STATEMENT BY SENATOR J. W. FULBRIGHT CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP67B00446R000500100011-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 16
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 27, 2003
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: September 15, 1965
• Content Type: STATEMENT

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FOR P.M. RELEASE
WED 7E l'3AY
SEPTEMBER15, 1965
STATEMENT BY SENATOR J. W. FULBRIGHT
Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations
United States Senate
September 15,1965
THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
United States policy in the Dominican crisis was
characterized initially by over-timidity and subsequently by
over-reaction. Throughout the whole affair, it has also been
characterized by a lack of candor.
These are general conclusions'.I have: reached fromP a.'-pains-
tg: review of the salient features of the extremely complex
situation. These judgments are made of course with the benefit
of hindsight and in fairness it must be conceded there were no
easy choices available to the United States in the Dominican
Republic. Nonetheless, it is the task of diplomacy to make
wise decisions when they need to be made and United States
diplomacy failed to do so in the Dominican crisis.
It cannot be said with assurance that the United States
could have changed the course of events by acting differently.
What can be said with assurance is that the United States did
not take advantage of several opportunities in which it might
have changed the course of events. The reason appears to be
that, very close to the beginning of the revolution, United
States policy makers decided that it should not be allowed to suc-
ceed., This ..decision seems to me -tb_have been based: ori' exaggerated
estimates of Communist influence in the rebel movement and on
distaste for the return to power of Juan Bosch or of a government
controlled by Bosch's party, the PRD (Dominican Revolutionary
Party).
The question of the degree of Communist influence is of
critical importance and I shall comment on it later. The
essential point, however, is that the United States, on the
basis of fragmentary evidence of Communist participation,
assumed almost from the beginning that the revolution was
Communist-dominated, or would certainly become so. It apparently
never occurred to anyone that the United States could also
attempt to influence the course which the revolution took. We
misread prevailing tendencies in Latin America by overlooking
or ignoring the fact that any reform movement is likely to
attract Communist support. We thus failed to perceive that if
we are automatically to oppose any reform movement that Com-
munists adhere to, we are likely to end up opposing ever reform
movement, making ourselves the prisoners of reactionaries who
wish to preserve the status guo.
The principal reason for the failure of American policy in
Santo Domingo was faulty advice given to the President by his
representatives in the Dominican Republic at the time of acute
crisis. Much of this advice was based on misjudgment of the
facts of the situation; some of it appears to have been based
on inadequate evidence or, in some cases, simply false informa-
tion. On the basis of the information and counsel he received,
the President could hardly have acted other than he did; it is
very difficult to understand, however, why so much unsound
advice was given him.
I am hopeful, and reasonably confident, that the mistakes
made by the United States in the Dominican Republic can be
retrieved and that it will be possible to avoid repeating them
in the future. These purposes can be served, however, only if
the shortcomings of United States policy are thoroughly
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reviewed and analyzed. I make my remarks today in the hope of
contributing to that process.
The development of the Dominican crisis, beginning on
April 24, 1965, provides a classic study of policy-making in a
fast-changing situation in which each decision reduces the range
of options available for future decisions so that errors are
compounded and finally, indeed, there are few if any options
except to follow through on an ill-conceived course of action.
Beyond a certain point the Dominican story acquired some of the
inevitability of a Greek tragedy.
Another theme that emerges from the Dominican crisis is the
occurrence of a striking change in United States policy toward
the Dominican Republic and the possibility -- not a certainty,
because the signs are ambiguous, but only the possibility -- of
a major change as well in the general Latin American policies of
the United States. Obviously, an important change in the official
outlook on Dominican affairs occurred between September 1963,
when the United States was vigorously opposed to the overthrow
of Juan Bosch, and April 1965, when the United States was either
unenthusiastic or actually opposed to his return.
What happened in that period to change the assessment of
Bosch from favorable to unfavorable? It is quite true that Bosch
as President did not distinguish himself as an administrator,
but that was well known in 1963. It is also true, however, and
much more to the point as far as the legitimate interests of the
United States are concerned, that Bosch had received 58 percent
of the votes in a free and honest election and that he was
presiding over a reform-minded government in tune with the
Alliance for Progress. This is a great deal more than can be said
for any other President of the Dominican Republic.
The question therefore remains as to how and why the attitude
of the United States Government changed so strikingly between
September 1963 and April 1965. And the question inevitably arises
whether this shift in the Administration's attitude toward the
Dominican Republic is part of a broader shift in its attitude
toward other Latin American countries, whether, to be specific,
the United States Government now views the vigorous reform
movements of Latin America -- such as Christian Democracy in
Chile, Peru and Venezuela, APRA in Peru and Accion Democratica in
Venezuela -- as threatening to the interests of the United States.
And if this is the case, what kind of Latin American political
movements would now be regarded as friendly to the United States
and beneficial to its interests?
I should like to make it very clear that I am raising a ques-
tion not offering an answer. I am frankly puzzled as to the
current attitude of the United States Government toward reformist
movements in Latin America. On the one hand, President Johnson's
deep personal commitment to the philosophy and aims of the Alliance
for Progress is clear; it was convincingly expressed, for example,
in his speech to the Latin American Ambassadors on the fourth
anniversary of the Alliance for Progress -- a statement in which
the President compared the Alliance for Progress with his own
enlightened program for a Great Society at home. On the other
hand, one notes a general tendency on the part of our policy
makers not to look beyond a Latin American politician's anti-
communism. One also notes in certain government agencies,
particularly the Department of Defense, a preoccupation with
'counterinsurgency", which is to say, with the prospect of revolu-
tions and means of suppressing them. This preoccupation is
manifested in dubious and costly research projects, such as the
recently discredited "Camelot;" these studies claim to be
scientific but beneath their almost unbelievably opaque language
lies an unmistakable military and reactionary bias.
