DOMINICAN REPUBLIC ERRATIC ATTACK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000200920046-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 5, 1999
• Sequence Number: 46
• Publication Date: September 24, 1965
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

l:Iivi4's
SEP 2 4 1965
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CI
C
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Erratic Attack
At the close of his July hearings on
U.S. intervention in the Dominican Re-
public, Senator J. William Fulbright,
chairman of the Foreign Relations Com-
mittee, announced that no formal report
would be issued. Last week, in a two-
hour Senate speech, Fulbright delivered
his own delayed opinion-a scalding de-
nunciation of the intervention and its
portent for U.S. policy in general. Ful-
ibright's erratic', attacks on the Adminis-
tration' are no longer surprising. What
made this one particularly curious was
i the fact that, on White House orders,
he had access to every scrap of infor-
mation in the files-but apparently
based his conclusions more heavily on
.the same old highly colored newspaper
reports.
Fulbright called the intervention as
"grievous" a mistake as the Bay of Pigs
invasion of Communist Cuba. ,He ac-
cused the U.S. of intervening "not to
save American lives, as was contended,
but to prevent the victory of a revolu-
tionary movement" wrongly judged to
be Communist-dominated. President
Johnson, said Fulbright, reacted to "ex-
aggerated estimates of Communist in-
fluence in the rebel movement," then
overreacted by sending in , 20,000
troops. To make matters worse, the
U.S. then took sides with Brigadier Gen-
eral Antonio Imbert's loyalist junta-
; "a corrupt and reactionary military
oligarchy." Concluded Fulbright: "If we
are automatically to oppose any reform
movement that Communists adhere to,
I we are likely to end up opposing every
reform movement, making ourselves
1 the prisoners of reactionaries who wish
to preserve the status quo."
Reformers & Reds. In -the Senate, Ful-
bright's colleagues, who had, access to
the same files as he, rose one after an-
With U.S. help, Venezuela's left-of-
center Raul Leoni has built such a pros-
pcrous economy that he is considering
his own Alianza-like program to help
less-developed neighbors. Mexico's
strongly independent President Gustavo
Diaz Ordaz paid high compliments to
U.S. Alianza efforts in his recent state-
of-the-nation speech. The U.S. is push-
ing hard for social reform in Guate-
mala, Honduras, : Ecuador, Brazil, Bo-
livia and Paraguay, all run by authori-
tarian regimes that are not necessarily
throwbacks to the old-line oligarchies.
Ample Evidence. In the Dominican
Republic itself, the U.S. was instru-
STATINTL
mental in bringing an end to the Tru-
jillo dictatorship. In the recent crisis,
U.S. policy may well have suffered from
some mistakes and misinformation. But
SENATOR FULBRIGHT
Indiscriminate 'infatuation.
the fact remains that the country was
on the verge of a bloodbath, and that
the Communists were swiftly profiting
from the chaos. U.S. troops, whether
5,000 or 20,000, enforced a more or
less peaceful settlement-and the U.S.,
in the end, was far tougher with the
loyalist "reactionaries" than with the
Communist-infiltrated rebels.
noted, "suffers from an indiscriminate Last week, as Provisional President
infatuation with revolutions of all kinds 'He'ctor Garcia-Godoy completed his
-national, democratic or Communist." second week in office, 9,200 U.S. and
Few would question the argument . OAS troops were still in the Dominican
that the U.S. should support reform and Republic. Garcia-Godoy needs them
social revolution in Latin America, even there. During the revolt, the three
if it is sometimes hard to. separate the shades of Communism-the Peking-fin-,
genuine reformers, from the Commu- ing Dominican Popular Movement, the
nists. And there are still, as Fulbright , Moscow-oriented Dominican Commu-
. says, Latin Americans who cry Com-.?', :nist Party, the Castroite 14th of June'
munism to resist change. But the U.S. Movement-controlled some 2,500
has found plenty of anti-Communists armed fighters. All three groups have
to back-anti-Communists who are also ? been smuggling arms out of Santo Do-reformers. It wholeheartedly supports mingo to stash them in other cities and
Chile's President Eduardo Frei, who in the hills.
beat a Marxist to win office. It has ' After Fulbright's speech, President
Sarpm% -2
Belnde arryry wag wageFt,.a so- a inc a a out ut a intervention. ts p Q y ( 00920046. re
cial revolution that. will aid millions of - would do it all over again, only. we'd:
backlands Indians.' have done it-earlier and tougher."
other to dispute his conclusions. Said
Connecticut's Democratic Senator
Thomas J. Dodd: intervention was an
"unavoidable necessity." Fulbright, he