Dictators and Democrats in the Dominican Republic

Abstract

This chapter argues that presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson did not foresee a direct Soviet threat in the Dominican Republic when they decided to intervene. Instead, America pursued the maintenance of a hierarchical regional order in the Western Hemisphere. With this end in view, U.S. policymakers feared that if a socialist or communist regime came to power in the Dominican Republic, its success could spark left-wing revolts in neighboring countries, leading to a cascade of defections from the U.S.-led order and potentially the collapse of U.S. regional hegemony. As such, the chapter investigates a series of hegemonic operations against the Dominican Republic during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Eisenhower initiated a coup d'état plot against America's one-time ally General Rafael Trujillo that came to fruition under Kennedy and resulted in Trujillo's 1961 assassination. In 1962, Kennedy launched a second covert operation to manipulate the country's upcoming presidential elections. After these covert efforts failed to produce a stable government, Johnson overtly intervened during a 1965 crisis to prevent leftist forces from assuming power. Afterward, he reverted to covert conduct to manipulate Dominican elections in 1966 and 1968.