It is of great importance that the uncertainty as to United
States aims in Latin America be resolved. We cannot success-
fully advance the cause of popular democracy and at the same
time align ourselves with corrupt and reactionary
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oligarchies; yet that is what. we seem to be .tryingot'b-?`d?.
The direction of the Alliance for Progress is toward social revolu-
tion in Latin America; the direction of our Dominican intervention
is toward the suppression of revolutionary movements which are
supported by Communists or suspected of being influenced by Com-
munists. The prospect of an election in nine months which may
conceivably produce a strong democratic government is certainly
reassuring on this score, but the fact remains that the reaction of
the United States at the time of acute crisis was to intervene
forcibly and illegally against a revolution which, had we sought to
influence it instead of suppressing it, might have produced a
strong popular government without foreign military intervention.
Since just about every revolutionary movement is likely to attract
Communist support, at least in the beginning, the approach followed
in the Dominican Republic, if consistently pursued, must
inevitably make us the enemy of all revolutions and therefore the
ally of all the unpopular and corrupt oligarchies of the hemi-
sphere.
We simply cannot have it both ways; we must choose between the
Alliance for Progress and a foredoomed effort to sustain the status
quo in Latin America. The choice which we are to make is the prin-
cipal unanswered question arising out of the unhappy events in the
Dominican Republic and, indeed, the principal unanswered question
for the future of our relations with Latin America.
It is not surprising that we Americans are not drawn toward
the uncouth revolutionaries of the noncommunist left. We are not,
as we like to claim in Fourth of July speeches, the most truly
revolutionary nation on earth; we are, on the contrary, much closer
to being the most unrevolutionary nation on earth. We are sober
and satisfied and comfortable and rich; our institutions are stable
and old and even venerable; and our Revolution of 1776, for that
matter, was not much of an upheaval compared to the French and
Russian Revolutions and to current and impending revolutions in
Latin America and Asia and Africa..
Our heritage of stability and conservatism is a blessing but
it also has the effect of limiting our understanding of the charac-
ter of social revolution and sometimes as well of the injustices
which spawn them. Our understanding of revolutions and their
causes is imperfect not because of any failures of mind or charac-
ter but because of our good fortune since the Civil War in never
having experienced sustained social injustice without hope of legal
or more or less xpeacerul remedy. We are called upon, therefore, to
give our understanding and our sympathy and support to movements
which are alien to our experience and jarring to our preferences
and prejudices.
We must understand social revolution and the injustices that
give it rise because they are the heart and core of the experience
of the great majority of people now living in the world. In Latin
America we may prefer to associate with the well-bred,well-dressed
businessmen who often hold positions of power,but Latin American
reformers regard such men as aliens in their own countries who
neither identify with their own people nor even sympathize with
their aspirations. Such leaders are regarded by educated young
Latin Americans as a "consular bourgeoisie," by which they mean
business-oriented conservatives who more nearly represent the
interests of foreign, businessmen than the interests of their own
people. Men like Donald'Reid -- who is one of the better of this
category of leaders -- may have their merits,but they are not the
force of the future in Latin America.
It is the revolutionaries of the noncommunist left who have
most of the popular support in Latin America. The Radical Party in
Chile,for example,is full of nineteenth century libertarians whom
many North Americans would find highly congenial but it was recently
crushed in national elections by a group of rambunctious,leftist
Christian Democrats. It may be argued that the Christian Democrats
are anti-United States,and to a considerable extent some of them
are -- more so now, it may be noted,than prior to the intervention
of the United States in the Dominican Republic -- but they are not
Communists and they have popular support. They have also come to
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terms with the American copper companies in Chile; that is some-
thing which the predecessor conservative government was unable to
do and something which a Communist government would have been
unwilling to do.
The movement of the future in Latin America is social revolu-
tion. The question is whether it is to be Communist or democratic
revolution and the choice which the Latin Americans make will
depend in part on how the United States uses its great influence.
It should be very clear that the choice is not between social
revolution and conservative oligarchy but whether, by supporting
reform, we bolster the popular noncommunist left or whether, by
supporting unpopular oligarchies, we drive the rising generation
of educated and patriotic young Latin Americans to an embittered
and hostile form of communism like that of Fidel Castro in Cuba.
In my Senate speech of March 25, 1964, I commented as follows
on the prospect of revolution: "I am not predicting violent revo-
lutions in Latin America or elsewhere. Still less am I advocating
them. I wish only to suggest that violent social revolutions are
a possibility in countries where feudal oligarchies resist all
meaningful change by peaceful means. We must not, in our
preference for the democratic procedures envisioned by the Charter
of Punta del Este, close our minds to the possibility that
democratic procedures may fall in certain countries and that where
democracy does fail violent social convulsions may occur."
I think that in the case of the Dominican Republic we did
close our minds to the causes and to the essential legitimacy of
revolution in a country in which democratic procedures had failed.
That, I think, is the central fact concerning the participation of
the United States in the Dominican revolution and, possibly as
well, its major lesson for the future. I turn now to comment on
some of the events which began last April 24 in Santo Domingo.
When the Dominican revolution began on Saturday, April 24,
the United States had three options available: first, it could
have supported the Reid Cabral government; second, it could have
supported the revolutionary forces; and third, it could do nothing.
The Administration chose the last course, When Donald Reid
Cabral asked for United States intervention on Sunday morning,
April 25, he was given no encouragement. He then resigned, and
considerable disagreement ensued over the nature of the government
to succeed him. The party of Juan Bosch, the PRD, or Dominican
Revolutionary Party, asked for a "United States presence" at the
transfer of government power but was given no encouragement. Thus,
there began a chaotic situation which amounted to civil war in a
country without an effective government.
