June 3, 1961 – In a high level meeting with Vice President Lyndon Johnson and General Lyman Lemnitzer in attendance, Attn. General Robert F. Kennedy suggests that the U.S. might have to blow up their own Consulate in the Dominican Republic to find an excuse for invading the island after they just had the CIA assassinate the country’s previously US-backed President, General Rafael Trujillo.
Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume XII, American Republics, Document 310
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Bowles)
Washington, June 3, 1961.
NOTES ON CRISIS INVOLVING THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
“In mid-May we had our first indications that a group in the Dominican Republic might be plotting against the life of Generalissimo Trujillo. Dissident groups communicated with American officials in the Dominican Republic to inform them that the assassination was imminent and that they would like help, in the shape of arms, recognition, and general support.
Dick Goodwin, who had spent considerable time studying the problems involving the Dominican Republic was in favor of both granting arms and guaranteeing support. However, I and others in the Department of State took a strong position that we had no real knowledge of who the dissidents were, their views, or depth of influence. Nor was it proper for the United States to be involved in an assassination, directly, indirectly, or in any other way.
The first plans for a contingency paper were developed during the week of May 24th.
Early Wednesday morning I received a telephone call from the Secretary before I left for New York… The Secretary told me he thought it was essential that I come back immediately for reasons which would become evident when I arrived. I managed to get the 10:26 plane out of Bridgeport, and Sam Lewis and Joe Scott met me at the airport with the news that Trujillo had been assassinated the night before.
On Thursday afternoon about 2:30 Dick Goodwin called to say he thought we should have a high level meeting to discuss “what we should do about the Dominican Republic.” I told him I would discuss this with some of our people working on the problem and get in touch with him.
Alexis Johnson, Ted Achilles, and Wyn Coerr all agreed that no meeting was called for, and I asked Wyn Coerr to call Goodwin to tell him. About an hour later Bob McNamara called to suggest a similar meeting in my office at 6:45. It was obvious he had been called by Dick Goodwin.
In the meantime the Vice President wanted to report to me on his trip to Southeast Asia. He arrived about 5:45 and our talk lasted for forty-five minutes. I told him about the meeting and asked him if he would like to attend. The Vice President, Bob Kennedy, Secretary McNamara, Dick Goodwin, General Lemnitzer, Wyn Coerr, and Ted Achilles were here. Bob McNamara and Lemnitzer stated that under the terms of the contingency paper, they were required to be prepared to move into the island on short order if required to do so, and this, in their opinion, called for substantially more troops that we had in the area.
The tone of the meeting was deeply disturbing. Bob Kennedy was clearly looking for an excuse to move in on the island. At one point he suggested, apparently seriously, that we might have to blow up the Consulate to provide the rationale.
His general approach, vigorously supported by Dick Goodwin, was that this was a bad government, that there was a strong chance that it might team up with Castro, and that it should be destroyed—with an excuse if possible, without one if necessary.
Rather to my surprise, Bob McNamara seemed to support this view.
There was then further discussion about the need to stimulate movement among some of the dissident movements which might as a dissident government and propose American assistance so that we would have this kind of excuse in case we wished to move.
The entire spirit of this meeting was profoundly distressing and worrisome, and I left at 8:00 p.m. with a feeling that this spirit which I had seen demonstrated on this occasion and others at the White House by those so close to the President constitutes a further danger of half-cocked action by people with almost no foreign policy experience, who are interested in action for action’s sake, and the devil take the highmost.
Bob McNamara went along with their general view that our problem was not to prepare against an overt act by the Dominican Republic but rather to find an excuse for going into the country and upsetting it.”
“For a long time, the US supported the Trujillo government, as did the Catholic Church and the Dominican elite. This support persisted despite the assassinations of political opposition, the massacre of Haitians, and Trujillo’s plots against other countries. The US believed Trujillo was the lesser of two or more evils. The U.S. finally broke with Trujillo in 1960, after Trujillo’s agents attempted to assassinate the Venezuelan president, Rómulo Betancourt, a fierce critic of Trujillo. Trujillo was assassinated on May 30, 1961.”
“On the night of Tuesday, May 30, 1961, Trujillo was shot dead on San Cristobal Avenue, Santo Domingo. He was the victim of an ambush… According to U.S. reporter Bernard Diederich, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) planned the operation to kill the dictator. In a report to the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, CIA officials described the agency as having “no active part” in the assassination and only a “faint connection” with the groups that planned the killing. However, an internal CIA memorandum states that an Office of Inspector General investigation into Trujillo’s murder disclosed “quite extensive Agency involvement with the plotters.” G. Pope Atkins writes that “the CIA arranged, planned and executed the assassination” using their elite paramilitary operations officers from the Special Activities Division.”
Source: Various