Many international policies of the United States government are marred by conflicts of interest and selfish agendas. The United States has a history of supporting oppressive governments that put down the populace while the dictatorial rulers fatten their own pockets and reside in huge palaces. Then the United States wonders why some countries have negative feelings toward them. What the United States does not seem to understand is that Latin America, especially the Caribbean, are not territories of the United States. So what gives them the right of going into countries to settle disputes? They would be in a justified position to mediate if they were a neutral third party, but they never are.

An example of this is when they intervened in the Dominican Republic in the spring of 1965, to put down an uprising led by local scholars, young military officers and a movement that was embraced by the populace. The US did not intervene until the civil war was about to be won by the rebels, which demonstrates which side they were on and that they did not expect this outcome to come about. Moreover, they believed that the civil war would end up in a communist revolution and that Fidel Castro was somehow orchestrating this rebellion from Cuba. Another reason why the US probably intervened is for the successful continuation of trade and business with the Dominican Republic. They attempted to use their influence to help elect an official who they felt resembled a non-threatening, democratic, pro United States, head of state. Last, they wanted to show that they would intervene in other countries if the happenings in that country were not to their liking. At that time, (during the Dominican Civil War) there was escalating violence in Vietnam, so the Dominican crisis was a platform that allowed them to show that the US would intervene in the affairs of another country if they believed they felt the need to. Therefore, I believe that the US intervened to protect it’s own interest and maintain control of politics in the Western Hemisphere. The Dominican Republic had a dictator that the United States felt they controlled to a certain degree. But when the Dominican dictator Trujillo died, the United States was worried because they thought a communist would come to power and would pose a threat to the continental U.S.

The Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo was assassinated on May 30, 1961 and with his death went 30 years of one of the most oppressive governments in Latin American history. That's not the way that the United States government would analyze that event. They would probably state that with his death went 30 years of economic and political stability. It’s this flawed thinking: capitalism, democracy & US interests first, needs and wants of the other country second. That is exactly what makes the United States despised by “common” everyday citizens of other countries around the world. There is even evidence that the United States government actually backed Trujillo’s oppressive regime: in the words of former President of the United States F.D.R, “He may be an S.O.B., but at least he’s our S.O.B” (Slater 6). This demonstrates that the United States would rather back a dictator than let the people have their own form of government just because it might not be in the best interest of the United States government.

Another President that publicly favored a dictatorial regime for the Dominican Republic was President Kennedy. After the death of Trujillo, President Kennedy stated this about the future prospects of the Dominican Republic: "There are three possibilities in descending order of preference, a decent democratic regime, a continuation of the Trujillo regime or a Castro regime. We ought to aim for the first, but we really can't renounce the second until we are sure we can avoid the third" (Gomez 5). In other words, he said that they would have like the Dominican Republic to be democratic but they would have allowed the oppressive Trujillo regime to continue if they believed a communist takeover was unavoidable.

The Dominican people got the chance to vote for a President with the assistance of the United States. The people elected Juan Bosch he was a “Professor of political science in Costa Rica and Puerto Rico” (Slater 11). He received almost no aid money from the United States unlike the millions of dollars given to Trujillo. So it was obvious that the United States did not like Bosch probably because his ideals were not in accord with that of the government of the United States. Bosch made many enemies with people in the military especially after he legalized the communist party. Some members in the military had enough, but there would be no intervention by the U.S because like I’ve said they favored oppressive regimes. So the democratically elected government of the Dominican Republic fell and the United States would do nothing to stop it.

A group of dissident military men led by Colonel Elias Wessin y Wessin, commander of they key Armed forces training centers, on September 25, 1963, deposed Bosch’s administration. According to Cascon Case, “The replacement of Bosch’s elected government prompted young military officers to rally to Bosch’s PRD party. In late1964, in the Rio Piedras Pact, they vowed to restore the constitutional President” (Cascom Case DOM: Dominican Republic 1965-66). Juan Bosch went into exile in Puerto Rico and a military junta ruled the country. Donald Reid Cabral emerged as the head of the junta, but according to Gomez, he “faced many of the challenges that Bosch encountered and would eventually suffer a similar fate”(Gomez, 9). If was apparent that Reid’s government was ineffective and that Dominican disenchantment with it’s government was growing exponentially. The Dominican political scene began to split in different directions; the U.S and some of the military personnel backed Reid. Most of the senior military officials supported Balaguer and the political leftist groups and young military officers wanted the reinstation of Bosch as President. All of these elements would amount to another coup of an existing Dominican government. Unlike the coup by the military junta, this would be bloody and take the lives of many Dominicans.

“Fighting broke out in the Dominican Republic on Saturday, 24 April”(Navy Historical Center). A group of young colonels, some of them part of the P.R.D seized and imprisoned the Army Chief of staff and declared themselves in revolt against the government. The rebel faction labeled themselves the “Constitunalist”; they were made of PRD members on young military officers and were led by General Fransico Caamano. The group supporting Reid called themselves the “Loyalist” which consisted of the older members of the military and were led by General Wessin y Wessin. Too solidify the revolution, the Constitunalist did two things, “Seized Radio Santo Domingo and urged the populist to take to the streets in support of the movement” (Slater, 22). Secondly, “dissidents passed out rifles and machineguns to several thousand civilian sympathizers and adherents, including juveniles” (Navy Historical Center, Annual Report of the Secretary of Defense: 1 July 1964 to 30 June 1965, extract). My father, Jose Bernard was eighteen at the time and took part in the revolution in support of the Constitutionalist.