What happened in essence was that the Dominican military
refused to support Reid and were equally opposed to Bosch or other
PRD leaders as his successor. The PRD, which had the support of
some military officers, announced that Rafael Molina Urena, who had
been president of the Senate during the Bosch regime, would govern
as provisional president pending Bosch's return. At this point,
the military leaders delivered an ultimatum, which the rebels
ignored, and at about 4:30 on the afternoon of April 25 the air
force and navy began firing at the National Palace. Later in the
day, PRD leaders asked the United States Embassy to use its
influence to persuade the air force to stop the attacks. The
Embassy made it clear it would not intervene on behalf of the
rebels, although on the following day, Monday, April 26, the
Embassy did persuade the military to stop air attacks for a limited
time.
This was the first crucial point in the crisis. If the
United States thought that Reid was giving the Dominican Republic
the best government it had had or was likely to get, why
did the United States not react more vigorously to support
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him? On the other hand, if the Reid government was thought to
be beyond salvation, why did not the United States offer positive
encouragement to the moderate forces involved in the coup, if not
by providing the "United States presence" requested by the PRD,
then at least by letting it be known that the United States was
not opposed to the prospective change of regimes or by encouraging
the return of Juan Bosch to the Dominican Republic? In fact,
according to available evidence, the United States Government
made no effort to contact Bosch in the initial days of the crisis.
The United States was thus at the outset unwilling to
support Reid and unwilling to support if not positively opposed
to Bosch. Events of the days following April 24 demonstrated
that Reid had so little popular support that it can reasonably
be argued that there was nothing the United States could have
done, short of armed intervention, to save his regime. The more
interesting question is why the United States was so reluctant
to see Bosch returned to power. This is part of the larger
question of why United States attitudes had changed so much
since 1963 when Bosch, then in power, was warmly and repeatedly
embraced and supported as few if any Latin American presidents
have ever been supported by the United States.
The next crucial point in the Dominican story came on
Tuesday, April 27, when rebel leaders, including Molina Urena
and Caamano Deno, called at the United States Embassy seeking
mediation and negotiations. At that time the military situation
looked very bad for the rebel, or constitutionalist, forces.
Ambassador Bennett, who had been instructed four times to work
for a ceasefire and for the formation of a military junta, felt
he did not have authority to mediate; mediation, in his view,
would have been "intervention." Mediation at that point might
have been accomplished quietly and peacefully. Twenty-four hours
later the Ambassador was pleading for the Marines, and ever
since the United States has been intervening up to its eyebrows.
On the afternoon of April 27 General Wessin y Wessin's
tanks seemed about to cross the Duarte bridge into the city of
Santo Domingo and the rebel cause appeared hopeless. When the
rebels felt themselves rebuffed at the American Embassy, some
of their leaders, including Molina Urena, sought asylum in Latin
American embassies in Santo Domingo. The Administration has
interpreted this as evidence that the non-Communist rebels
recognized growing Communist influence in their movement and
were consequently abandoning the revolution. Molina Urena has
said simply that he sought asylum because he thought the
revolutionary cause hopeless.
A great opportunity was lost on April 27. Ambassador
Bennett was in a position, if he chose, to bring possibly
decisive mediating power to bear for a democratic solution, but
he chose not to do so on the disingenuous ground that the
exercise of his good offices at that point would have consti-
tuted "intervention." In the words of Washington Post writer
Murrey Marder -- one of the press people who, to the best of my
knowledge, has not been assailed as prejudiced -- "It can be
argued with considerable weight that late Tuesday, April 27,
the United States threw.away a fateful opportunity to try-to
prevent the sequence that produced the American intervention.
It allowed the relatively leaderless revolt to pass into hands
which it was to allege were Communist." 1.
The overriding reason for this mistake was the conviction
of United States officials, on the basis of evidence which was
fragmentary at best, that the rebels were dominated by Communists.
A related and perhaps equally important reason for the United
States Embassy's refusal to mediate on April 27 was the desire for
1. Washington Post, June 27, 1965, p. E3.
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and, at that point, expectation of an anti-rebel victory.
They therefore passed up an important opportunity to reduce or
even eliminate Communist influence by encouraging the moderate
elements among the rebels and mediating for a democratic
solution.
Owing to a degree of disorganization and timidity on the
part of the anti-rebel forces which no one, including the United
States Embassy and the rebels themselves, anticipated, the
rebels were still fighting on the morning of Wednesday, April 28.
Ambassador Bennett thereupon urgently recommended that the anti-
rebels under Air Force General de los Santos be furnished 50
walkie-talkies from United States Defense Department stocks in
Puerto Rico. Repeating this recommendation later in the day,
Bennett said that the issue was one between Castroism and its
opponents. The anti-rebels themselves asked for armed United
States intervention on their side; this request was refused at
that time.
During the day, however, the situation deteriorated rapidly,
from the point of view of public order in general and of the
anti-rebels in particular. In mid-afternoon of April 28 Colonel
Pedro Bartolome Benoit, head of a junta which had been hastily
assembled, asked again, this time in writing, for United States
troops on the ground that this was the only way to prevent a
Communist takeover; no mention was made of the junta's
inability to protect American lives. This request was denied
in Washington, and Benoit was thereupon told that the United
States would not intervene unless he said he could not protect
American citizens present in the Domin can Republic. Benoit
was thus told in effect that if he said American lives were in
danger the United States would intervene. And that is precisely
what happened.
