training camp was set up in Venezuela for Dominican exiles flown there from the United States and Puerto Rico by the CIA; the dissidents made numerous requests for weapons, from sniper rifles to remote-control detonating devices, for the understood purpose of assassinating Trujillo and other key members of his regime. Several of the requests were approved by the State Department or the CIA; support for the dissidents was regularly reiterated at high levels of the US government ... yet, after all was said and done, none of the ambitious plans was even attempted (the actual assassination was essentially a spur-of-the-moment improvised affair), only three pistols and three carbines were ever passed to the anti-Trujillistas, and it is not certain that any of these guns were used in the assassination.

In the final analysis, the most significant aid received by the dissidents from the United States was the assurance that the Colossus to the North would not intervene militarily to prevent the assassination and would support them afterwards if they set up a suitable government. In Latin America this is virtually a sine qua non for such undertakings, notably in the Dominican Republic where American marines have landed on four separate occasions in this century, the last intervention having created a centralized Dominican National Guard which the US placed under the control of a young officer it had trained named Rafael Trujillo.

The gap between the word and the deed of the American government concerning the assassination appears to have been the consequence of a growing uncertainty in Washington about what would actually cake place in the wake of Trujillos demise- would a pro-Castro regime emerge from the chaos? A secondary consideration, perhaps, was a reluctance to engage in political assassination, both as a matter of policy and as a desire to avoid, as one State Department official put it, further tarnishing in the eyes of the world of the U.S. moral posture .8 This was particularly the expressed feeling of President John Kennedy and others in his administration who had assumed office in January 1961, although they were later to undertake several assassination attempts against Castro.

The dismal failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in April further dampened the enthusiasm of Washington officials for Caribbean adventures (except against Cuba in revenge) and induced them to request a postponement of the assassination. The plotters, however, were well past the point of no return.

The Dominicans who pulled the triggers and their fellow conspirators were in no way revolutionaries. They came from the ranks of the conservative, privileged sectors of Dominican society and were bound together primarily by an intense loathing of Trujillo, a personal vendetta-each of them, or someone close to them, had suffered a deep humiliation at the hands of the diabolical dictator, if not torture or murder.

Their plan as to what would follow the elimination of Trujillo was only half-baked, and even this fell apart completely. As matters turned out, the day after the assassination, Rafael ( Ramfis ) Trujillo, Jr. rushed home from his playboys life in Paris to take over the reins of government. Little had been resolved, either in the Dominican Republic or in Washington. The Kennedy administration was confronted with the same ideological questions which had caused them so much indecision before the assassination, as they had the Eisenhower administration. To wit: What is the best way of preventing the establishment of left-wing governments intent upon radical social change? The traditional iron fist of right-wing dictatorship, or a more democratic society capable of meeting many of the legitimate demands of the populace? How much democracy? Would too much open the door for even greater, and unacceptable, demands and provide the left with a legal platform from which TO sway ( dupe ,

Washington would call it) the public? And if it is a dictatorship that is to be supported, how are liberal American leaders to explain this to the world and to their own citizens?

John F. Kennedy and his men from Harvard tended to treat such policy questions in a manner more contemplative than American political figures are usually inclined to do: on occasion, it might be said, they even agonized over such questions. But in the end, their Latin American policy was scarcely distinguishable from that of conservative Republican administrations. A leader who imposed order with at least the facade of democracy, who kept the left submerged without being notoriously brutal about it; in short, the anti-communist liberal, still appeared to be the safest ally for the United States.

There are three possibilities, Kennedy said, in descending order of preference: a decent democratic regime, a continuation of the Trujillo regime or a Castro regime. We ought to aim at the first but we really cant renounce the second until we are sure we can avoid the third. 9

Rafael Trujillo, Jr. was clearly not ideal. Besides bearing the inescapable stigma of his name and family, he proceeded to carry out a bloodbath of revenge over the next six months.10 But, unlike his father in his last years, Ramfis could be prodded by Washington into making a few token reforms, and both parties might have been content to continue in this fashion indefinitely had not many people of the Dominican Republic felt terribly cheated by the turn of events. Their elation over the assassination had soured in the face of business-as-usual.

Resentment spilled over into the streets. By October, the protests were occurring daily and were being put down by tanks; students were shot dead by government troops. The United States began to make moves, for the situation in the streets and high places of the government was anarchic enough, Washington feared, to provide an opening for the proverbial (and seemingly magical) communist takeover , although, in fact, the left in the Dominican Republic was manifestly insignificant from years of repression.

