Talking with Juan Bosch
WAGENHEIM, KAL
THE FULCRUM OF DOMINICAN POLITICS Talking with Juan Bosch By Kal Wagenheim San Juan, P.R. Imagine-if it is possible to imagine such a thing-that Lyndon Johnson won the 1964 elections...
...I consider the North American people as responsible as any North American functionary for what has happened, because they should not have supported this, in the same way that they would not have supported a Japanese landing in Los Angeles in order to terminate the Los Angeles riots...
...No doubt, too, Bosch would incur the wrath of the oligarchs by pressing for the relatively mild reforms of his party's 1963 Constitution...
...In your opinion, then, what can be done...
...we asked...
...government saw that it was losing its 'boy' in the Presidential palace, that it wouldn't have an agent to report to Washington, it wanted to make sure that the next Dominican President would fill that position...
...Why do the North Americans feel proud of that flag being placed upon a monument which represents to us what the tomb of Washington, or the Lincoln monument in Washington represents to you...
...To send a Georgia millionaire to the Dominican Republic is a gross stupidity because this is a country of Negroes and Mulattos...
...actions have amounted to a kind of apology for the policies pursued in the early days of the Dominican crisis...
...I am not the resentful type...
...perhaps he is not...
...When soldiers landed in Santo Domingo, the United States committed political suicide in Latin America...
...Yes," he repeated...
...Washington, for example, has allowed the appointment of a Provisional President who is at heart a Bosch follower...
...It has defended constitutionalista forces from attacks by Right-wing militarists...
...He is still the key man in Dominican politics, the fulcrum upon which everything rests-despite the fact that some of his old followers, and certainly his opponents, wish this were not so...
...Ambassador and the Dominicans responsible for his overthrow have been consulted, no one has consulted him, the freely elected leader of the country...
...investment in my country is negligible...
...If he's a millionaire he hates them even more...
...Thanks to the North American occupation, the revolution was unable to do this and the corrupt generals and assassins continued in their posts, and continued killing people, and continued robbing...
...And if he was educated in Germany and was in a university under the Hitler regime, as was Mister Tapley Bennett, even more so...
...For Juan Bosch is as popular now as he was in December 1962 when he was elected President by a surprising 2-1 majority...
...The important fact, however, is that Bosch remains the dominant political figure in the Dominican Republic and his views expressed above are the reality he presents and is likely to continue to present...
...Do you mean to say that Donald Reid Cabral acted as an agent for the CIA...
...Was it to protect U.S...
...In the history of the United States, only John Fitzgerald Kennedy was capable of saying that the United States had committed an error...
...Part of it," he explained, "is that Donald Reid Cabrai, since 1959, had been a CIA agent...
...Kal Wagenheim, a new contributor to these pages, is editor of Puerto Rico's San Juan Review...
...that although free elections are planned and Lyndon Johnson is back, he seems unwilling to participate in them in the presence of the foreign power...
...And, according to several U.S...
...Thus, the U.S., at present ostensibly pushing for free elections, would virtually be obligated to support a re-elected Bosch against any attempted coup d'etat...
...There is no pacification because the murderous generals and assassins remain in their posts...
...Why do they send us Colonel Long to conspire to overthrow the constitutional government...
...citizen is humble, but not the functionaries...
...and lawyer Nilita Vient??s Gaston, I interviewed Bosch at his exile home here in Rio Piedras...
...investment...
...The little that can be done cannot be done by the North Americans, because arrogance and national pride is part of their national character...
...To complete the picture, imagine that the United States is provisionally governed by a relatively unknown American chosen by the foreign power...
...Why do they send us these men...
...Because all of this is the result of the overthrow of a government chosen by the Dominican people, but which the North American Air Force attach?©, Colonel Long, did not like...
...The military, which threatened him throughout his seven months in office before finally ousting him, is far weaker than it was in 1963...
...No one asked my opinion when it was decided to send the North American infantry and Marines here, and therefore I have no opinion as to what should be done in the Dominican Republic, which was invaded by foreign troops...
...newsmen, it has even carried constitutionalistas to safety in the same helicopters that in April and May 1965 were used to spot "rebel" positions for Right-wing bombardments...
...In my personal case, I am not antiAmerican...
...It's muy sucio, very dirty...
...For the day that there is no democracy in Latin America will signal the beginning of the end of North American democracy...
...Wearing slacks and a sport shirt, he slouched on a living room sofa, chain-smoked cigarettes, and for two hours criticized the U.S...
...other people will, but not you...
