Location: The Heritage Foundation's Allison Auditorium

Boosted by skyrocketing oil prices and unchecked power at home, President Hugo Chávez spends lavishly to subsidize oil for political pals, keeps the Cuban economy and the Castro brothers on life support, supports leftist movements across Latin America and intervenes unashamedly in foreign political campaigns.  In his effort to eradicate U.S. influence, Venezuela’s fiery president has established one of the most interventionist political operations in recent memory. 

The discovery by an Argentine custom official in August 2007 of a suitcase filled with $800,000 in cash destined for the Peronists was an embarrassment for Nestor Kirchner and now President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and resulted in judicial action in the United States.  It was highly illustrative of how Chávez’s new interventionism works.

After Colombian police recovered laptop computers of a key leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on March 1, evidence contained in the FARC files pointed to close ties of support, political and possibly financial and military, by Chávez for the narco-terrorist group that has bled Colombia for decades.

How does Chávez work overtly and covertly to win influence and support?  Has Chávez’s interventionism degenerated to support for international terrorists?  If so, how should the U.S. and the international community respond?