Ramón J. Velásquez was a Venezuelan politician, historian, journalist, and lawyer. Before entering politics, Velásquez was a prolific writer and a reporter for Últimas Noticias in the 1940s. During the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, he was jailed for working in compiling the Black Book of the Dictatorship, a set of files that exposed the crimes of the regime. He later served as chief of staff during the presidency of Rómulo Betancourt and was named interim president between 1993 and 1994 after the impeachment of Carlos Andrés Pérez.