The War with Haiti
by John Bartlow Martin

On the evening of April 26, 1963 - a Friday, of course - I went to President Bosch's house to discuss several matters with him. In the course of the long conversation, he mentioned rather casually that the Dominican Embassy in Port-au-Prince had been "assaulted" by Haitian police that day. He said, "We are waiting for more reports on it. Our military is indignant. Very probably if the word is bad, we will send three or four Dominican airplanes to fly over Haiti. Because if we do not show strength, they may assault all the peoples in asylum." He also said that at 5:30 P.M. today the Haitian Charge in Santo Domingo had announced precipitously he was leaving.

I said that I hoped nothing serious would come of the incident, that we were attempting to trace the movements of several members of the Trujillo family reported headed for Haiti, and that I would keep in close touch with him. He gave me a night telephone number, a phone that rang beside his bed.

When I left him a little before 10 P.M., I had the impression that he did not attach much importance to the Haitian incident. Nonetheless, I went back to the office and sent a brief cable on it. Over the weekend the incident mushroomed into a major crisis that set Santo Domingo and Port-au-Prince and Washington to boiling, called the OAS into emergency session, and, before it was finished, threatened war in the Caribbean.

Moreover, the Haitian crisis is of special significance to us. For it became inextricably intertwined with Bosch's fate, and therefore with the fate of Dominican democracy.

The Dominican-Haitian problem was, at bottom, quite simple. While Trujillo lived, Duvalier was comfortable. After Trujillo fell, Duvalier became uneasy.

As we have seen, from 1822 to 1844 Haiti occupied the Dominican Republic. Dominicans, high and low, hate, disdain, and fear Haitians. In view of the Dominicans' obviously superior strength, their continuing fear of Haitians is irrational. For that very reason, it is all the stronger - the nameless fear of the unknowable.

Dominicans consider themselves white, Catholic, Spanish. They consider Haitians black, voodooistic, African. Few sizable islands in the world are inhabited by two peoples so disparate. From time to time over the last hundred odd years, Haitian-Dominican incidents have occurred, and in 1937, as we have seen, Trujillo slaughtered twelve or fifteen thousand Haitians. Clearly, with that background, any dispute between these two governments was potentially dangerous.

Although racial discrimination exists in the Dominican Republic, Dominican society is not nearly so tightly stratified along color lines, so caste-like, as Haiti's. There a tiny minority of mulatto elite, French speaking, educated in France or the United States, comprises the professional and wealthy class; the masses are black. Bosch, recalling the slave revolt of colonial times, has written it was a "perpetual social struggle which had its origin in black against white" and it goes on yet. Race is the hinge of Haitian politics. On it, President Duvalier had swung to power.

During Duvalier's corrupt and bloody six-year rule, scores of opponents died or disappeared, and hundreds fled into exile. Duvalier himself was widely believed to practice voodoo. Legends of his cruelty abounded. One said that he had a trap door beneath his desk in the Palace which he could open to observe the torture of prisoners in dungeons below. He rarely left the Palace himself, and when he did he went unannounced and heavily guarded. He was openly anti-American and anti-white. This spring, while tensions rose as the May 15 deadline of his term approached, his henchmen made speeches that revived the ancient chilling slogan of Haiti's slave revolt, "Cut and burn," that is, put the whites to the sword and their homes to the torch, and one warned that if Duvalier were attacked, Haiti would become "a Himalaya of corpses."

In 1962, several Haitian-Dominican incidents had occurred, as we have seen, and the Consejo had somewhat reluctantly accepted our counsel of restraint. But Bosch was different. Bosch was the spearhead of democracy in the Caribbean; Duvalier was the last of its old-fashioned dictators. Bosch meant to set his stamp on Caribbean politics. Duvalier could not let him. Bosch had trouble at home; a foreign adventure was, in one sense, not unwelcome (though Bosch did not start it - Duvalier did). Finally, Bosch could scarcely fail to oppose Duvalier after Duvalier, as Bosch had told me, had in fact sent an agent to have him killed. Crisis was inevitable. It came on that day, April 26, 1963.

The Trujillo family was deeply involved. Foreign Minister Freites had told King on April 12, while I was aboard the Mella, that he had firm evidence that Petan Trujillo, the erratic brother of the dictator, and two other Trujillos had obtained Spanish passports and Haitian visas. We had immediately asked our agencies to put them under surveillance.

During that same time, I had heard that Bosch was in contact with several Haitian exiles in the Dominican Republic. He had known them while he himself, as well as they, had been in exile, and they had promised to help each other. Now at least six different Haitian groups had formed in exile, and five underground groups inside Haiti, all anti-Duvalier.

On April 18 Ambassador Thurston reported there was shooting at Duvalier's Palace. The airport was closed, and the Tonton Macoutes were cruising Port-au-Prince with rifles. Four 75- millimeter cannon and one tank had been placed at the Palace. This turned out to have been an abortive military Coup against Duvalier by the Haitian military, quickly crushed.

It was quiet for a week. Then on the morning of April 26, a cable came in from Madrid saying that several Trujillos were ticketed aboard KLM Flight 775 scheduled to leave Madrid at 5:45 A.M. for Curacao and to go onward to Port-au-Prince, probably via Kingston -Luis Reynoso Mateo, a son of Petan; Teresa Oviedo de Reynoso, probably the wife of Luis; Jose Rafael Trujillo Lora, son of Virgilio Trujillo; Francisco Jose Reynoso Mateo, probably a false name for Francisco Trujillo Reynoso, another son of Petan. That is, three nephews of Generalissimo Trujillo, and the wife of one of them.

I went to Bosch that morning and recommended he notify the OAS as soon as we could confirm that the Trujillos were actually on the plane. Peace in the Caribbean certainly would not be served by having the Trujillos here. Bosch said he would do it. I also told him, as instructed by the Department, that on May 15 when Duvalier would celebrate his "reinaugural," Ambassador Thurston would not be present. Bosch would instruct his own Embassy in Port-au-Prince to do likewise.

At six-thirty Vallimarescu called and said he had a report from Port-au-Prince that Duvalier's car had been fired on and his chauffeur and bodyguard had been killed, but he and his two children had escaped. Actually, Duvalier himself had not been in the car. The car had been taking his twelve-year-old son and fourteen-year-old daughter to school. Gunmen had fired on it, killing their three escorts, but the children had escaped into the school. It was this shooting which triggered the entire Haitian crisis. Duvalier's own gunmen immediately cordoned off the Palace area, set up roadblocks, and started rounding up opponents of the regime. Opponents took asylum in various Latin American embassies, including the Dominican Embassy. By nightfall at least six men had been killed. I ate a little dinner and went to see President Bosch.

