program of any liberal Third World leader serious about social change. He was likewise serious about the thing called civil liberties; Communists, or those labeled as such, or anyone else, were not to be persecuted unless they actually violated the law.

A number of American officials and congressmen expressed their discomfort with Boschs plans, as well as his stance of independence from the United States. Land reform and nationalization are always touchy issues in Washington, the stuff that creeping socialism is made of. In several quarters of the US press Bosch was redbaited and compared with Castro, and the Dominican Republic with Cuba. (Castro, for his part, branded Bosch a Yankee puppet .) Some of the press criticism was clearly orchestrated, in the manner of many CIA campaigns.18

In both the United States and the Dominican Republic, the accusations most frequently cast at Bosch were the ones typically used against Latin American leaders who do not vigorously suppress the left (cf. Arbenz and Goulart): Bosch was allowing communists to infiltrate into the country and into the government, and he was not countering communist subversion , the latter referring to no more than instances of people standing up for their long-denied rights. Wrote a reporter for the Miami News: Communist penetration of the Dominican Republic is progressing with incredible speed and efficiency. He did not, however, name a single communist in the Bosch government. As it happens, the reporter, Hal Hendrix, was a valuable press asset and a secret operative of the CIA in the 1960s.19 The CIA made a further contribution to the anti-Bosch atmosphere. Ambassador Martin has reported that the Agency gave rumors [about communists in the Dominican Republic] a credibility far higher than 1 would have ... In reporting a Castro/Communist plot, however wildly implausible, it is obviously safer to evaluate it as could be true than as nonsense. 20

John F. Kennedy also soured on Bosch, particularly for his refusal to crack down on radicals. Said the president to Ambassador Martin one day:

Im wondering if the day might not come when hed [Bosch] like to get rid of some of the left. Tell him we respect his judgment, were all for him, but the time may come when hell want to deport 30 or 50 people, when itd be better to deport them than to let them go. I suppose hed have to catch them in something.21

When the United States failed to commit any new economic assistance to the Dominican Republic and generally gave the indication that Juan Bosch was a doomed venture, right-wing Dominican military officers could only be encouraged in their craving to be rid of the president and his policies. Sam Halper, former Caribbean Bureau Chief of Time magazine, later reported that the military coup ousting Bosch went into action as soon as they got a wink from the U.S. Pentagon .22

In July, a group of officers formally presented Bosch with a statement of principie-cum-ultimatum: Their loyalty to his regime was conditioned upon his adoption of a policy of rigorous and -communism. Bosch reacted by going on television and delivering a lecture about the apolitical role required of the military in a democratic society, surely an occult subject to these products of 31 years of Trujilloism.

The beleaguered president could see that a premature demise lay ahead for his government. His speech on television had sounded very much like a farewell. The failure of Washington to intervene on his behalf could only enlarge the writing on the wall. Indeed, Bosch and some of his aides strongly suspected that the US military and the CIA were already conspiring with the Dominican officers. Several American military officers had disregarded diplomatic niceties by expressing their reservations about Boschs politics loud enough to reach his ears.23

A week before the inevitable coup, the CIA/AIFLD-created union federation in the Dominican Republic, CONATRAL, which had been set up to counter and erode Boschs support in the labor movement, placed an ad in a leading newspaper urging the people to put their faith in the army to defend them against communism.24

The end came in September, a scant seven months after Bosch had taken office. He had not had the time to accomplish much that was worthwhile in this hopelessly corrupt society before the military boots marched, as they have always marched in Latin America.

The United States, which can discourage a military coup in Latin America with a frown, did nothing to stand in the way of the Dominican officers. There would be no display of American military might this time-although Bosch asked for it- unless a Communist takeover were threatened, said the State Department.25

Democracy, said Newsweek magazine, was being saved from Communism by getting rid of democracy. 26

There were the customary expressions of regret in Washington about the death of democracy, and there was the de rigueur withholding of recognition of the new regime. But two months later, when opposition to the yet-again repressive dictatorship began to manifest itself noticeably, the junta yelled communist and was quickly embraced by the United States with recognition and the other perquisites which attach to being a member in good standing of the Free World .27

Nineteen months later, a revolution broke out in the Dominican Republic which promised to put the exiled Bosch back in power at the hands of a military-civilian force that would be loyal to his program. But for the fifth time in the century, the American Marines landed and put an abrupt end to such hopes.

