Venezuela's Chief Promises Normalcy

CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 6— A tight cluster of bullet holes marred a French window behind his desk chair, but Venezuela's President greeted a visit to his office today with his trademark bounce.

"Safe and sound," the 69-year-old leader, Carlos Andres Perez, exclaimed with a hearty laugh.

Indeed, Venezuela and its President appear to have bounced back quickly from the coup attempt on Tuesday, which left 15 soldiers dead and 51 wounded.

Financial markets reopened uneventfully here today. In a vote of confidence, foreign and local investors took part in a successful $1 billion privatization of four state hotels on Wednesday. Armed Soldier at the Gate

And seated in his gilt office chair today, Mr. Perez promised normalcy: no Cabinet shuffle, a quick restoration of suspended civil rights, and no deviation in Venezuela's free-market economic policies.

"There is no way that something like this could happen again," said the President, who has been a lifelong defender of democracy in Latin America.

But outside the palace, it was evident that not all will be as before in this 35-year-old democracy.

A small tank blocked traffic from passing in front of the Presidential Palace. Replacing traditionally loose security at the palace gate, a soldier crouched behind a .50-caliber machine gun, a cartridge box open for quick use.

In Venezuela's last serious coup attempt, in 1962, trade unions and political parties led mass rallies in favor of the constitutional Government. This time, the threat to Venezuela's democracy has been met by an ominous lack of public demonstrations.

"It is a very serious problem that some people have interpreted the coup as representing popular hopes," said a worried congressional leader for the governing Democratic Action Party.

Today, the police seized copies of the new issue of Zeta magazine, which had on the cover a photograph of the rebel movement's 37-year-old leader, Lieut. Col. Hugo Chavez Frias. Caracas newspapers ignored a Government appeal for temporary self-censorship and published comments by common people sympathetic to the rebels. 'They Are Heroes

"The soldiers took up arms to fight for us," Gilmelis Marrero, a 19-year-old student told the influential daily El Nacional. "My aunt wept when they gave up. Everyone applauded because they are heroes. I don't think they should be punished, they should be given a medal."

Squeezed by rising prices and spreading unemployment, students last fall led hundreds of protests that frequently turned violent.

"The military uprising can really be seen as a culmination of the civilian protests," Italo del Valle Alliegro, a retired army commander, said.

Today, more information emerged about the young officers' movement that led the coup and its leader.

Colonel Chavez first gathered a following when he was an instructor at Venezuela's Military Academy. In 1987, he was suspected of circulating pamphlets for a clandestine officers' group called CoMaCaTe, the Spanish initials for Commanders, Majors, Captains and Lieutenants.

Last Tuesday morning, when the coup started to fail, officers holding a television studio burned a videocassette containing a taped message from the plotters to the nation.

But according to the transcript of a radio address by one rebel leader, Lieut. Col. Francisco Arias Cardenas, the movement hoped to win the support of "students, workers, intellectuals and the progressive church."

"Traitors are those who are preparing us to repress and to kill students," he told a radio reporter in Maracaibo.

Today, army investigators started interrogating 133 detained officers. Several analysts said in interviews that they feared the army would close ranks and protect its own.

Indeed, on Wednesday, Brig. Gen. Nelson Lara Estrano, commander of the army garrison in the oil-producing state of Zulia in western Venezuela, said, "I don't think there has been a fracture in the armed forces; there has been a painful experience that stains the democratic system."