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.3 What the Agency's motivation was, and whether it wasacting on its own or at the behest of higher echelons in Washington, is not known.However, in February 1960 the National Security Council's Special Group inWashington gave consideration to a program of covert aid to anti-Trujillo Dominicans.4Two months later, Eisenhower approved a contingency plan which provided, in part,that if the situation deteriorated still further: "the United States would immediately takepolitical action to remove Trujillo from the Dominican Republic as soon as a suitablesuccessor regime can be induced to take over with the assurance of U.S.political,economic, and if necessary military support."5Seemingly unaware of the currents swirling about him, Trujillo continued to liveup to his gangster reputation.In June, his henchmen blew up a car carrying VenezuelanPresident Romulo Betancourt, an outspoken critic of the Dominican dictator.As aresult, Washington came under renewed pressure from several of the more democraticCaribbean countries for action against Trujillo.Betancourt, who had survived the blast,told US Secretary of State Christian Herter: "If you don't eliminate him, we willinvade."6For a full year, the dissidents and various American officials played cloak-and-dagger games: There were meetings in New York and Washington, in Ciudad Trujilloand Venezuela; Americans living in the Dominican Republic were enlisted for the causeby the CIA; schemes to overthrow Trujillo were drawn up at different times by the StateDepartment, the CIA, and the dissidents, some approved by the Special Group.A176training camp was set up in Venezuela for Dominican exiles flown there from theUnited States and Puerto Rico by the CIA; the dissidents made numerous requests forweapons, from sniper rifles to remote-control detonating devices, for the understoodpurpose of assassinating Trujillo and other key members of his regime.Several of therequests were approved by the State Department or the CIA; support for the dissidentswas regularly reiterated at high levels of the US government.yet, after all was saidand done, none of the ambitious plans was even attempted (the actual assassination wasessentially a spur-of-the-moment improvised affair), only three pistols and threecarbines were ever passed to the anti-Trujillistas, and it is not certain that any of theseguns were used in the assassination.'In the final analysis, the most significant aid received by the dissidents from theUnited States was the assurance that the "Colossus to the North" would not intervenemilitarily to prevent the assassination and would support them afterwards if they set upa "suitable" government.In Latin America this is virtually a sine qua non for suchundertakings, notably in the Dominican Republic where American marines have landedon four separate occasions in this century, the last intervention having created acentralized Dominican National Guard which the US placed under the control of ayoung officer it had trained named Rafael Trujillo.The gap between the word and the deed of the American government concerningthe assassination appears to have been the consequence of a growing uncertainty inWashington about what would actually cake place in the wake of Trujillo's demisewould a pro-Castro regime emerge from the chaos? A secondary consideration, perhaps,was a reluctance to engage in political assassination, both as a matter of policy and as adesire to avoid, as one State Department official put it, "further tarnishing in the eyes ofthe world" of the "U.S.moral posture".8 This was particularly the expressed feeling ofPresident John Kennedy and others in his administration who had assumed office inJanuary 1961, although they were later to undertake several assassination attemptsagainst Castro.The dismal failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in April further dampened theenthusiasm of Washington officials for Caribbean adventures (except against Cuba inrevenge) and induced them to request a postponement of the assassination.The plotters,however, were well past the point of no return.The Dominicans who pulled the triggers and their fellow conspirators were in noway revolutionaries.They came from the ranks of the conservative, privileged sectors ofDominican society and were bound together primarily by an intense loathing of Trujillo,a personal vendetta each of them, or someone close to them, had suffered a deephumiliation at the hands of the diabolical dictator, if not torture or murder.Their plan as to what would follow the elimination of Trujillo was only half-baked, and even this fell apart completely.As matters turned out, the day after theassassination, Rafael ("Ramfis") Trujillo, Jr.rushed home from his playboy's life inParis to take over the reins of government.Little had been resolved, either in theDominican Republic or in Washington.The Kennedy administration was confrontedwith the same ideological questions which had caused them so much indecision beforethe assassination, as they had the Eisenhower administration.To wit: What is the bestway of preventing the establishment of left-wing governments intent upon radical socialchange? The traditional iron fist of right-wing dictatorship, or a more democraticsociety capable of meeting many of the legitimate demands of the populace? How muchdemocracy? Would too much open the door for even greater, and unacceptable,demands and provide the left with a legal platform from which TO sway ("dupe",177Washington would call it) the public? And if it is a dictatorship that is to be supported,how are liberal American leaders to explain this to the world and to their own citizens?John F.Kennedy and his men from Harvard tended to treat such policy questionsin a manner more contemplative than American political figures are usually inclined todo: on occasion, it might be said, they even agonized over such questions.But in theend, their Latin American policy was scarcely distinguishable from that of conservativeRepublican administrations.A leader who imposed "order" with at least the facade ofdemocracy, who kept the left submerged without being notoriously brutal about it; inshort, the anti-communist liberal, still appeared to be the safest ally for the UnitedStates."There are three possibilities," Kennedy said, "in descending order ofpreference: a decent democratic regime, a continuation of the Trujillo regime or aCastro regime.We ought to aim at the first but we really can't renounce the second untilwe are sure we can avoid the third."9Rafael Trujillo, Jr.was clearly not ideal.Besides bearing the inescapable stigmaof his name and family, he proceeded to carry out a bloodbath of revenge over the nextsix months.10 But, unlike his father in his last years, Ramfis could be prodded byWashington into making a few token reforms, and both parties might have been contentto continue in this fashion indefinitely had not many people of the Dominican Republicfelt terribly cheated by the turn of events.Their elation over the assassination hadsoured in the face of business-as-usual [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]