The Wessin forces started to fight back against the rebels. Wessin controlled the Air Force and he had no problem using them against the Constitutionalist and the general public. Late in the afternoon on the second day of the revolution “planes from San Isidro bombed the National Palace and Constitutionalist military encampments” (Slater 25). My father says he remembers the bombing, “It was absolute terror, they were bombing day and night for two straight days”(Bernard). The US did not care that innocent bystanders were being gun down in the streets by reckless strafing from Wessin’s controlled planes. An account of Wessin’s abuse of military power is recounted in Intervention and Negotiation: “Planes streaked overhead, machine gunning the streets and dropping bombs on the rebels and civilian population. Casualties were mounting and hospitals were being filled up with the wounded” (Slater 28). The United States government openly opposed the rebellion for a couple reasons the U.S believed there were many communist elements in the revolution and they did not want the return of Bosch’s administration. I wonder why the U.S. government backed Wessin’s forces and Reid’s government in general when they would easily shoot down civilians if they suspected there were rebel forces nearby?

The United States offered many different reasons as to why intervene in the Dominican Revolution. The most intriguing reason why they intervened in the Dominican Republic was that they believed that there were communist elements within the revolution. According to Gomez, President Johnson, “Having seen Eisenhower criticized for ‘losing Cuba’ and Kennedy humiliated in the bay of pigs failure, Johnson was determined that no similar disaster would befall him: there would be no ‘second Cuba’” (7). Publicly there was almost no mention that the Johnson administration considered the Crisis a communist revolution. The United States government officially stated that they were going into the Dominican Republic to “safeguard American lives” argues Slater. That’s a plausible reason to go into a country, but there actions didn’t stop there. According to my father and several other sources, the American military positioned their forces from the airport all the way to the American embassy. This may sound reasonable but the outcome of this “cord of security was that it cut off the Northern Constitutionalist forces from the Southern civilian based Constitutionalist force.” (Bernard). So from the start, the American military was out to halt the rebels from taking victory. They placed paratroopers over the Duarte Bridge cutting off a possible attack on San Isidro the town in which Wessin’s headquarters was located.

Every source I’ve come across mentions that other than the obvious fact that U.S citizens were in danger, that they went in because they suspected there might be a communist takeover of the Dominican Republic. The fact that there could or couldn’t have been a communist takeover can be debated but not actually proved because the Americans intervened. Slater states that “a number of high State Department officials were gloomily predicting that, even if Bosch should succeed in regaining office, the communist would shortly out-maneuver him and take over the government" (51). Through all of my research I did not come across any book or article that indicated that Fidel Castro or the U.S.S.R were directly involved. Gomez states that Johnson’s belief that there was about to be a second Cuba were incorrect; he adds there were communist involved with the revolt but that they were a minute fraction of all the organizations attempting to get Bosch reinstated (8). My father concurred with this statement during the interview he agreed that there were Dominican Communists but that there were so few that they would not have posed a threat. Then my father disclosed to me that my next-door neighbor, who is Dominican, was one of the Dominican communist seeking the reinstatement of Bosch [!]. I was surprised because reading history books especially in school, they made communist appear to be the worst people on Earth. All of the well known communist that are spoken of frequently were all horrible people but my neighbor is a very nice person. So it seems that the U.S. was caught up in the hysteria of communism during the Cold War and was quick to label the whole revolution communist.

Many people say that the choice of the U.S to intervene in the Dominican Republic was a mistake. For starters, labeling the Dominican civil war communist by some officials in the United States government gave Castro more credit that he deserved. Gomez states, "Perhaps the biggest winner in all this was Fidel Castro” (9). I agree with his assessment on this because I believe that our government over reacted to a non-existing threat. Even though they believe that they have a moral duty as the strongest nation to mediate disputes, the United States should refrain from abusing their power. America must have a short memory because it also had a civil war and there was no nation intervening in its affairs. They did not intervene when Bosch was deposed from office by a military coup but when the rebel forces almost took the country back the U.S. decided to intervene. This fact in itself demonstrates that the U.S. favored a repressive regime. The U.S. should not deny other countries the right to set up their own type of government. Controlling the affairs of other countries, deciding what leaders will take power is wrong.

In conclusion I believe that the threat to American lives in the Dominican Republic were greatly exaggerated. Evidence of this can be found in Intervention and Negotiation: “as it turned out, not only was not a single American attacked[…] “. “What few attacks that did occur were highly selective, aimed at a few extreme rightist […]”(Slater, 33). So I believe that the U.S did not really have justification to invade the Dominican Republic. There was almost no threat of communist takeover, American lives were not really in danger and this was just to show the rest of the world that they could and would intervene if they felt it was necessary.