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The United States, the Organization of American States, and the Dominican Republic, 1961–1963

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Jerome Slater
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Extract

The 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion is now almost universally considered to be “one of those rare politico-military events—a perfect failure.” One of the conclusions usually derived from that affair is the general inadvisability of direct United States intervention in the internal affairs of other nations to bring about desired changes in their domestic political structures. Almost simultaneously, however, the United States was doing just that in the Dominican Republic with a considerable degree of success, indicating that the lessons of the Cuban experience should not be overdrawn.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , Spring 1964 , pp. 268 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1964

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References

1 Draper, Theodore, Castro's Revolution (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1962), p. 59Google Scholar.

2 Intervention is used here to mean the deliberate employment of the diplomatic, economic, political, or military means of power by any state or group of states to induce changes in the internal or external policies of any other state or group of states. This is to be distinguished from influence which refers to the unavoidable and perhaps unintentional effects of the actions of one state upon the actions of others.

3 Pan American Union, Applications of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, 1948–1956 (Washington, D.C.: Pan American Union, 1957), p. 128Google Scholar. For a detailed summary of these events and verbatim translations of the relevant documents, see pp. 71–155.

4 See especially Dreier, John C., The Organization of American States and the Hemisphere Crisis (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1962), Chapter IIIGoogle Scholar.

5 Department of State Bulletin, 09 26, 1949 (Vol. 21, No. 534), p. 463Google Scholar.

6 Ibid.

7 Department of State Bulletin, 08 31, 1959 (Vol. 41, No. 1053), p. 303Google Scholar.

8 Herter's speech to the Second Session of the General Committee, Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, 6th, José, San, 1960, Actas y Documentos (Washington, D.C.: Pan American Union, 1961), Document 22Google Scholar.

9 Resolution I of the Final Act of the Meeting, hoc. cit., Document 25.

10 Actas del Consejo de la Organización de los Estados Americanos (hereafter cited as Adas), January 4, 1961.

11 See particularly the revealing statement of Under Secretary of State C. Douglas Dillon, testifying on behalf of the Administration's request for authority to suspend most of the Dominican sugar quota before the U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Agriculture, Hearings, Extension of the Sugar Act of 1948, 86th Congress, 2nd Session, 1960, especially p. 67.

12 Council of the OAS, First Report of the Subcommittee of the Special Committee to Carry Out the Mandate Received by the Council Pursuant to Resolution I of the 6th Meeting of Consultation, OAS Document CE/RC V 1–10, 1961. (The three reports of this subcommittee will be cited hereafter as First Report, Second Report, and Third Report.)

13 Second Report.

14 Ibid., p. 26.

15 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Report on the Situation Regarding Human Rights in the Dominican Republic (Washington, D.C.: Pan American Union, 1962), and personal interviewsGoogle Scholar.

16 See the article by Wells, Henry, the United States member on the mission, “The OAS and the Dominican Elections,” Orbis, Spring 1963 (Vol. 7, No. 1)Google Scholar. Also, a report on the elections was given by H. Field Haviland, Jr., a member of the OAS group, to members of the Brookings Institution in January 1963.

17 The New York Times, November 17, 1961, and personal interviews.

The embassy had been closed when diplomatic relations were broken in 1960, but consular relations had been maintained, a convenient arrangement that combined the symbolic advantages of a diplomatic break with the practical utility of a continued United States presence.

18 Personal interviews.

19 The New York Times, November 14, 1961.

20 The New York Times, November 17, 1961.

21 Department of State Bulletin, 12 4, 1961 (Vol. 45, No. 1171), p. 931Google Scholar.

22 The New York Times, November 19, 1961.

23 Department of State Bulletin, 01 1, 1962 (Vol. 46, No. 1175), p. 34Google Scholar.

24 The New York Times, December 17 and December 24, 1961.

25 Department of State Bulletin, 01 22, 1962 (Vol. 46, No. 1178), p. 128Google Scholar.

26 The New York Times, December 4, 1961.

27 Third Report.

28 Adas, January 4, 1962, and The New York Times, January 5 and January 7, 1962.

29 The New York. Times, January 18–20, 1962, and personal interviews.

30 The following interpretation of United States policy is based on extensive interviews on a not-forattribution basis with most of the key participants in the Dominican drama, both in the Department of State and the OAS. As there was a great deal of disagreement over the nature of the United States' objectives, the reconstruction of events and general analysis that follow are my own, and I am solely responsible for their accuracy.

31 The New York Times, November 25, 1961.

32 This analysis may also help explain the unwillingness of the United States to directly intervene in Cuba in the early years of the Castro regime. First, it is unlikely that United States intervention would have been popularly welcomed in Cuba, as it was in the Dominican Republic. Second, the early opposition to Castro was not organized, articulate, democratic, or responsible, and therefore there was no attractive alternative to the Castro regime. Third, although Cuba was probably as vulnerable to economic pressures as the Dominican Republic, the Castro regime was able to develop new markets for its exports, notably, of course, the Soviet Union, while the Trujillo regime was not. Fourth, United States intervention would certainly have aroused the vociferous and perhaps violent opposition of most Latin American political groups among whom Castro was as popular as Trujillo was detested. Lastly, the refusal of the OAS to consider meaningful anti-Cuban action would have denied the United States the legitimacy of collectivity.

More recently, the difficulties of direct United States intervention in Cuba have been immensely magnified, of course, by the Cuban-Soviet alliance, an obstacle which was not present in the Dominican situation. Finally, beyond the problems of feasibility of direct intervention in Cuba, there are the obvious questions of the desirability of such action.

33 The New York Times, January 5, 1964.

34 Ibid.

35 The Dominican Republic had long been a haven for supporters of former Venezuelan dictator Perez Jimenez. The attempt to kill Betancourt was only the culmination of a series of Trujillo-supported plots by this group. Thus, the elimination of Trujilloism was deemed essential for the consolidation of democracy in Venezuela itself.