Dancing in the Streets

For three weeks a power struggle had raged over who should inherit the fiefdom of slain Dictator Rafael Trujillo. With so much passion involved, it was surprisingly bloodless. But so long as it was unresolved, the prospects of trouble hung over the Dominican Republic. Backed by a stubborn general strike in the streets, the middle-of-the-road National Civic Union (U.C.N.) demanded the disappearance of the last vestiges of Trujilloism. The two most conspicuous Trujillo vestiges--Armed Forces Boss Pedro Ramon Rodriguez Echaverria and Trujillo's pet President Joaquin Balaguer--as stubbornly resisted vanishing.

The man who held out longest was Rodriguez Echaverria. He ordered out hired thugs and government sound trucks to try to woo the mob and break the strike. Then Rodriguez Echaverria stiffly rejected as ''inadmissible" a compromise plan that Puppet Balaguer quietly proposed to Dr. Viriato Fiallo, head of the opposition U.C.N., under which Balaguer would resign in favor of a Swiss-style Council of State.

The U.S., with ships and marines lying twelve miles offshore, finally concluded that the Dominicans were not about to settle their own quarrel. Arriving at a predawn meeting of government and U.C.N. negotiators at a private home, Arturo Morales Carrion, an assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, and U.S. Vice Consul David Shaw moved in and virtually took command. They alternately guided, cajoled and stormed. Government negotiators at last agreed to a formula in favor of a seven-member Council of State. President Balaguer would have until Feb. 27 to resign with dignity, would be empowered to pick his successor from a slate of "independents" agreeable to both sides. The Council would hold elections late next year.

As the news spread, Santo Domingo burst into jubilation--though Balaguer seemed to be having second thoughts and army officers held out for guarantees of no reprisals for their Trujillo-era deeds. Cars honked through the streets, loudspeakers burst forth with Jingle Bells to a merengue beat, and the anti-Balaguer populace danced in the streets singing a new song: "Now that he is going. Now that he is going. Now that he is going, I want to dance with you!'' But was he going?

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