As I have said, it was during this evening conversation that Bosch mentioned that Haitian police had "assaulted" the Dominican Embassy in Port-au-Prince that day. I went to the office to send the brief cable.

At 10:05 P.M., while I was writing it, Foreign Minister Freites came to my office. He was usually neat and well dressed, but tonight he was unshaven, with loosened tie and dirty shirt, and at times his eyes looked wild. He showed me a document indicating that Duvalier had signed a secret agreement with Czechoslovakia for economic aid, that Czech and Polish missions were reported advising Duvalier, and that Duvalier was purging all career military officers. Freites asked if I could get in touch with Frank Bobadilla, the Dominican Charge d'Affaires in Haiti, via our own Embassy in Port-au-Prince, ask him exactly what had happened that morning, and instruct Bobadilla to send another Dominican diplomat, Mejia Saufront, overland to the frontier that night so that Freites could send someone to meet him at Jimani at 8 A.M. the next day.

We sent the cable to Port-au-Prince. Freites left. At 11:50 P.M. he called to say that the Trujillos were ticketed on KLM Flight 975 from Curacao to Kingston and thence on Pan Am Flight 431A to Port-au-Prince the next day. We confirmed it.

Early the next morning, Saturday, I heard that Bosch said if the Haitians jump on" the Dominican Embassy in Port-au-Prince, he in- tended to bomb Port-au-Prince. From Port-au-Prince, the Dominican diplomat Mejia Saufront reported that he had reached the frontier that morning but Haitian guards had turned him back. He would try to fly to Santo Domingo in the afternoon. He said that the previous day's assault on the Dominican Embassy had occurred after the attack on Duvalier's children's car. About 10 A.M. two Haitian policemen with rifles had entered the Embassy office - not the Residence - despite the protests of a girl secretary. They had made threatening gestures but had disturbed nothing. The Charge, Bobadilla, had ordered them out. They had obeyed but had stayed on the grounds. Soon they were joined by nine or ten soldiers. Their purpose seemed to be to prevent about sixteen Haitians who had taken asylum in the Dominican Embassy from leaving. (Later the number of asylees rose to twenty-two, then finally to twenty-three.) Among them was Lieutenant Francois Benoit. Benoit had taken asylum, the Dominicans said, on Thursday night, the night before the attack on Duvalier's children's car. Charge' Bobadilla said that Lieutenant Benoit had been in asylum at the time of the attack on the children's car, but the Haitians said the attacker's car had belonged to Benoit and hinted that he had left asylum, made the attack, then returned. The Dominicans said this was ridiculous. It was, however, apparently the reason for the assault on the Dominican Embassy, which also housed as asylees other military enemies of Duvalier. In further reprisal against Benoit, Duvalier's militiamen had murdered members of Benoit's family and burned their house.

At 3 P.M., I went to see President Bosch. Freites was with him. We sat in a triangle beside his open patio, and I told him what Mejia had reported. Bosch listened in silence, then sat awhile frowning, very still. Suddenly sitting upright, face taut, brow creased, he said to Freites, "Mr. chancellor, send this message: 'Duvalier: If your police are not gone from our territory by 4 P.M., my air and ground forces will invade. Signed Bosch."'

Freites looked stricken. He said nothing. It was dead quiet for several minutes. This was an ultimatum that could only lead to war.

When it appeared that nobody else would say anything, I asked the President's permission to speak. I pointed out that it was now past three o'clock and he was giving Duvalier less than an hour to perform. I also said I had understood he intended to bring this matter to the attention of the OAS, which seemed to me a good idea. I pointed out that up to now Duvalier had been the aggressor and that Bosch would best keep him in that role in world opinion, not permit himself to be cast in it.

Freites supported me somewhat timidly. After considerable thought, Bosch ordered Freites to modify the ultimatum. It gave the government of Haiti twenty-four hours to remove its police from the Dominican Embassy in Port-au-Prince and to "render honors to the Dominican flag" Bosch never explained what that meant said that if the Haitians failed to comply the Dominican government would take all measures necessary (I suggested this vague language rather than a flat threat to invade), and informed the Haitians that the Dominicans were notifying the OAS. I urged that the ultimatum be drafted with extreme care to make clear that Bosch's quarrel was with Duvalier, not the Haitian people. Bosch agreed. Tomorrow, Sunday, he would speak to the people on radio-TV and order a military alert. "By Monday," he said, "we can act." He seized the telephone, and ordered the government- owned radio station to begin at once announcing every half hour that he would make a speech "of transcendental importance" on Sunday.

I asked what he had meant by "acting" on Monday. He said he would send military aircraft to overfly Port-au-Prince.

"Will they drop anything?"

"Perhaps some leaflets," he said.

"You don't intend to bomb it?"

"No"

"Do you intend to invade by land?"

He did not answer directly but indicated he would not act precipitously. Again I cautioned him to keep Duvalier in the aggressor's role and told him I thought he had an excellent case Duvalier's repressive regime, his plot to have Bosch assassinated, his bringing the Trujillos to Haiti, his Invasion" of the Dominican Embassy, his murder of a Haitian officer's family, his reported dealings with the Czech mission, and so on. Bosch agreed, and said he intended to discuss these things in his speech. He did not want us to impede the Trujillos' travel to Haiti, thinking their arrival there would strengthen his case. I left him. Soon Bosch telephoned: He had asked for an extraordinary meeting of the Council of the OAS for Sunday night, tomorrow night, and been assured it would be held.

Fifteen minutes later, Freites telephoned - the Trujillos had arrived at Jamaica, missed their plane for Port-au-Prince, and would take another tomorrow. Therefore Freites would postpone the ultimatum. The countdown on the twenty-four-hour ultimatum would begin running as of tomorrow.

Freites called again - the Haitians now said they would not consider military personnel entitled to asylum and had notified the Dominican, Mejia Saufront, that they would take all necessary steps to see that Lieutenant Benoit fell into Duvalier's hands. Bosch would delay his speech until the Trujillos left Kingston. We ascertained that the only flight the Trujillos could use was Pan Am 431A leaving Kingston at 2:45 P.M. Sunday and arriving at Port-au-Prince at 5:05 P.M.