...A talented writer, a stirring orator, perhaps he is over-dramatizing his personal tragedy and that of his nation...
...The only opinions which were taken into account were those of a senor named Wessin y Wessin [Dominican General], of a senor named Donald Reid Cabrai, a senor named Tapley Bennett [U.S...
...I have no advice to give, because I see no solution...
...mission as being involved in his overthrow.-K...
...W.] I am saying all this without resentment...
...and that there are no other nationally recognized political leaders in either party...
...What do you think about the elections...
...flag in the Alcazar de Colon [Columbus Fortress in Santo Domingo] as if they had made a conquest of war...
...But allegedly, the U.S...
...and that while Johnson's followers were winning the war, troops from a powerful foreign nation intervened, forcing a stalemate...
...They know there was no Communist threat...
...is also working behind the scenes to create an alternative Presidential candidate to Juan Bosch...
...The PRD [Partido Revolucionario Democratico] needs to name a capable, suitable, man who is not controversial nationally and internationally the PRD has powerful enemies inherited from you you have transferred to the organization the dangerous ballast of your obstacles and enmities...
...Here are some excerpts from that taped exchange between Chamberlain and Bosch: What are the gravest problems facing the Dominican Republic today...
...It apparently recognizes that his re-election would solidify the position of the democratic Left, which insists that there is an alternative to Right-wing and Communist dictatorships in the Dominican Republic...
...A simple confession of guilt before Latin America could save the image of the United States, but this will not be done by President Johnson, nor Secretary of State Dean Rusk, nor Thomas Mann, nor anyone, because they respond to the true North American character they believe that national pride demands that they repeat the error, maintain the error and not declare publicly that they were wrong...
...Why do you think the U.S...
...And you will not recapture it...
...While others, such as the U.S...
...If I were a North American politician, I would have to come to the conclusion that the only recourse in the Dominican Republic is to continue using the cannons and the battleships, because you have completely lost the heart of Latin America with the Dominican occupation...
...Imagine-if it is possible to imagine such a thing-that Lyndon Johnson won the 1964 elections by an even more overwhelming majority than he did...
...And I can tell you that the day they killed Kennedy, a North American woman with the AID mission in Santo Domingo shouted, 'Why Kennedy, and not Juan Bosch?' That North American woman, who had supposedly come here to help the country, was lamenting that they had not killed me, and I was in exile...
...Colonel Long does not believe that the Dominican people have the right to elect a President...
...The Communists say that what must be done is to struggle against the foreign forces...
...Now, if we are talking of improvements in the future, the first thing the (North Americans) should do is ask that the North American diplomatic corps be changed, that all aspirants to ambassadorial and non-ambassadorial posts be given a test to see whether or not they are human beings...
...And it leaves the PRD, which will surely field a contender, facing the reality that no one within its ranks can equal Bosch's stature and flair for capturing the people's imagination...
...Can you indicate any direction that can be taken...
...might yearn for a man of the comparative mildness and tractability of Charles de Gaulle...
...It is not within the North American character...
...All this in a United States plunged into an economic crisis many times worse than the Depression with a 70 per cent illiterate population which-except for a few brief months-has never known democracy...
...What suggestions do you have to improve the situation...
...The North American government functionary has no humility...
...But this is the first time, to my knowledge, that he has mentioned a specific member of the U.S...
...Last August, together with two respected members of the Puerto Rican intellectual community, author Pedro Juan Sot...
...We are suffering this problem now, but you North Americans will suffer it for a much longer time than we, because the image of the United States has been destroyed before all of Latin America, and this means what you cannot even imagine...
...So I see no possibility that there will be elections within the specified time at least not free elections...
...Then imagine that nine months later he was overthrown by a group of military officers and forced into exile...
...Why do they proudly place the U.S...
...My sons will probably not live in a Latin American democracy, but the sons of the men who ordered the intervention here, those in the United States, probably will not be able to live in a North American democracy either...
...If the revolution had lasted two more days, it would have ended in total triumph...
...It is also known that this party has North American backing and aid...
...None...
...One of the few men in the country with a clean political record, Provisional President Hector Garcia Godoy, seems eager to shed the Presidential mantle and fade out of politics...
...the great majority of Dominicans have become violently anti-American because the North Americans militarily occupied this country without any right and without any reason...
...When the U.S...
...And U.S...
...The analogy is fantastic, of course, but it fairly reflects the situation in the Dominican Republic today...
...Was it to stop a believed Communist threat...
...Furthermore, for you, the North Americans, there is a new problem...