It was at this point, on April 28, that events acquired
something of the predestiny of a Greek tragedy. Subsequent
events -- the failure of the missions of John Bartlow Martin
and McGeorge Bundy, the conversion of the United States force
into an inter-American force, the enforced stalemate between the
rebels under Caamano Deno and the Imbert junta, the OAS
mediation and the tortuous negotiations for a provisional
government -- have all been widely reported and were not fully
explored in the Committee hearings. In any case, the general
direction of events was largely determined by the fateful
decision of April 28. Once the Marines landed on that day, and
especially after they were heavily reinforced in the days
immediately following, the die was cast and the United States
found itself deeply involved in the Dominican civil conflict,
with no visible way to extricate itself, and with its hemisphere
relations complicated in a way that few could have foreseen and
no one could have desired.
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The danger to American lives was more a pretext than a reason for
the massive United States intervention that began on the evening of
April 28. In fact, no American lives were lost in Santo Domingo
until the Marines began exchanging fire with the rebels after
April 28; reports of widespread shooting that endangered American
lives turned out to be greatly exaggerated.
Nevertheless,there can be no question that Santo Domingo was not
a particularly safe place to be in the last days of April 1965.
There was fighting in the streets, aircraft were strafing parts of
the city,and there was indiscriminate shooting. I think that the
United States would have been justified in landing a small force for
the express purpose of removing United States citizens and other
foreigners from the island. Had such a force been landed and then
promptly withdrawn when it had completed its mission,I do not think
that any fair-minded observer at home or abroad would have considered
the United States to have exceeded its rights and responsibilities.
The United States intervened in the Dominican Republic for the
purpose of Preventing the victory of a revolutionary force which was
judged to be Communi
t
s
-dominated. On the basis of Ambassador
Bennett's messages to Washington,there is no doubt that the threat of
communism rather than danger to American lives was his primary or
sole reason for recommending military intervention.
The question of the degree of Communist influence in therefore
crucial,but it cannot be answered with certainty. The weight of the
evidence is that Communists did not participate in planning the
revolution -- indeed,there is some indication that it took them by
surprise -- but that they very rapidly began to try to take advantage
of it and to seize control of it. The evidence does not establish
that the Communists at any time actually had control of the revolu-
tion. There is little doubt th
t
a
they had influence within the
revolutionary movement,but the degree of that influence remains a
matter of speculation.
The Administration,howeverassumed almost from the beginning that
the revolution was Communist-dominated,or would certainly become so,
and that nothing short of forcible opposition could prevent a Com-
munist takeover. In their panic lest the Dominican Republic become
another Cuba,some of our officials seem to have forgotten that
virtually all reform movements attract some Communist support,that
there is an important difference between Communist su
Com-
munist control of a political movement,that it is uiteopt and compete with the Communists for influence in a reform movementlrather
than abandon it to them,and,most important of all,that economic
development and social justice are themselves the primary and most
reliable security against Communist subversion.
It is,perhaps,understandable that Administration officials should
have felt some sense of panic; after all,the Foreign Service Officer
who had the misfortune to be assigned to the Cuban desk at the time
of Castro's rise to power has had his career ruined by Congressional
committees. Furthermore,even without this consideration,the deci-
sions regarding the Dominican Republic had to be made under great
pressure and on the basis of inconclusive information. In charity,
this can be accepted as a reason why the decisions were mistaken;
but it does not change the conclusion that they were mistaken.
The point I am making is not -- most emphatically not -- that
there was no Communist participation in the Dominican crisis, but
simply that the Administration acted on the premise that the rev3lu-
tion was controlled by Communists -- a premise which it failed to
establish at hie time and has not established since. The issue is
not whether there was Communist influence in the Dominican revolution
but its de ree,which is something on which reasonable men can differ.
The burden o proof,however,is on those who take action,and the
Administration has not proven its assertion of Communist control.
Intervention on the basis of Communist participation as
distinguished from control of the Dominican revolution was a
mistake of panic and timidity which also reflects a grievous
misreading of the temper of contemporary Latin American
politics. Communists are present in all Latin American
countries, and they are going to inject themselves into almost
any Latin American revolution and try to seize control of it.
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If any group or any movement with which the Communists associate
themselves is going to be automatically condemned in the eyes
of the United States, then we have indeed given up all hope
of guiding or influencing even to a marginal degree the
revolutionary movements and the demands for social change which
are sweeping Latin America. Worse, if that is our view, then
we have made ourselves the prisoners of the Latin American
oligarchs who are engaged in a vain attempt to preserve the
status cuo? reactionaries=who ha'bi'tually use the-term "CbMmunist"
very loosely, in part out of emotional predilection and in
part in a calculated effort to scare the United States into
supporting their selfish and discredited aims.
If the United States had really been intervening to save
American lives, as it had a moral if not a strictly legal right
to do, it could have done so promptly and then withdrawn and
the in.ident would soon have been forgotten. But the United
States did not intervene to save American lives; it intervened
to prevent what it conceived to be a Communist takeover. That
meant, in the terms in which the United States defined the
situation, that it was intervening against the rebels, who,
however heavily they might or might--no-E--have been infiltrated
by Communists, were also the advocates of the restoration of
a freely elected constitutional government which had been
forcibly overthrown. It also meant that the United States
was intervening for the military and the oligarchy--to the
detriment of the Dominican people and to the bitter dis-
appointment of those throughout Latin America who had placed
their hopes in the United States and the Alliance for Progress.
On the basis of the record, there is ample justification
for concluding that, at least from the time Reid resigned,
United States policy was directed toward construction of a
military junta which hopefully would restore peace and conduct
free elections. That is to say that United States policy was
directed against the return of Bosch and against the success of
the rebel movement.