Ambassador Thurston reported from Port-au-Prince that the Tonton Macoutes had killed at least a dozen people, stores were closed, tanks and troops surrounded the Palace, militiamen were searching cars at roadblocks and had apparently shot two motorists capriciously, and a foreign newspaperman had been arrested.

Freites told us that Haitian police now had entered the Dominican Embassy Residence and were in the garage under the charge's office, apparently searching for the automobile used in the attack on Duvalier's children.

The Commander in Chief of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet ordered the aircraft carrier Boxer, two destroyers, and two other vessels to stand by in the Gulf of Gonaives in front of, but out of sight of, Port-au-Prince, prepared to evacuate Thurston's Embassy if necessary.

Freites was working with functionaries of the Dominican Foreign Office - pontificios, Bosch called them contemptuously - trying to draft the ultimatum to Haiti. The drafting was going slowly. A couple of times Shlaudeman went to Freites' house to help out. The functionaries finally finished a draft about 1 A.M., took it to President Bosch, and Bosch nearly threw it at them, then wrote out the ultimatum himself and ordered it sent. We thought if Bosch played his cards right he had a good chance of getting OAS action against Duvalier or putting so much pressure on him he would flee the country.

Sunday morning we worked on the cable traffic and talked to Freites. The ultimatum had been a strong one. President Bosch had given it to El Caribe. He had alerted his military high command. His Ambassador to the OAS in Washington, Arturo Calventi, would appear today before the Council of the OAS. The Dominicans had instructed their consul in Jamaica to go through the motions of trying to stop the Trujillos' departure but doing it too late. Bosch's speech was postponed until 7 P.M. to give the Trujillos time to land in Port-au-Prince.

I sent the Attaches out to locate the Dominican high command. General Luna of the Air Force was in Boca Chica, with his boat. General Hungria of the Army was at his finca in the country. Commodore Rib had gone fishing for a little while early in the morning - I had gone with him - and now was resting. No troop or aircraft movements were reported.

Freites told me that Gonzalo Facio, President of the QAS Council, thought the Dominicans had a good case.

Fritz Long relayed a report that Duvalier had signed a secret military assistance agreement with Castro.

At about 5 P.M. Assistant Secretary Ed Martin telephoned me from Washington. The Council of the OAS was in session and Martin thought it might invoke the Rio Treaty against Haiti and condemn or at least investigate Haiti's threat to hemispheric peace; but, he said, Bosch was undermining his own position by threatening to act militarily before the OAS had time to act. President Facio had telephoned Freites but receivedno assurances. Could I get assurances from Bosch?

I went immediately to Bosch's house. He said sternly, "I have received a message from the OAS asking me to wait. I cannot wait forever. The excitement in the Dominican people is great. I fear for the Haitian Embassy here - a group of young people is getting together. There is an internal political problem too."

I made the case for restraint. Finally Bosch said, "Tomorrow the Constitution will be promulgated." Then I saw - he wanted to keep the Haitian crisis boiling so his controversial Constitution could be promulgated without much notice.

I told him that if the debate in the QAS turned against him, it wouldbe a serious political blow.

He frowned, thinking. Finally he said, "If the OAS could send me a message tomorrow publicly asking me to wait, I might not find it inconvenient to wait."

I pressed him further. Reluctantly, he gave me his personal assurance that he would not invade tomorrow - that he would wait "until twenty-four hours from tonight, and that will really be Tuesday morning." Would he say this in his speech tonight? He did not reply directly.

It was almost time for him to leave for the Palace to deliver the speech. I hurried back to the Residence and telephoned Ed Martin in Washington and reported, adding that at this point I did not believe Bosch really intended to invade at all, though I could be wrong. Martin expected the Council of the OAS to act by 10 P.M. tonight.

Freites called: Haiti had officially broken relations with the Dominican government. We recommended that he ask the Haitians for safe-conducts for the asylees in the Dominican Embassy there and their transfer to another Embassy.

At 6:50 P.M. a private source told me that the Trujillos had actually landed in Port-au-Prince. Shlaudeman immediately telephoned President Bosch at the Palace and told him so. Ten minutes later Bosch came ontelevision, flanked by his military high command. We watched, then I telephoned Ed Martin. Bosch had said Dominican sovereignty and dignity had been insulted and must be defended at all costs. Duvalier was conspiring against the Republic "in alliance with the Trujillos." Dominican diplomats would not leave Haiti until they had received safe-conducts for the twenty-two asylees then in their Embassy in Port-au-Prince. The OAS was "studying" the matter, but "with study or without it, the situation is grave." He said, "We have suffered with great patience the outrages of the Haitian government. But those outrages must stop now. If they do not stop in a period of twenty-four hours, we will put a finalpoint to them with the measures that may be found in our capability."

At 9:30 P.M., Cass told me that the Dominican Navy had a frigate on the north coast ready to put to sea and that three thousand ground troops had begun to move to the border at Dajabon, Elias Pina, and Jimani. Colonel Long, however, said all Army troops were confined to their barracks - none were being moved to the border. I told the attache's to recheck. Long finally reached General Viilas, and he said that the troops were being rounded up all over the country and this process would probably take most of Monday. They were getting into a position to "do something" Tuesday morning. Vinas understood, as I did, the twenty-four-hour ultimatum would run out on Monday night.

Our Embassy in Port-au-Prince ordered all Americans to stand by for evacuation.

Late that evening the Council of the OAS voted 16 to 0 with two abstentions to invoke the Rio Treaty and convoke itself as a ministerial - level Organ of Consultation to make peace between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It authorized President Facio to appoint a five-man commission to fly to Haiti immediately. It urged both governments to refrainfrom any actions that might disrupt its peace-keeping efforts.

On Monday morning Colonel Cass reported that Commodore Rib was talking irresponsibly about bombing the Palace in Port-au-Prince. A private source told me the Navy had asked for two hundred thousand gallons of diesel fuel oil and the Air Force three hundred thousand gallons of gasoline for the tanks.

