the airlift of elements of the 2nd Marine Division and the 101st Airborne Division to staging areas in Puerto Rico and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The aircraft carrier USS Tarawa, along with eight destroyers and two amphibious assault ships, were ordered to put to sea towards Venezuela. The U.S. mobilization was code-named "Operation Poor Richard".
  According to U.S. officials at the time, the forces mobilized were being readied to enter Venezuela to "cooperate with the Venezuelan government", though later accounts suggest President Eisenhower was preparing to "invade Venezuela" should Nixon suffer further indignity. Privately, Eisenhower was reportedly furious at the attack on Nixon and, at one point, told his staff "I am about ready to go put my uniform on".
  Nixon was shocked after learning about the mobilization and wondered why they were not consulted, but later found out that communications between Caracas and Washington had been cut for a critical period immediately after the riot that afternoon.
  In response to the movement of American military forces into the region, Admiral Larrazábal pledged the Nixon party would be "protected fully" thereafter.
caption: A fleet of 12 ships centered on USS Tarawa, pictured here in 1952, was ordered to Venezuela once news of the attack on Nixon reached Washington
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