In this connection it is interesting to recall United
States policy toward Bosch when he was in power in the Dominican
Republic between February and September of 1963. He had been
elected, as I have already mentioned, in the only free and
honest election ever held in the Dominican Republic, in
December 1962, with 58 per cent of the votes cast. The United
States placed such importance on his success that President
Kennedy sent Vice President Johnson and Senator Humphrey,
among others, to attend his inauguration in February 1963. In
September 1963, when he was overthrown in a military coup, the
United States made strenuous efforts--which stopped just short
of sending the Marines-- to keep him in power, and thereafter
the United States waited almost three months before recognizing
the successor government. Recognition came, by the way, only
after the successor government had conducted military operations
against a band of alleged Communist guerillas in the mountains,
and there is a suspicion that the extent of the guerilla
activities was exaggerated by the successor government in order
to secure United States recognition.
It may be granted that Bosch was no great success as,,
President of the Dominican Republic but, when all his faults
have been listed, the fact remains that Bosch was the only
freely elected President in Dominican history, the only President
who had ever tried, however ineptly, to give the country a
decent government, and the only President who was unquestion-
ably in tune with the Alliance for Progress.
Despite these considerations, the United States was at
the very least unenthusiastic or, more probably, opposed to
Boschts return to power in April 1965. Bosch himself was
apparently not eager to return--he vacillated in the very early
stages and some well infommed persons contend that he positively
refused to return to the Dominican Reeppublicc, dInn any case, he
missed a critica
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equally adamant against a return to power of Boschts party,
the PRD, which is the nearest thing to a mass-based, well-
organized party that has ever existed in the Dominican
Republic. The stated reason was that a PRD government would
be Communist-dominated.
This might conceivably have happened, but the evidence
by no means supports the conclusion that it would have happened.
We based our policy on a possibility rather than on anything
approaching a likelihood. Obviously, if we based all our
policies on the mere possibility of communism, then we would
have to set ourselves against just about every progressive
political movement in the world, because almost all such
movements are subject to at least the theoretical danger
of Communist takeover. This approach is obviously nonsense;
foreign policy must be based on prospects that seem probable,
hopeful and susceptible to constructive influence rather
than on merely possible dangers.
One is led, therefore, to the conclusion that United
States policy-makers were unduly timid and alarmist in
refusing to gamble on the forces of reform and social change.
The bitter irony of such timidity is that by casting its
lot with the forces of the status quo in the probably vain
hope that these forces could be inFed to permit at least
some reform and social change, the United States almost
certainly helped the Communists to acquire converts whom they
otherwise could not have won.
How vain the hopes of United States policy makers were is
amply demonstrated by events since April 28. The junta led by
General Antonio Imbert, which succeeded the junta led by Colonel
Benoit, proved quite intractable and indeed filled the airwaves
daily with denunciations of the United States and the Organization
of American States for preventing it from wiping out the
"Communist" rebels. These are the same military forces which on
April 28 were refusing to fight the rebels and begging for
United States intervention. Our aim apparently was to use Imbert
as a counterpoise to CaamanoDeno in the ill-founded hope that
noncommunist liberals would be drawn away from the rebel side.
In practice, instead of Imbert .becoming our tractable instrument,
we, to a certain extent, became his: he clung tenaciously to
the power we gave him and was at least as intransigent as the
rebels in the protracted negotiations for a provisional govern-
ment.
The resignation of Imbert and his junta provides grounds
for hope that a strong popular government may come to power in
the Dominican Republic, but that hope must be tempered by the
fact that the military continues to wield great power in
Dominican politics -- power which it probably would not now
have if the United States had not intervened to save it from
defeat last April 28. Even with a provisional government
installed in Santo Domingo, and with the prospect of an election
in nine months, there remains the basic problem of a deep and
widespread demand for social change. The prospect for such
social change is circumscribed by the fact that the military has
not surrendered and cannot be expected voluntarily to surrender
its entrenched position of privilege and outrageous corruption.
The United States has grossly underestimated the symbolism
of the Bosch Constitution of 1963. It can be argued that this
contains unrealistic promises, but it has stirred the hopes and
idealism of the Dominican people. The real objections to it,
on the part of conservative Dominicans, seem to be that it pro-
vides for separation of church and state and that it provides
that Dominican citizens have the right to live in the Dominican
Republic if they so desire -- that is, that Dominican citizens
who happen also to be Communists cannot be deported. In passing,
one may note a similarity to the United States Constitution on
both of these points.
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The United States has also misread the dedication of the
Dominican military to the status quo and to its own.powers
and privileges. It may be said that the United States has
over-estimated its ability to influence the military while
failing to use to the fullest the influence it does have.
The act of United States military intervention in the
Dominican Republic was a grievous mistake, but if one is going
to cross the bridge of intervention, with all of the historical
horrors which it calls forth throughout Latin America, then one
might as well cross all the way and not stop in the middle.
It is too late for the United States to refrain from inter-
vention; it is not too late to try to redeem some permanent
benefit from that intervention. Specifically, I think that the
influence of the United States and the Organization of American
States should be used to help the Dominican people free them-
selves from the oppressive weight of a corrupt and privileged
military establishment. It is entirely possible, if not likely,
that if the military is allowed to retain its power it will
overthrow any future government that displeases it just as it
has done in the past. The OAS mediating team made a contribu-
tion by bringing about the installation of a provisional
government; the OAS can still make a solid contribution to
Dominican democracy by urging or insisting that as part of a
permanent solution the Dominican military establishment be
substantially reduced in size and some of the more irresponsible
generals be pensioned off or sent on lengthy diplomatic holidays
abroad. If the United States and the OAS are going to impose
a solution in the Dominican Republic, they might as well impose
a good solution as a bad one.