Kennedy Crockett, who had replaced Crimmins as Caribbean area director in the State Department, called King - several OAS ambassadors were saying that Bosch was the problem, not Duvalier. And Duvalier, or his Foreign Minister, Rene Chalmers, had made a clever move. The Haitian government had notified the OAS that it had withdrawn its troops from the Dominican Embassy and would guarantee the safety of Dominican diplomats until they left the country and the safety of twenty-one persons who had taken asylum in the Dominican Embassy. We had understood there were now twenty-two asylees. The figure twenty-one sounded ominous - did Duvalier intend to guarantee safety for all but Lieutenant Benoit, whom he blamed for the attack on his children? Would the OAS understand this?

Long reported that the high command was scheduled to meet at the Palace at 10 A.M. Bosch had the Armed Forces excited. And the people too - a crowd rioted at the Haitian Embassy, the radio was filled with announcements - a druggist was offering free drugs and a man his truck to the troops - and the streets were filled with talk of war. Bosch had support as never before.

At 12:30 P.M. Freites told King that Bosch had received a message yesterday from the OAS but had not yet replied. Betancourt had called Bosch today and told him that Venezuela was "100 percent for him"; Bosch took this to mean that the Venezuelan Navy and Air Force were at his disposal. Freites had vainly warned Bosch to be careful. Freites said that if the OAS Commission did not at least prepare to leave Washington today, Bosch might do anything.

At 12:45 P.M., Long said that General Vinas planned to begin at once reinforcing three frontier battalions with four companies, including the crack troops trained in counter-insurgency. The Navy was moving four units along the south coast and three along the north coast toward Haiti. The Air Force would patrol the frontier but stay on the Dominican side. Tanks were going to San Juan de la Maguana. Long had told Vinas they'd be wise to keep the quarrel in the OAS, pointing out that thus far no Dominican lives had been lost but some might if the troops crossed the border. He had made little impression - the Dominican military was talking about their patriotic duty to die for their country. The ultimatum would expire at 7 P.M. No Dominican military man knew what would happen after that.

Kennedy Crockett called me that afternoon. Bosch had not replied to a personal appeal from Facio. The OAS had selected only four of the five members of the Commission-Ambassadors of Chile, El Salvador, Ecuador, and Colombia. (Bolivia later was added.) It was not even certain the Commission could get into Port-au-Prince for Duvalier had not replied to two telegrams from Facio. It was absolutely impossible for the Commission to get to Port-au-Prince by seven o'clock that night, but the Dominicans in Washington insisted it must. Crockett said, "We feel this is inconsistent with what President Bosch promised you." Port-au-Prince was quiet - but Santo Domingo was mobilizing. Crockett asked me to go to Bosch again. And so at 2:30 P.M. I did.

Bosch was taking a shower. Servants were setting his luncheon table. I waited, talking desultorily with members of his household. Sun light streamed into the room, and a gentle breeze blew. Bosch appeared, wearing a dressing gown apologizing for his attire, explaining he was dressing to attend the ceremony promulgating the Constitution. Sitting withhim while he ate his lunch, I asked if he considered that the OAS action, plus the Haitian note and the withdrawal of police from the Dominican Embassy, met the requirements of his 7 P.M. deadline.

Frowning, Bosch said, "In the note, Duvalier assured that Haitian public order forces never had gone into the Dominican Embassy. And last night they were there on the street outside when he wrote the note, so his guarantee is not worth anything. He did not offer any satisfactions. Now he has broken relations with us. So our situation is worse. I do not comprehend how it is possible that the OAS with so many personnel has not enough to send a mission just in a moment. We are going to give Duvaher a fright. We are not going to kill Haitians. We are going to move troops inside our own territory."

He was winning; as always, he intended to push his victory too hard. I tried to dissuade him, pointing out that he had won his original objectives withdrawal of Haitian police from Dominican property, guarantees to the asylees and Dominican diplomats. Bosch kept talking about moving troops. Finally when I again pointed out that the Haitian guard had been removed from the Embassy property, he said, "This is the first time I had known of that." (This seems doubtful) He paused, leaned back, sat rigid and silent a few minutes, then ordered his secretary, "Get the editor of La Nacion."

I didn't know what he was going to do. When the editor came on, Bosch said, "I wish to dictate a headline. For this afternoon. The headline is: 'Dominican Victory, Duvalier Retreats.' Put it in the biggest type that you have." Then he called Freites and told him to reply to the OAS, assuring it that the Dominicans would await OAS action. I went back to the Residence, telephoned Ed Martin, then changed clothes and hurried to the Assembly Hall for the promulgation of the Constitution.

It began at 4 P.M. President Bosch sat on the dais with the Vice President, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, and others. The Cabinet and military chiefs sat in the front rows. So did the diplomatic corps - but the Nuncio was pointedly absent, his vacant chair objecting to the Constitution. Behind us sat the Senators and Deputies. Outside, a heavy gun began booming 101 times, its sound re-verberating through the chamber, and below the dais clerks began reading the Constitution.

Bosch looked grim, his face set. Television men scrambled around, cables strung out. The reading droned on and on. I noticed that the Deputies had only seats, not desks, as in a theater - the chamber had been built by Trulillo, when Congress' duty was to listen, not to work or think. Freites kept going in and out. So did the military high command. Bosch had deliberately whipped up a war atmosphere. He had told me that he was engaged in a great democratic experiment here in the Dominican Republic and that if he failed, it would be bad not only for the Republic but for the cause of democracy in Latin America. This was the leverage he had on us, and he knew it.

The clerk was reading Article 168. He had eight more to go. I was getting fidgety. It was only fifty-five minutes to the 7 P.M. deadline. Bosch had said he would ignore it - but would he? Watching Bosch, I thought: He'd better not forget that Trujillo's end began when he tried to kill Betancourt. He'd better not go too far with Duvalier.

Finally at six-fifteen the reading finished. Bosch stood, and nearly all stood; Bosch applauded, and nearly all applauded; and so did I, though several of the diplomatic corps remained seated and did not applaud. Speaker Molina Urena declared the promulgation done. A ceremonial signing of the Constitution began. Thelma Frias presented Speaker Molina Urefla with a big bouquet "on behalf of the Dominican women." Bosch, white-suited, grim and erect, strode out rapidly. I started to follow. It was 6:30 P.M. Another Ambassador said to me, "We should all not applaud, I think." And another, "Or else we should all applaud. We should be together." I said, "I'm sorry, I disagree, and I'd like to discussit with you, but I'll have to ask you to excuse me now," and hurried away through the crowd, found my car, and told the driver to getto the Chancellery fast. Driving, he said, "Every people must have a Constitution, Mr. Ambassador." As we turned off Avenida Jorge Washington by the sea, a loudspeaker was blaring the headline from La Nacion, "Dominican Victory, Duvalier Retreats."

