US Military Intervention in the Dominican Republic
The United States landed 42,000 troops in the Dominican Republic in April 1965 to stop what it said was a second Cuba. The country had been ruled for thirty-one years by Rafael Trujillo, one of the most complete personal dictatorships in the hemisphere, who was assassinated in 1961 with weapons supplied by the CIA. Juan Bosch, a writer who had spent decades in exile, won the first free election in 1962 with 60 per cent, took office in February 1963, and was overthrown by the army in September after seven months — his offences being a constitution with land reform, civil marriage and limits on foreign ownership, and a general refusal to persecute the left. A junta and then a civilian triumvirate governed badly. In April 1965 a group of younger officers rose to restore Bosch, distributed arms to civilians in Santo Domingo, and were winning against the loyalist forces when Johnson ordered the marines in. The stated reason was the protection of American citizens, and the operative one was a list of alleged communists in the constitutionalist camp that the embassy could not substantiate. The Organisation of American States was persuaded to provide a fig leaf of a multinational force. Some 3,000 Dominicans and 44 Americans died. Elections in 1966, held under occupation, were won by Joaquín Balaguer, Trujillo's last puppet president, who governed for most of the next thirty years. The intervention is the clearest single case of the Johnson doctrine in practice. Bosch later remarked that his country was a country without a people, meaning that outside powers had always decided for it. He lived until 2001 and never held office again.
- Year: 1965 CE
- Category: Military