The Foreign Relations Committee's study of the Dominican
crisis leads me to draw certain specific conclusions regarding
American policy in the Dominican Republic and also suggests some
broader considerations regarding relations between the United
States and Latin America. My specific conclusions regarding
the crisis in Santo Domingo are as follows:
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(1) The United States intervened forcibly in the Dominican
Republic in the last week of April 1965 not to save American
lives, as was then contended, but to prevent the victory of a
revolutionary movement which was judged to be Communist-dominated.
The decision to land Marines on April 28 was based primarily
on the fear of "another Cuba" in Santo Domingo.
(2) This fear was based on fragmentary and inadequate
evidence. There is no doubt that Communists participated in
the Dominican revolution on the rebel side, probably to a
greater extent after than before the landing of United States
Marines on April 28, but just as it cannot be proven that the
Communists would not have taken over the revolution neither
can it be proven that they would have. The evidence offered
the Committee for the assertion that the rebels were CommuniS't-
dominated or certain to become so is not persuasive; on the
contrary, the evidence suggests a chaotic situation in which
no single faction was dominant at the outset and in which every-
body, including the United States, had opportunities to in-
fluence the shape of the rebellion.
(3) The United States let pass its best opportunities to
influence the course of events. The best opportunities were
on APril 25, when Juan Boschts party, the PRD, requested a
"United States presence," and on April 27, when the rebels,
believing themselves defeated, requested United States mediation
for a negotiated settlement. Both requests were rejected, in
the first instance for reasons that are not entirely clear but
probably because of United States hostility to the PRD, in the
second instance because Ambassador Bennett and the United States
Government anticipated and desired a victory of the anti-rebel
forces.
(4) United States policy toward the Dominican Republic
shifted markedly to the right between September 1963 and
April 1965. In 1963 the United States strongly supported
Bosch and the PRD as enlightened reformers; in 1965 the United
States opposed their return to power on the unsubstantiated
ground that a Bosch or PRD government would certainly, or al-
most certainly, become Communist-dominated. Thus the United
States turned its back on social revolution in Santo Domingo
and associated itself with a corrupt and reactionary military
oligarch.
(5) United States policy was marred by a lack of candor
and by misinformation. The former is illustrated by official
assertions that United States military intervention was primarily
for the purpose of saving American lives; the latter is
illustrated by wildly exaggerated reports of massacres and
atrocities by the rebels--reports which no one has been able
to verify. It was officially asserted, for example, (by the
President in a press conference on June 17) that "some 1,500
innocent people were murdered and shot and their heads cut
off." There is no evidence to support this statement. A sober
,.examination of such evidence as is available indicates that
the Imbert junta was guilty of at least as many atrocities as
the rebels, and perhaps more.
(6) Responsibility for the failure of American policy in
Santo Domingo lies primarily with those who advised the President.
In the critical days between April 25 and April 28 these offi-
cials sent the President exaggerated reports of the danger of a
Communist takeover in Santo Domingo and, on the basis of these,
recommended United States military intervention. It is not at
all difficult to understand why, on the basis of such faulty
advice, the President made the decisions that he made.
(7) Underlying the bad advice and unwise actions of the
United States was the fear of "another Cuba,,' The specter of a
second Communist state in the western hemisphere '- and its
probable political repercussions within the United States and
possible effects on the careers of those who might be held
responsible - seems to have been the most important single
factor iRpprove~ or lease 20~(T3TCrKR?(~4~R~~01~
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competent men.
I turn now to some broader and long-term implications of
the Dominican tragedy, first to some considerations relating
to the Organization of American States and its Charter, then
to the problem of reaction and revolution in Latin America;,
finally to a suggestion for a freer and, I believe, healthier
relationship between the United States and Latin America.
Article 15 of the Charter of the Organization of American
States says that "No State or group of States has the right
to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever,
in the internal or external affairs of any other State." Article
17 states that "The territory of a State is inviolable; it may
not be the object, even temporarily, of military occupation or
of other measures of force taken by another State, directly
or indirectly, on any grounds whatever."
These clauses are not ambiguous. They mean that, with
one exception to be noted, all forms of forcible intervention
are absolutely prohibited among the American states. It may
be that we should never have accepted this commitment at
Bogota in 1948; it is obvious from all the talk one hears these
days about the "obsoleteness" of the principle of nonintervention
that some United States officials regret our commitment to it.
The fact remains that we are committed to it, not partially or
temporarily or insofar as we find it compatible with our vital
interests but almost absolutely. It represents our word and
our bond and our willingness to honor the solemn commitments.
embodied in a treaty which was ratified by the Senate on
August 2o, 19*50,
There are those who might concede the point of law but
who would also argue that such considerations have to do
with our ideals rather than our interests and are therefore of
secondary importance. I do not believe that is true. We
are currently fighting a war in Vietnam, largely, we are told,
because it would be a disaster if the United States failed to
honor its word and its commitment; the matter, we'are,told;
is one of vital national interest. I do not see why it is
any less a matter of vital interest to honor a clear and
explicit treaty obligation in the Americas than it is to
honor the much more ambiguous and less formal promises we
have made to the South Vietnamese.
The sole exception to the prohibitions of Articles 15
and 17 is spelled out in Article 19 of the OAS Charter, which
states that "Measures adopted for the maintenance of peace and
security in accordance with existing treaties do not constitute
a violation of the principles set forth in Articles 15 and 17."
Article 6 of the Rio Treaty states that "if the inviolability
or the integrity of the territory or the sovereignty or political
independence of any American State should be affected by an
aggression which is not an armed attack or by an extra-
continental or intra-continental conflict, or by any other
fact or situation that might endanger the peace of America,
the Organ of Consultation shall meet immediately in order to
agree on the measures which must be taken in case of aggression
to assist the victim of the aggression or, in any case, the
measures which should be taken for the common defense and for
the maintenance of the peace and security of the Continent."