Back at the Chancellery, King reported that the OAS Commission would arrive the next morning at 7:50 A.M., stop for ten minutes, and continue on to Port-au-Prince.

It did. The military appeared more relaxed. The capital was quiet. The trouble seemed to be flattening out. The New York Times said editorially that both sides must accept OAS mediation. The next day, Wednesday, was May Day, but nothing happened, perhaps because everyone was exhausted.

On Thursday, May 2, I sent a cable asking that the visit of Vice Admiral Rivero be canceled. I did so with great reluctance - we had intended this as an impressive public demonstration of our support for Juan Bosch. But we could not do it now, because of Haiti.

The OAS Commission was returning from Port-au-Prince at six- fifteen. I wondered why it had stayed so briefly. Several ambassadors there had urged it to stay longer. The Times estimated that at least a hundred persons had been killed since last Friday's attack on Duvalier's children.

Bosch held a press conference at 6 P.M. I got a report on it quickly. He said he would ask the OAS to impose diplomatic sanctions on Haiti. Asked if he had the votes, he didn't know and didn't seem to care. Asked what he would do if the OAS refused sanctions, he said, "We must do what we think is right." Off the record he added, "When you live with a person in the same bed who has tuberculosis, you have to do something about it. This is that situation." He seemed firm and determined. I went to see him alone at eight.

His wife, Carmen, sat with us in the living room. Bosch said, "If one Dominican is hurt in the street in Port-au-Prince, I will send planes to bomb the Palace. If Haitian police or troops enter the Embassy, I will send the Navy and the ground forces and I will inform the OAS from the road."

His wife said it was "nice" that the Venezuelans were going to send the Navy because "then we can send our ground forces," and she picked up an oil company map and began showing how Dominican ground troops could be pushed across the border at Elias Pina and Jimani, how the Venezuelan Navy could come up from the south, how Port-au-Prince could be encircled, surely as bizarre a military strategy conference as anyone ever attended. Often a rather wan person, she seemed happy that night, animated. She said, "It's nice to have these military things for a while - to give us time, you know." Bosch didn't like that - it implied, of course, that he was using the whole incident to cover political difficulties here at home.

Bosch told me one thing more that night. He had ordered Minister Dominguez Guerra to forbid political meetings in town halls such as those Manolo Tavarez Justo had been holding. Bosch thought the measure unconstitutional but necessary. I agreed.

Later that evening, and next morning, Vallimarescu reported that the American press was saying that the OAS Commission's audience with Duvalier had been a "farce" and its report would whitewash him. Obviously Duvalier or Foreign Minister Chalmers had put his house in order. The Commission had spent only fifty-six hours in Haiti. It would spend sixty-seven hours in the Dominican Republic. Reporters felt that the Commission was uninterested in the Trujillos or the plot against Bosch, but did seem concerned about the right of asylum and the violation of Dominican sovereignty.

All this was disturbing. If the OAS did in fact give Duvalier a cleanbill of health, Bosch would look foolish in world opinion and therefore would be in deep trouble here at home - and he would blame us for having pushed him into the OAS.

That day, Friday, May 3, Duvalier declared martial law in Haiti and a nighttime curfew. Bosch told the press this brought "new tensions" He met with the OAS Commission. A Latin American diplomat in Port-au-Prince said that Latin American embassies there could not guarantee protection of asylees and proposed that the OAS assume the task, sending if necessary a small U.S. or multinational force to do the job.

In Santo Domingo I detected a letdown. The military no longer seemed bellicose. The people were quiet. A joke went round: "After we invade Haiti, we can send our technicians to help them build democracy." Jokes are fatal to crises. If Bosch, fearing an OAS rebuff, intended to try to heat up the situation again by himself, he might run into trouble.

Saturday morning I went to the Palace to see President Bosch and askhow the situation was. "Bad," he said. "Very bad." He had made his charges against Haiti to the OAS Commission and said that "if something happens" in Haiti he would order his troops to cross the border to protect Dominicans in Haiti and defend hemispheric democracy. The Commission had not replied - "they did not answer me one word." He took their silence for assent. He spoke again about joint military action with the Venezuelan Navy and U.S. Marines. "This could be a Congo," he said. A dozen Haitian refugees had crossed the border today. Then, musing, he said, "Early in January I received news in Europe, and in February here, that the Haitian common people looked to me and to democracy for help.

At this point Foreign Minister Freites arrived, and so, as I remember, did General Vinas and Commodore Rib, and we all studied a map of Haiti, the oil company map, discussing the question of violation of national territory at sea, and I explained that, as I understood it, most countries recognized the three-mile limit, but Haiti insisted on a six-mile limit, another strange high strategy conference. I left.

In Washington, Facio said the OAS was "very alarmed" by the situation in Haiti. Back at the Chancellery, Commander Engelman, our Naval MAAG Chief, reported Commodore Rib was considering trying to put a ship at the very edge of the six-mile limit off Port-au-Prince. Colonel Richardson, our air attache, reported that the Dominican Air Force was getting a C-46 ready, presumably to transport paratroops. I went back to the Palace.

Bosch said he was going to send the counter-insurgency troops to Jimani - three companies plus some armor. He was sending troops to Elias Pina. He was sending five planes to Barahona. He would have a ship ready to sail tomorrow. He had ordered Freites to get the Dominican diplomats, Bobadilla and Mejia, out of Haiti tonight. Troop movements would start at dawn.

This sounded - and Bosch looked - serious.

I sent all our military people out to get a firm fix on just what troops and equipment were being moved. And I met with King and Shlaudeman, whom I had sent to talk to Freites, the OAS Commission members, and the Colombian Ambassador here.

They reported that Bosch had declared he would not order his diplomats, Bobadilla and Mejia Saufront, home until he had received safe conducts for all the asylees. There upon the Colombians had told Freites that they would not, as planned, protect Dominican interest in Port-au-Prince. So Bosch had ordered his diplomats home. But Freites now feared Duvalier would double-cross them or the asylees - give them safe-conducts, then have them killed en route to the airport, an old Trujillo trick. The OAS Commission seemed personally sympathetic to Bosch, or at least unsympathetic to Duvalier, but did not seem to see any legal basis for recommending action against Duvalier. So Freites was urging us to unleash Bosch with token support of forces from the United States and Venezuela.

