I met Colonel Alejandro Von Eckstein under rather unusual circumstances. In 1987, in Paraguay, our relationship with the Paraguayan government was not exactly good. The Paraguayan President Alfredo Stroessner did not like our ambassador and officials from the embassy had practically no contact with anyone from Stroessner's inner circle. We had an army Colonel who was the head of our MilGroup, the Military Mission to Paraguay (not the Defense Attache's Office) who was friendly with Stroessner, but our ambassador had him removed, sent back to Washington, for some breach in protocol. So, for all practical purposes, we had no one who knew anything about what was going on in Stroessner's palace, which incidentally, was practically next to the U.S. Embassy compound!
I won't go into details on how the meeting took place. The meeting in itself would make another story. Suffice it to say that our initial meeting was not exactly friendly. But, amazingly, the tone and nature of the meeting changed completely when I addressed him in Russian. We at least had enough intelligence on him to know that he was of Russian-German background, so I decided to speak to him in Russian rather than in Spanish, since it was very hard to follow his heavily accented Spanish anyway! On hearing me speak Russian, his demeanor changed completely, from an angry, confrontational person to a smiling, friendly individual. It was amazing! He quickly concluded whatever he came to say and instead shifted from business to a social meeting. He invited me to lunch at a popular German restaurant in town called El Caballito Blanco (it means "The Little White Horse" in Spanish), which also served Russian food of sorts. So I met him for lunch and he told me his story.
Von Eckstein was born Alexander Von Ecstein of ethnic German parents in Baltic region of Russia. He attended Russian schools, received some early military training through Kadetsky Korpus (Cadet Corps), a system of military education that existed in pre revolutionary Russia. However, he was but about 12 years old when the revolution broke out and he and his parents escaped west to France, so he really didn't get much of military training! In Paris he attended newly established Russian schools and finished his education by the time he was 18. He knocked around in various jobs but then eagerly volunteered to go to Paraguay in 1932 to fight for Paraguay. He was in his 20s at the time. He arrived with the second batch of White Russians recruited by Paraguayan government to fight for them in the Chaco War.
He received a commission as a lieutenant in the Paraguayan army and assigned along with other Russians to fight in northwestern region of Paraguay that borders Bolivia. This is a very inhospitable, desert region that is called Chaco. So, along with about 100 other Russians, he joined in the fight and spent the next two years or so in the Chaco bush fighting a guerrilla war against the Bolivian army. He steadily rose in rank and by the time the war was concluded, he was a Captain in the Paraguayan army. During the war, he befriended a Paraguayan lieutenant by the name of Alfredo Stroessner while the two were recuperating in a field hospital from wounds received in battle. He never thought at the time that his friendship with the then unknown lieutenant would prove to be beneficial to him later.
After the Chaco war, Von Eckstein stayed in the army for a short time, then decided to get out and try his hand in other things. He took Paraguayan citizenship, changed his name to Alejandro and worked around in different jobs. Then, as luck would have it, he met a well to do Paraguayan girl and fell in love. The two married and Von Eckstein was pretty well set financially since his wife came from a wealthy land owning family. In the meantime, Stroessner rose in rank in the army, but was dissatisfied with the government. The Paraguayan Civil War broke out in the late 1940s and in the 1950s Alfredo Stroessner conducted a coup d'état and took over as the President of Paraguay. Von Eckstein maintained friendly contact with the new president of the country, but he had no interest in working for the government.
In 1970s Von Eckstein was invited to the Presidential Palace and Stroessner asked him to return to the army and work for him as the Chief of Palace Security. The job was purely ceremonial, what Stroessner wanted was someone who spoke Russian. By the 1970s, he had no one in the army or government service who could speak Russian, so he asked his old friend to help him. Von Eckstein agreed and that is how he became the oldest active duty Colonel in the Paraguayan army when I met him.
His adventures during the Chaco War were fascinating and I learned much about the Chaco War that I would have never learned otherwise. Von Eckstein even authored a little book about his experiences during the Chaco War, written in Spanish, no doubt with the help of his wife. He loaned me his personal photo album of Chaco War that was full of incredible photographic history of that war. My wife Jo and I pored over that album, fascinated by what we saw.
I left Paraguay in the summer of 1988. In the fall of 1988, the Commanding Officer of the Paraguayan First Cavalry Division, General Rodriguez, a lifelong friend of Alfredo Stroessner, led a coup that ousted Stroessner who fled to Brazil. All of Stroessner's cronies were either arrested or had fled. Somehow, Von Eckstein was left alone. Always a survivor, he seemed to be OK when he called me from Paraguay. I was in Ecuador at the time and his called came as a total surprise. Von Eckstein asked me if I could arrange to have some of his friends receive U.S. visas if they came to Ecuador! I told him that was not possible. He sighed deeply over the phone, told me that I could make a lot of money, that these people were willing to pay a lot for U.S. visas! No doubt his "commission" on this deal would have been substantial! I told him that it was still no go! I then asked him if he was OK, and he said that he was fine, that Rodriguez "owed" him so he would not be touched. That was the last time I spoke to him or heard anything from him. He is no doubt dead by now, but what a character, what a survivor! As for Paraguay, what country! I will discuss other interesting aspects of Paraguay in future blogs.
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