The United States thus had legal recourse when the
Dominican crisis broke on April 24, 1965. We could have called
an urgent session of the Council of the OAS for the purpose of
invoking Article 6 of the Rio Treaty, But we did not do so.
The Administration has argued that there was no time to con-
sult the OAS, although there was time to "consult"-- or inform--
the Congressional leadership, The United States thus intervened
in the Dominican Republic unilaterally--and illegally.
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Advising the Latin American countries of our action after
the fact did not constitute compliance with the OAS Charter or
the Rio Treaty; nor, indeed, would advising them before the
fact have constituted compliance. One does not comply with
the law by notifying interested parties in advance of one's
intent to violate it. Inter-American law requires consultation
for the purpose of shaping a collective decision. Only on the
basis of advance consultation and agreement c- oucc. we have
undertaken a legal intervention in the Dominican Republic.
It is possible, had we undertaken such consultations,
that our Latin American partners would have delayed a decision;
it is possible that they would have refused to authorize
collective intervention. My own feeling is that the situation
in any case did not Justify military intervention except for
the limited purpose of evacuating United States citizens and
other foreigners, but even if it seemed to us that it did,
we should not have undertaken it without the advance consent
of our Latin American allies. We should not have done so
because the word and the honor of the United States were at
stake just as much--at least as much--in the Dominican crisis
as they are in Vietnam and Korea and Berlin and all the places
around the globe which we have committed ourselves to defend.
There is another important reason for compliance with
the law. The United States is a conservative power in the
world in the sEnse that most of its vital interests are
served by stability and order. Law is the essential founda-
tion of stability and order both within societies and in
international relations. As a conservative power the United
States has a vital interest in upholding and expanding the
reign of law in international relations. Insofar as inter-
national law is observed, it provides us with stability and
order and with a means of predicting the behavior of those
with whom we have reciprocal legal obligations. When we
violate the law ourselves, whatever short term advantage
may be gained, we are obviously encouraging others to violate
the law; we thus encourage disorder and instability and thereby
do incalculable damage to our own long-term interests.
There are those who defend United States unilateral
intervention in the Dominican Republic on the ground that
the principle of nonintervention as spelled out in the OAS
Charter is obsolete. The argument is unfortunate on two
grounds. First, the contention of obsoleteness justifies
an effort to bring about changes in the OAS Charter by due
process of law, but it does not Justify violation of the
Charter. Second, the view that the principle of noninter-
vention is obsolete is one held by certain United States
officials; most Latin Americans would argue that, far from
being obsolete, the principle of nonintervention was and
remains the heart and core of the inter-American system.
Insofar as it is honored, it provides them with something
that many in the United States find it hard to believe they
could suppose they need: protection from the United States.
Many North Americans seem to believe that, while the
United States does indeed "participate" in Latin American
affairs from time to time, sometimes by force, it is done
with the best of intentions, usually indeed to protect the
Latin Americans from intervention by somebody else, and there-
fare cannot really be considered "intervention." The trouble
with this point of view is that it is not shared by our
neighbors to the south. Most of them do think they need
protection from the United States and the history of the
Monroe Doctrine and the "Roosevelt Corollary" suggest that
their fears are not entirely without foundation. 'Good in-
tentions" are not a very sound basis for judging the fulfill-
ment of contractual obligations. Just about everybody, includ-
ing the Communists, believes in his own "good intentions.`"
It is a highly subjective criterion of national behavior
and has no more than a chance relationship to good results.
With whatever justice or lack of it, many Latin Americans are
afraid: of the United~?States; however rriuch it may hurt our feelings,
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they prefer to have their security based on some more objective
standard than the good intentions of the United States.
The standard on which they rely most heavily is the principle
of nonintervention; however obsolete it may seem to certain
United States officials, it remains vital and pertinent in
Latin America. When we-.-violate it, we are not overriding the
mere "letter Of the law"; we are violating what to Latin
Americans is its vital heart and core.
The inter-American system is rooted in an Implicit contract
between the Latin American countries and the United States. In
return for our promise not to interfere in their internal affairs
they have tacitly agreed to. remain.members..-.of our :'sphere"
and to support, or at least not to obstruct, our global policies.
In the Dominican Republic we violated our part of the bargain;
it remains to be seen whether Latin Americans will now feel
free to violate theirs.
In the eyes of educated, energetic and patriotic young
Latin Americans-- which is to say, the generation that will
make or break the Alliance for Progress-- the United States
committed a worse offense in the Dominican Republic than just
intervention: it intervened against social revolution and in
support, at least temporarily, of a corrupt, reactionary
military oligarchy.
It is not possible at present to assess the depth and
extent of disillusion with the United States on the part of
democrats and reformers in Latin America. I myself think that
it is deep and widespread. Nor am I reassured by assertions
on the part of Administration officials that a number of
Latin American governments have secretly expressed sympathy
for our actions in the Dominican Republic while explaining
that of course they could not be expected to support us openly.
Why can't they support us openly, unless it is because their
sympathy does not represent the views of their own people
and they don't dare to express it openly? In fact,real
enthusiasm for our Dominican venture has been confined to
military dictators and ruling oligarchies.