The Attaches began returning to the Residence with detailed reports on plans for troop movements. The commanders were encountering difficulties - Air Force ground troops would move to Jimani this afternoon if they could locate enough trucks, Wessin y Wessin would send tanks there if he could find ships or flatbed trailers, some military headquarters "seemed more like a big bull session" than a strategy meeting, and the tank commanders were worried about the road from Jimani to Port-au-Prince, for beyond Jimani the road goes through a narrow defile between a mountain and a lake, and Haitians might stop the tanks simply by rolling rocks down from the hills.

Was it all just talk? Alone, I drove down to Avenida Jorge Washington to see for myself. The sun was setting, the sky magenta, with towering black thunderclouds over the western mountains. Presently I saw eleven trucks and a dozen Jeeps and ambulances and other small vehicles, all bullet loaded with troops, headed west. People on the sidewalks paid little at- tention. Vesuvio's was getting crowded.

Back at the Residence, Freites called. The diplomats Bobadilla and Mejia had arrived safely. The Attaches confirmed actual tank and troop movements that earlier had been mere talk. The Army was sending its best. So was the Air Force infantry. So was the artillery. So was Wessin y Wessin. I asked our Colonel Long if the equipment and men the Dominicans had moved were those he would move if he seriously intended to invade Haiti and kill Duvalier. He said yes. The capital was strippedas bare as was safe-perhaps too bare.

The New York Times reported from Washington that although the Boxer's task force contained about two thousand Marines, the Kennedy administration was "extremely reluctant" to land them in Haiti. No wonder. It is always easy to get them in but hard to get them out. Newspapermen kept asking us whether Bosch really intended to invade or was "playing a game." We said truthfully we didn't know. Our private opinion was that Bosch himself had not yet decided. He was precisely what he had done during the Church crisis in the electoral campaign getting himself into a position from which he could jump whichever way he thought best for him at the time of decision. The difficulty, however, was that this tactic is easier in a purely domestic situation than in an international one, because while the UCN would tryto help him get back into the election, Duvalier wouldn't help him do anything.

The next day, Sunday, May 5, events took a wholly new turn. The Dominican military high command began to show disenchantment with the entire Haitian venture.

Cass came to the Residence. Commodore Rib had examined maps carefully. Rib said that landing from sea was absolutely impossible for the Dominicans - they did not have either the knowledge or the equipment. Moreover, General Hungria was worried about the overland route tanks and infantry could be stopped and chopped to pieces in the mountain defile.

Colonel Richardson said that the Air Force, which formerly had been eager to attack Haiti alone, now wanted to go in behind the United States. High-ranking officers at San Isidro that morning had reverted to talking about Bosch and communism, not about invasion. Perhaps, they said, Bosch was using the Haitian adventure to distract everybody from communism. That sounded ominous.

Fritz Long said "Vinas is getting fed up with this jazz. He says he doesn't even know what he is being expected to do." Long said that last night Wessin y Wessin and other officers had been asking themselves "what kind of spot the Dominican Republic would be in if we go in." They wanted U.S. military support or at least OAS moral support.

I ate some lunch and took a nap; it looked like a long night. A call from Chicago wakened me - a man wanted me to ascertain the whereabouts of his daughter inside Haiti. Newspapermen came to see me, some of them now excited about the troop movements we had known of the day before. They thought war imminent. Not suspecting that the Dominican military was weak, they were cabling stories that the Dominicans could take Haiti in two days. They believed the myth that Trujillo had built a powerful army. It never had been anything but a repressive force.

The Crisis Crowd gathered. Richardson had just learned that yesterday the military high command and their staffs had met at the Palace and Wessin y Wessin, pointing his finger at the others, had told them that their forces were inadequate and incapable of invading Haiti. The chiefs had received his words well. Everybody had asked, "Why are we being mobilized?" Several officers had again suggested Bosch was using the Haitian adventure to distract attention from communism and the Constitution. Some even had suggested that Bosch might be deliberately sending the Armed Forces into a suicidal Haitian venture to destroy them. They had wanted President Bosch to meet with them but he had not. General Vinas and the three service chiefs intended to ask Bosch tomorrow why they were being mobilized.

Cass came in and said, "We need guidance. The military disaffection has blossomed. They are asking us what they should do."

I asked Cass if from a strictly military viewpoint he agreed with the Dominican military - that they did not have the capability to invade Haiti. Presumably the primary objective would not be simply to cross the border but to drive to Port-au-Prince, attack it, and kill Duvalier. Probably some sort of an occupation would have to follow.

Cass said that he certainly agreed, if Bosch had all this in mind. Indeed, he did not believe the Dominicans even capable of invading successfully if the Haitian people rallied around Duvalier, took to the hills with machetes, and then fell upon the Dominicans. He was not at all sure the Dominicans could get to Port-au-Prince and kill Duvalier. They had no way to support themselves - they lacked trucks, gasoline, food, communications. As for an occupation, it was out of the question. The other Attaches agreed.

I told the three attaches that if the Dominican military commanders asked their opinion, they should give it honestly and strictly on a military basis. I instructed them not to discuss any political matters. If the Dominicans concluded they were indeed incapable of doing what Bosch asked of them, then it was the Dominicans' duty to tell Bosch so.

This was a crucial - and inescapable decision, and I knew it when I made it. Our Attaches' opinions would weigh heavily in the Dominican military's decisions. If the attaches did not respond when asked their military opinion, the Dominican military would lose confidence in them. On the other hand, if they did as I instructed them, Bosch might conclude I was conspiring against him with his own military. I made the decision on the military merits - the Dominican commanders couldn't invade and ought to tell Bosch so. I think Bosch subsequently suspected I had discouraged his military, just as I had urged him to cooperate with the OAS. But it was in fact the Dominican military commanders themselves who first felt misgivings.