American diplomats met in the capital city with the Trujillo clan and Dominican military leaders and bluntly told them that US military power would, if necessary, be used to compel the formation of a provisional government headed by Joaquin Balaguer until elections could be held. Balaguer had been closely tied to the Trujillo family for decades, was serving as president under Trujillo at the time of the assassination, and had remained in the same capacity under Ramfis, but he was not regarded as a threat to continue the tyranny. As Kennedy put it: Balaguer is our only tool. The anticommunist liberals arent strong enough. We must use our influence to take Balaguer along the road to democracy. 11 Just how committed John F. Kennedy was to democracy in the Dominican Republic we shall presently see.

To make certain that the Dominicans got the message, a US naval task force of eight ships with 1,800 Marines aboard appeared off the Dominican coast on 19 November, just outside the three-mile limit but in plain sight of Ciudad Trujillo. Spanish-language broadcasts from the offshore ships warned that the Marines were prepared to come ashore; while overhead, American jet fighters streaked along the coastline. Brigadier General Pedro Rodriguez Echevarria, a key military figure, was persuaded by the United States to put aside any plans for a coup he may have been harboring and to support the American action. Rodriguez proceeded-whether of his own initiative is not clear-to order the bombing of the air base outside the capital where Trujillistas had been massing troops. Over the next two days, Ramfis returned to the pleasure temples of Europe while other prominent Trujillistas left for the good life in Florida.12

However, when Balaguer proved to be a major obstacle to beginning the process of democratization and indicated that he did not regard his regime as temporary, the United States added its own special pressure to that of Balaguers domestic opposition to force him to resign after only two months in office. Washington then turned around and issued another stern warning to General Rodriguez, threatened Dominican leaders with a large loss of aid if they supported a coup, and mounted another naval show-of-force to help other military officers block the generals attempt to seize power.1-1

While a seven-man Council of State then administered the affairs of government, the US continued to treat the Dominican Republic as its private experiment in the prevention of communism. The American Ambassador, John Bartlow Martin, pressed the Council to curb left-wing activity. By his own admission, Martin urged the use of methods once used by the police in Chicago : harassment of suspects by repeated arrests, midnight raids on their homes, beatings, etc.14

When street disturbances erupted, US Attorney General Robert Kennedy arranged for riot-control equipment to be sent to Santo Domingo (the original name of the capital, now restored). The equipment came complete with two Spanish-speaking Los Angeles detectives to impart to their Dominican counterparts the fine art of quelling such uprisings that they had acquired in the Mexican barrios of east Los Angeles. In a few weeks. Ambassador Martin could report that the Council had rewon the streets, thanks almost entirely to those two detectives .15

This riot-control unit remained as a permanent part of the Santo Domingo police force. Known as the Cascos Blancos (white helmets), they came to be much hated by the populace. Shortly afterwards, the US military undertook a long-range program to transform the countrys armed forces into what was hoped would be an efficient anti-guerrilla organization, though guerrillas were as rare on the Caribbean island as members of the Trujillo family.16

Finally, in December 1962, elections were held, under terms dictated in large part by Ambassador Martin to the two major candidates. His purpose was to introduce into the Dominican Republic some of the features that Americans regard as necessary to a viable and democratic electoral system, but Martins fiat was inescapably a highly condescending intrusion into the affairs of a supposedly sovereign nation. His instructions extended down to the level of what the loser should say in his concession speech.

Further, under an Emergency Law , the United States and the Council arranged for the deportation of some 125 Trujillistas and Castro communists to the United States, from where they were not allowed to leave until after the election in order to help maintain stability so elections could be held .17

The winner, and first more-or-less-democratically elected president of the Dominican Republic since 1924, was Juan Bosch, a writer who had spent many years in exile while Trujillo reigned. Here at last was Kennedys liberal anti-communist, non-military and legally elected by a comfortable majority as well. Boschs government was to be the long-sought-after showcase of democracy that would put the lie to Fidel Castro. He was given the grand treatment in Washington shortly before he took office in February 1963.

Bosch was true to his beliefs. He called for land reform, including transferring some private land to the public sector as required; low-rent housing; modest nationalization of business; an ambitious project of public works, serving mass needs more than vested interests; a reduction in the import of luxury items; at the same time, he favored incentives to private enterprise and was open to foreign investment provided it was not excessively exploitative of the country-all in all, standard elements in the