...I can tell you that here, at this time, and for quite some time, there is a functionary of the North American Embassy named Jack Wilson who says that the only bad thing about President Kennedy's assassination is that they did not kill him before he became President...
...This may sound ludicrous, but dignidad is an especially important human value among Latin Americans...
...The U.S...
...Bosch's closest opponent in 1962, Dr...
...If they [the U.S.] wish to struggle against Communism, why not attack China, why not land in Russia...
...We don't urge action against the foreign forces because we are not Communists, but the facts demonstrate that all that is happening now in Santo Domingo is a consequence of the foreign military occupation...
...And they will wind up convincing the people that this is true because all of the evils here since April 28 stem from the foreign military occupation...
...The problems of a revolution that was unable to reach its climax, that could not achieve its goals because it was interrupted by the North American invasion...
...Both are fervent nationalists, opposed to Communism and averse to compromising alliances...
...we asked...
...But if Bosch were back in the Presidential palace in Santo Domingo, the U.S...
...1 believe that in the Dominican Republic Latin America has been given a lesson: The lesson is that it is not possible to establish a democracy with the help of the United States, and neither is it possible to establish a democracy against the United States...
...mission would have said that the government should be overthrown, it would have been done in an hour because such a captain has more authority over the Dominican high command than the people, the Constitution and the President...
...There was no damage done to any North American here...
...What do you mean...
...Yet, as speculation mounts about the elections set for June, it is apparent that the field of possible candidates is extremely limited...
...why do they come to the Dominican Republic under the pretext of combatting Communism...
...But it is said with bitterness...
...And judging from an interview that Tom Chamberlain of Puerto Rico's Inter-American University had with him recently in Santo Domingo, his feelings have not changed much since he returned home...
...Ambassador] and a senor named Thomas Mann [Under Secretary of State...
...Mine was not asked for then, and it should not be asked for now...
...He is bitter...
...On January 15, in an open letter in the Dominican daily newspaper Listin Diario, former Bosch campaign manager Angel Miol??n asked the ex-President to "resign your right to be nominated as Presidential candidate in the forthcoming elections...
...Furthermore, there is evidence that the soldiers and police are campaigning in favor of one political party...
...An entire new Latin American generation will have absolutely no faith in the United States...
...The real reason is muy sucio, very dirty...
...first, for standing by while his legally elected government was overthrown, and then for its present intervention...
...Yet a victory by Bosch would put the Dominican Republic in the hands of a "maverick," a man long opposed to Communists who is now unfriendly to the United States-the kind of "maverick" which does not exist anywhere else in Latin America except, to a much lesser degree, in Chile...
...People with that kind of mentality, people who despise Negroes, Indians, underdeveloped countries, they should not come to Latin America because they sow hatred everywhere...
...Juan Bosch paints a black picture of the Dominican future...
...I doubt very much that there will be elections by the time specified...
...In his book The Unfinished Experiment, Praeger, 1965, Bosch says, if a captain in the U.S...
...intervened...
...Neither," he said...
...You will never recapture it...
...A Georgian, a citizen of the South, naturally hates Negroes and Mulattos...
...That leaves Joaquin Balaguer, former President under Trujillo and the U.S.'s apparent choice, who will probably run even though he does not have a fraction of Bosch's popularity among the Dominican masses...
...Viriato A. Fiallo, has disappeared from the limelight...
...Why do they show to the world the image of Sergeant Lucas killing Dominican children and women who were crossing a street...
...In effect, some of the recent U.S...
...he must elect him, he is the one who knows if there should be a President here or not...
...Why is this directed against me, a democrat...
...He sees no chance of "free" elections soon...
...One journalist has called Bosch "the de Gaulle of the Caribbean.' The comparison is not wholly inaccurate...
...Dominicans today do not believe that the North Americans are democrats, nor that they wish to defend democracy anywhere, much less in our country...
...And he thinks that the President of the Dominican Republic should govern for the North Americans, not the Dominicans...
...Journalists like Hal Hendrix should not publish articles about Latin America because they are sowing hatred...
...This was a war among Dominicans, a revolution to affirm democracy in the Dominican Republic...
...that civil war broke out...
...But for years I have been persecuted by the North American press with all kinds of calumnies and political persecutions...
...Bosch suggests that a simple apology from President Johnson, Secretary of State Rusk and Mann would help change the Dominicans' attitude toward the United States...
...Bosch was a bitter man that evening as he spoke, a man who felt there was little hope for either himself or the Dominican Republic...
Vol. 49 • February 1966 • No. 5