In his own book, Bosch writes that at the start of the Haitian crisis he had conceived a plan to get rid of Duvalier which was simple and "would not cost a drop of blood." He would mobilize troops on the frontier, and his Air Force would fly over Port-au- Prince and drop leaflets "in French" telling the people to evacuate the environs of the Palace because Dominican war planes would bomb it in a few hours. "I was sure that ... Duvalier would flee before a single bullet need he fired," Bosch writes. Bosch would actually send Dominican troops across the border "to advance onto Haitian territory at least a few miles, enough to give the impression of a genuine attack." He was sure the Haitian population near the frontier would not resist. If it did, "the Air Force could drop two or three bombs where they would cause no casualties." But at this point, Bosch writes, "a mystery arose" - his generals told him "that their trucks had no spare tires and were in no condition to transport troops. Who had told them to use that alibi? Until the previous night, all of them had enthusiastically supported the mobilization plan... Ambassador Martin came to see me. He was quite alarmed. It was the first time I had ever seen him alarmed. The possibility of a Dominican- Haitian war had greatly upset him, undoubtedly because it had upset the State Department. And at that moment, Moscow, Peking, Havana, and the MPD in Santo Domingo were all charging that if I attacked Haiti, I would be acting as a puppet of 'Yankee imperialism.' The situation was sadly comic. It was precisely 'Yankee imperialism' that was impeding the Dominican decision to settle the Haitian problem."

Late that evening the newspapermen Tad Szulc and Henry Raymont came to see me in some agitation. They had just come from Bosch. He had told them flatly that he would invade at 4:30 A.M. on Tuesday, the day after next. They could accompany him. He would be in Port-au-Prince by ten in the morning. He would meet with the Cabinet and the military at 8 A.M. in the Palace. At that time he would give Szulc and Raymont credentials that would permit them to accompany his invading troops. They were convinced that Bosch was serious. Minister Jaar had cheered Bosch on, saying, "If we had Haiti this would really be the jewel of the Caribbean."

At 1:15 A.M. I telephoned the Operations Center in the Department and said that Bosch had told two reliable American newspapermen that he would invade at 4:30 A.M. Tuesday, that I was still not convinced, that he had scheduled an important meeting for 8 A.M., that I was sending a cable now and would like to have it considered at high levels before 8 A.M.

We had one principal concern on Monday, May 6 - that Bosch would override his own military's advice, order the military to invade, and thus force them to obey or rebel.

The Attaches began checking early. I had a line open to a source inside the Palace. Cass saw Commodore Rib at eight-ten. He said Rib knew nothing about a meeting at eight, was not prepared to invade, neither were the other service commanders, and they might see Bosch that afternoon. He received a phone call, appeared distraught, and excused himself. Long and Richardson said nothing was going on.

I called President Bosch direct. He received me at 10 A.M. As I entered his Palace office, his military commanders were leaving. So there had been a meeting after all. They looked grim. So did Bosch. They left. I asked Bosch directly if it was true, as I had heard, that he intended to invade Haiti at 4:30 A.M. tomorrow.

He said, "No. It is not true. We are moving our troops to organize for anything that could happen. Many Haitians are crossing the border." How many, I asked.

"Yesterday nine civilians and one corporal with a gun and bullets crossed. The mayor of Hinche, a soldier with a rifle and sixty- seven bullets. Twelve in one day. There is a Haitian Army detachment ready to cross," that is, ready to defect to the Dominicans. "The military chief at Cap Haitien says he will not rise by himself, with his 300 or 350 people, but he would join. But there is no leadership. The Army is waiting for leadership." Then, musing a bit, "If we could get to Colonel Biambi or Benoit or Major Alvarez," all Haitian asylees. "There are twenty Haitian military men here already." For the first time, he seemed to be turning from thoughts of invading with his own Armed Forces to thoughts of sending Haitians to subvert or invade. He said, "If their force is too weak, we will not let them go. It is clear to us and to everyone that Duvalier is crazy but we can't go in and get him."

"What do you mean?"

He leaned back on the sofa. "We have not the capability. We cannot. We have no ways. We need transportation and radios. The Navy is impossible. Frankly, we can not do it. It would take seventy-two hours to get the troops there in trucks from Haina. And if they could get to the frontier, they couldn't get to Port- au-Prince. They would have to walk. The Navy is no good," he said again. "Its boilers are worn out. Three Vampire jets almost fell down. We grounded them. The only air capability we have is the P-51s."

He said all this in a sad voice, regretful but resigned. He had talked to Facio by telephone. But the OAS would meet only to receive the Commission's report. He would move more troops around, "but don't worry we will do nothing. And you," the United States, "can't land troops either."

I sympathized with his difficulties and urged him to keep pushing the OAS for action. I left, feeling sorry for him and wondering what the reaction would be if all this became known. It would not become known through me - I refused to talk to the press on leaving the Palace.

This was the turning point. Bosch's commanders had at last told him the truth. The man who had done the telling, I understood, was Colonel Wessin y Wessin.

Haiti asked the United Nations Security Council to consider the threat of Dominican aggression. The Department instructed me to tell Bosch that he should do nothing further outside the OAS and there was little or no chance that the OAS would approve an OAS military action against Haiti. It instructed Ambassador Thurston that his highest priority was to safeguard American lives and asked if it was not time to evacuate all dependents of official U.S. personnel from Haiti.

I went to see Bosch and informed him that Duvalier was taking the question to the UN Security Council, that if the question reached the UN General Assembly the Soviets and the African nations might espouse the Haitian cause, that we would try to get it sent back to the OAS, that we probably would succeed, that Bosch could then try to get the OAS' standing Commission on Human Rights sent to Haiti, and that until then we hoped he would take no hostile action.

Bosch replied he would await tomorrow, when the OAS Commission was due to report. The New York Times said that "real responsibility" lay with the OAS and quoted El Tiempo of Bogota which criticized "the indifference or, what is worse, the tacit complicity of the hemisphere."

That night, reviewing events in my mind, I wondered whether our policy had served us well. Events had taken a strange turn. At the outset, Bosch, our friend, had clearly been the aggrieved party. Now, eleven days later, the OAS had refused to succor him, he stood accused in the UN as an aggressor although he was in fact incapable of being one, and he had lost whatever confidence his own military might have had in him. At the same time, Duvalier, of whom we disapproved, appeared to be as strong at home as ever - and to be winning the diplomatic war. So long as Duvalier and Bosch remained, there would be trouble on this island. Human rights would be denied in Haiti, Bosch could use Haiti as diversion from troubles at home, and progress in either country would be difficult or impossible. We unwittingly had helped bring all this about. And so had Bosch. Always a gambler, this time he had overplayed his hand.