In the early morning of Saturday, 24 April 1965, a group of young army officers of middle rank, acting in concert with civilian Bosch partisans, declared themselves in revolt against the government. The constitutionalists , as they called themselves, were soon joined by other officers and their units. Spurred by ecstatic radio proclamations, thousands of Dominicans poured into the streets shouting Viva Bosch and grabbed up the arms handed out by the rebel military forces.

The television station was taken over and for two days a potpourri of politicians, soldiers, women, children, adventurers, hoodlums and anyone who wished to, shouted against the status quo. 28

The participants in the uprising were a mixed bag, not all of them sympathetic to Bosch or to social reform; some were on the right, with their own varied motivations. But the impetus deafly lay with the constitutionalists, and the uprising was thus viewed with alarm by the rest of the military and the US Embassy as a movement to restore Bosch to power with all that that implied.

Philip Geyelin of the Wall Street Journal (and formerly with the CIA), who had access to the official embassy cables and the key actors in the drama, has written:

What the record reveals, in fact, is that from the very outset of the upheaval, there was, a concerted U.S. Government effort, if not actually a formal decision, to checkmate the rebel movement by whatever means and at whatever cost. By Sunday, April 25 ... the Santo Domingo embassy had clearly cast its lot with the loyalist military cabal and against the rebellions original aim: the return of Juan Bosch ... Restoration of the Bosch regime would be against U.S. interests , the embassy counseled. Blocking Bosch could mean further bloodshed, the embassy conceded. Nonetheless, Washington was advised, the embassy military attaches had given loyalist leaders a go-ahead to do everything possible to prevent what was described as the danger of a Communist take-over .29

The attaches as well as the US Consul made emergency visits to several still-uncommitted Dominican military commanders to persuade them, apparently with notable success, to support the government.30

A bloody civil war had broken out in the streets of Santo Domingo. During the first few days, the momentum of battle swung to one side, then the other. By the night of 28 April, however, the military and police inside Santo Domingo had collapsed, and the constitutionalists were preparing to attack the militarys last bastion, San Isidro, their main base about 10 miles away.31

The Generals at San Isidro were dejected, several were weeping, and one was hysterically urging retreat, read the cable sent by the American ambassador, W. Tapley Bennett, to Washington in the early evening of the 28th. (Bennett, as we shall see, was given to hyperbole of the worst sort, but the Dominican military certainly were isolated and demoralized.) Bennett added, whether in the same cable or another one is not clear, that if US troops did not immediately land, American lives would he lost and Castro-type elements would be victorious.32

Within hours, the first 500 US Marines were brought in by helicopter from ships stationed a few miles off the coast. Two days later, American forces ashore numbered over 4,000. At the peak, some 23,000 troops. Marine and Army, were to take up positions in the beleaguered country, with thousands more standing by on a 35-ship task force offshore.

The American action was in clear violation of several international agreements, including the Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS) which prohibited intervention directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other state .

During the entire course of the US military occupation, American pronouncements would have had the world believe that its forces were in the Dominican. Republic in a neutral capacity: to protect the lives of Americans and other foreigners, establish a ceasefire, ensure free elections, etc. As we have seen, however, the United States had committed itself to one side from the start of hostilities. This continued to he the case. The morning after the landing of the first Marines, Ambassador Bennett was instructed by the State Department that US military officers should be used to help San Isidro develop operational plans take the rebel stronghold downtown .33

Within a few days, American troops were deployed in an armed corridor through the cen-ter of Santo Domingo so as to divide the constitutionalists zone and cut off their main body from access to the rest of the country, bottling them up in a small downtown area with their backs to the sea. Other American forces were stationed throughout the countryside. The rebel offensive against San Isidro had been prevented. It was the end of their revolution.

The American forces came to the aid of the Dominican military in a number of ways, supplying them with equipment, food and even their salaries, but it was the direct military involvement that was most telling. On one striking occasion, the sea of American troops parted to allow the Dominican military to pass through and brutally attack and mop up the northern section of the rebel zone while the main rebel force in the south remained helplessly blocked behind the American line. This smashing victory, the New York Times reported, was visibly aided by United States troops . Other American journalists also reported that US troops took part in the fighting, although Washington officials angrily denied it.34