The tragedy of Santo Domingo is that a policy that
purported to defeat communism in the short run is more likely
to have the effect of promoting it in the long run. Inter-
vention in the Dominican Republic has alienated -- temporarily
or permanently, depending on our future policies.--- our real
friends in Latin America. These, broadly, are the people
of the democratic left--the Christian and social democrats
in a number of countries, the APRA Party in Peru, the Accion
Democratica Party in Venezuela, and their kindred spirits
throughout the hemisphere. By our intervention on the side
of a corrupt military oligarchy in the Dominican Republic,
we have embarrassed before their own people the democratic
reformers who have counseled trust and partnership with the
United States. We have lent credence to the idea that the
United States is the enemy of social revolution in Latin
America and that the only choice Latin Americans have is
between communism and reaction.
If those are the available alternatives, if there is no
democratic left as a third option, then there is no doubt of
the choice that honest and patriotic Latin Americans will make;
they will choose communism, not because they want it but because
United States policy will have foreclosed all other avenues
of social revolution and, indeed, all other possibilities
except the perpetuation of rule by military juntas and economic
oligarchies.
The dominant force in Latin America is the aspiration
of increasing numbers of people to personal and national
dignity. In the minds of the rising generation there are two
principle threats to that aspiration: reaction at home and
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the United States has allowed itself to become associated with both.
We have thereby offended the dignity and self-respect of young and
Idealistic Latin Americans who must now wonder whether the United
States will one day intervene against social revolutions in their
own countries, whether one day they will find themselves facing
United States marines across barricades in their own home towns.
I myself am sure, as I know President Johnson and, indeed,
most United States citizens are sure, that our country is not now
and will not become the enemy of social revolution in Latin
America. We have made a mistake in the Dominican Republic as we
did at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, but a single misjudgment does not
constitute a "doctrine" for the conduct of future policy and we
remain dedicated to the goals of the Alliance for Progress.
We know this ourselves but it remains to convince our true
friends in Latin America that their social revolutions will have
our sympathy and support. It will not be easy to do so, because
our intervention in Santo Domingo shook if it did not shatter a
confidence in the United States that had been built up over thirty
years since the liquidation of the Caribbean protectorates and the
initiation of the 'good neighbor policy."
It will be difficult but it can be done. President Johnson
took a positive step on the long road back in his statement of
rededication to the Alliance for Progress to the Latin American
Ambassadors on August 17. It remains for us to eliminate the
ambiguity between the anti-revolutionary approach symbolized by
Project 'Camelot" and the preoccupation with problems of
"counterinsurgency" on the one hand and the creative approach of
the Alliance for Progress on the other. If we do this -- and I
am both sure that we can and reasonably hopeful that we will --
then I think that the Dominican affair will be relegated in
history to the status of a single unhappy episode on the long road
toward the forging of a new and creative and dignified relation-
ship between the United States and Latin America.
In conclusion, I suggest that a new and healthier relationship
between the United States and Latin America must be a freer
relationship than that of the past.
The United States is a world power with world responsibilities
and to it the inter-American system represents a sensible way of
maintaining law and order in the region closest to the United
States. To the extent that it functions as we want it to function,
one of the inter-American system's important advantages is that it
stabilizes relations within the western hemisphere and thus frees
the United States to act on its global responsibilities.
To Latin Americans, on the other hand, the inter-American
system is politically and psychologically confining. It has the
effect, so to speak,of cooping them up in the western hemisphere,
giving them the feeling that there is no way to break out of the
usually well-intentioned but often stifling embrace of the United
States. In their hearts, I have no doubt, most Latin Americans
would like to be free of us, just as a son or daughter coming of
age wishes to be free of an over-protective parent. A great many
of those Latin Americans for whom Castro still has some appeal --
and there are now more, I would guess, than before last April 28
-- are attracted not, I feel sure, because they are infatuated
with communism, but because Cuba, albeit at the price of almost
complete dependency on the Soviet Union, has broken out of the
orbit of the United States.
It is in the nature of things that small nations do not live
comfortably in the shadow of large and powerful nations, regard-
less of whether the latter are benevolent or overbearing.
Belgium has always been uricomfox?tabie about Germany and France;
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Ireland has never been able to work up much affection for
Great Britain. And in recent years some of the Eastern
European governments have demonstrated that, despite the
Communist ideology which they share with the Soviet Union,
they still wish to free themselves as much as they can and
as much as they dare from the overbearing power of Russia.
It is natural and inevitable that Latin American countries
should have some of the same feelings toward the United
States.
Perhaps, then, the foremost immediate requirement for
a new and more friendly relationship between Latin America
and the United States in the long run is not closer ties
and new institutional bonds but a loosening of existing ties
and institutional bonds. It is an established psychological
principle--or, for that matter, just common sense--that the
strongest and most viable personal bonds are those which are
voluntary, a voluntary bond being, by definition, an arrange-
ment which one is free to enter or not to enter. I do not see
why the same principle should not operate in relations be-
tween nations, If it does, it would follow that the first
step toward stronger ties between Latin America and the
United States would be the creation of a situation in which
Latin American countries would be free, and would feel free,
to maintain or sever existing ties as they see fit and, per-
haps more important, to establish new arrangements, both
among themselves and with nations outside the hemisphere,
in which the United States would not participate.
President Frei of Chile has taken an initiative to
this end.:.::.He.has visited European leaders and
apparently indicated that his Christian Democratic Government
is interested in establishing new political, economic and
cultural links with European countries. For the reasons
suggested, I think this is an intelligent and constructive
step.
I think further that it would be a fine thing if Latin
American countries were to undertake a program of their own
for "building bridges" to the world beyond the western
hemisphere-- to Europe and Asia and Africa, and to the Com-
munist countries it they wish. Such relationships, to be
sure, would involve a loosening of ties to the United States
in the immediate future, but in the long run, I feel sure,
they would make for both happier and stronger bonds with
the United States--happier because they would be free,
stronger because they would be dignified and self-respecting
as they never had been before.
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