On Tuesday, May 7, the Department instructed Ambassador Thurston to evacuate the dependents of U.S. officials by commercial planes and to urge private U.S. nationals to leave Haiti. The Boxer would move in closer. We would also assist Dominicans in leaving Haiti. Bosch was pleased. In Santo Domingo, FENEPIA struck, and during a demonstration at Juan Pablo Duarte School police threw tear gas. Bosch said, "This gives me a chance to get the Reds out of FENEPIA, to kill FENEPIA and fire the Reds out of government jobs." The 14th of June attacked him publicly.

Freites said Haiti was on the brink of joining the Soviet bloc. He proposed five solutions - fast OAS action, UN intervention, U.S. military intervention, "police action" by the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, and others, or unilateral invasion by the Dominican Republic. This sounded desperate. Where was the proof that Haiti was going Communist?

At 4:35 P.M. a private source called to tell me that a DC-3 was on the runway at the airport in Port-au-Prince ready to take off. Duvalier had sent a request that it be allowed to land at Curacao. The implication was that Duvalier was getting ready to flee the country. We began trying to confirm it. Cass reported that a Haitian captain, cashiered with sixty other officers, had gone to Port-au-Prince in secret, seized a Jeep and, with a sergeant and four enlisted men, fled to the Dominican Republic. One of the Trujillos had been consorting with Haitian government officials. Clement Barbot, who once had led Duvalier's Tonton Macoutes but now had gone underground in Haiti against Duvalier, had led a band of partisans in shooting up a truck containing militiamen with rifles, machine guns, and grenades, and had killed about thirty. A half hour later three high-ranking Tonton Macoutes led an attack on Barbot's hideout. Several men had been killed, and Barbot had escaped but had left behind his grenades and machine guns.

The asylees in Port-au-Prince had been offered ordinary, not diplomatic, passports. These would not guarantee them diplomatic immunity. Haitians feared a bloodbath. The first targets would be Barbot and his partisans, but the terror would spread, quickly engulfing the mulatto upper class and all white foreigners.

At 7 P.M. that night President Bosch spoke to the nation. He said, "Haiti is a powder keg and we are a lake of gasoline." He indicated that the Republic would rely on the OAS but that his military was ready, that he was faced with an insane dictator and the possibility of a catastrophic bloodbath, and that he proposed to adopt an attitude of great care and vigilance. He insisted on safe-conducts for all asylees and referred specifically to Benoit. The speech was curiously clouded with extraneous matters - donations to agrarian reform, the Republic's economic situation, an attack on FENEPIA.

On Wednesday, May 8, the OAS voted 18 to 0 to send its Commission back to Haiti with broader authority. Originally limited to fact- finding on the situation, the Commission now could inquire into the causes of the conflict. Well, this was something. But not much. By going to the UN, Duvalier had forced the OAS to act fast, and there had been no time to rally support in the OAS for a stronger resolution. In the UN Security Council, Haitian Foreign Minister Chalmers said he was defending the cause of the black peoples everywhere. President Kennedy said at his press conference that we must "proceed in company with the OAS." That day's paper carried stories by Tad Szulc and Henry Raymont saying I had stopped Bosch from invading.

I went to see Bosch at 4:30 P.M. at home. He seemed to feel betrayed and alone. He had hoped for OAS sanctions against Duvalier. "I am going to fight the OAS," he said. "This is a serious political defeat for me. I cannot stand it." He was courteous to me, as always, but I felt sure he blamed me for forcing him into the OAS. He said bitterly, "The OAS is always trying to get out of doing anything. Duvalier looked fierce, spoke of a massacre, and so they jump me. Now we go to war against the OAS. Against Gonzalo Facio's army. If they come here "the OAS Commission" - they will be received by very bitter speech. The bitterest they have ever heard from a President. The left will hit me hard now. I have to hit them first. There will be no Red FENEPista in the government by Saturday morning. This is the turning point. I must get a victory. I will throw everything I have into it. Perhaps some are plotting my overthrow. If I am going down I am going to fight them until I fall."

It had been raining for two or three days in Jimani and the troops there were getting restless.

On Thursday I was told that the OAS Commission had asked Foreign Minister Chalmers for safe-conducts for the asylees but Chalmers had received them coldly. Freites wanted to cooperate with the OAS. But Bosch said he would have nothing to do with the OAS.

On Friday morning we received word from Ambassador Adlai Stevenson that the UN Security Council had refused to act on the dispute, thus in effect sending it back to the OAS. We learned that Betancourt had advised Bosch not to invade. Vallimarescu reported that Bosch had held a press conference, had seemed relaxed, confident that Duvalier would fall, and had said that the matter was in the hands of the OAS, and he would welcome its return. We were puzzled. That afternoon I found him bitter, angry, and cornered. He said, "Duvalier has insulted me. I can not sustain that. It would be better if I were to fall." He spoke of committing suicide.

He said, "The Haitians killed a Dominican woman. They tried to kill me. I am a good friend, but a bad enemy. I will not forgive. I have my ways. There are many Haitians here. I am Duvalier's implacable enemy. The OAS has hurt me, not helped me. I will not tell Calventi to demand a faster report and sanctions. It would take the OAS six months to do anything. There is no point in any of this." Patiently I spoke to him about Ambassador Stevenson's efforts in the UN. I recalled Bosch's own trip to Washington, where he had met Stevenson, and reminisced about my own relationship with Stevenson. Bosch relaxed a little and talked about what a beautiful city Washington was and how many friends like Stevenson he had in the United States. He was pleased by Stevenson's help in the UN. He began musing a bit - he did not have the worldwide responsibilities of Kennedy and therefore was freer to act.

His wife joined the conversation and said she thought it would be better to send the Army than to let Duvalier kill all the Haitians. Bosch disagreed with her, saying if he did send his Army, Dominicans would kill Haitians, and this he could not face - he was a man of peace. Then he swung back to another bitter tirade against Duvalier.

La Nacion arrived. It said Duvalier had told Facio that he would not give safe-conducts to seven of the asylees. Face blackening, Bosch said, "This is the final defeat for me."

I tried to argue that, instead, it was a club he could use against Duvalier - now at last, rebuffed by Duvalier, the OAS might be willing to act against him. Bosch said, "The OAS acted against Trujillo only after he made an actual assassination attempt against Betancourt." He was convinced the OAS would do nothing for him. I continued to urge him to stay with it. But during the conversation it became obvious that he was thinking of subverting Duvalier.

Copyright © by John Bartlow Martin