166 UTAH INTERNATIONAL: A BIOGRAPHY OF A BUSINESS record profits. In a desperate move, the beleaguered president devalued the nation’s currency, a move that backfired badly, prompting the opposition to demand that he raise revenues quickly. So Belaunde stepped up the pressure on IPC, which had decided it was in a fight it could not win. Accordingly it agreed in August 1968 to cede its oilfields to Peru. Unfortunately for Belaunde, this did not satisfy his critics, and the prospects of his re-election dimmed. To avoid an inevitable return to power of Haya de la Torre, the military again intervened, canceled the election, routed Belaunde out of his bed at two a.m, exiled him to Uruguay, and handed power to General Juan Velasco Alvarado. Among the general’s first acts was the complete expropriation of all of IPC’s Peruvian holdings. He also began to court favor with the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries, alarming the United States but thrilling Peruvians, now awash in leftist propaganda. Although these developments blew an ill wind for multinationals in Peru, Marcona officials had enough confidence in their preemptive measures that, in April 1969, Robinson assured worried Cyprus Mines chairman Harvey T. Mudd that no action against Marcona appeared likely, inasmuch as the company had already established a cordial relationship with the Velasco regime. In addition, Velasco was emphasizing that the expropriation of IPC was a unique case and compensatory. “We see no reason to fear the future,” wired Robinson, “although there may be actions taken by the government which could adversely affect future profits. We see as an offsetting advantage, a period of increasing stability in which we should be able to proceed with expansion with confidence in the future.” Ironically, Marcona officials worried as much about a U. S. overreaction to events in Peru as they did about the events themselves. As a result, the company lobbied against imposing economic sanctions on Peru with such hawks as Republican Senator George Murphy of California, angry with the regime’s harassment of American anchovy seining off Peru’s coast. Murphy and others were threatening to invoke the “Hickenlooper Amendment,” a rarely used act requiring the U. S. to terminate aid to any country violating the rights of American-controlled property. The danger, of course, was that such moves against Peru