Force for Conciliation

At 2:30 a.m. one day last week, the U.S. finally found some allies in its struggle to prevent chaos and Communism in the Dominican Republic. By a narrow 14-5 vote, barely enough for the required two-thirds majority, the Organization of American States, meeting in Washington, agreed to create the hemisphere's first inter-American military force and send it to help U.S. troops keep peace in Santo Domingo. Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama and Honduras swiftly laid plans to send contingents of men. Other nations would follow their lead.

More than that, the OAS was now talking of sending a team of distinguished Latin Americans to act as trustees in the Dominican Republic's foundering political affairs. The team would possibly be composed of three former chiefs of state: Venezuela's Romulo Betancourt, Costa Rica's Jose Figueres, Puerto Rico's Munoz Marin. Their mission: to organize a provisional government and oversee a return to some sort of democratic normalcy in that confused, sorely wounded little Caribbean nation.

Blunt Warning. It was a historic decision for the OAS. It came only after a week of spectacular, sometimes desperate maneuvering in the halls of the Pan American Union, the White House, the United Nations and key Latin American capitals. In seeking Latin America's aid, the U.S. left no doubt about its determination to carry on alone--uncomfortable though that might be. A presidential adviser put it bluntly. "At one point, Hitler was in a Munich beer hall with only seven people. Somewhere along the line we missed taking action. Never again."

The U.S. was accused of blatant imperialism, of cynical intervention in the affairs of a helpless neighbor, of violating every tradition of the OAS. Sitting in his Puerto Rican exile, deposed Dominican President Juan Bosch blamed the U.S. for all the trouble. "This was a democratic revolution smashed by the leading democracy of the world!" he cried. "I belong to a world that has ended politically."

A Charter Violation. The Dominican revolution was hardly democratic, and if any world was ending, it was the Latin American world that often closed its eyes to Castro Communism. In a strictly legalistic sense, the swift U.S. response indeed violated Articles 15 and 17 of the OAS charter, prohibiting military intervention in one state by another. Yet from its very birth the OAS has been nothing if not an instrument for hemispheric peace and security (see box). Moreover, a 1954 resolution adopted at Caracas took the first tentative step toward defining the Communist menace.

All week long, while U.S. Marines and paratroopers squeezed the rebe's into a corner of Santo Domingo, the U.S. marshaled its arguments in the face of attacks from every quarter. From Paris, France's Charles de Gaulle, still seeking to carry his vision of grandeur to Latin America, condemned the U.S. action, broadly hinted that France might even recognize the rebel "government" in Santo Domingo. At the U.N. in Manhattan, the Cuban and Russian ambassadors treated the delegates to five nonstop days of billingsgate, railing at the U.S.'s "vandal-like aggression" and "hypocritical Messianism." Quietly and acidly, U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson replied to Russia's Nikolai Fedorenko: "And now, perhaps, I may ask a question of Ambassador Fedorenko and his Cuban colleague. How many agents of international Communism are intervening, arms in hand, with the obvious intention of setting up another Castro regime?"

Couriers & Recruiters. The answer, of course, was plenty. U.S. intelligence agencies opened their files on 58 of the Communists and Castroites playing a leading role in the fighting. It was" an impressive rogues' gallery: Luis Felipe Valentino Giro Alcantara, a Communist fanatic who studied guerrilla warfare in Cuba in 1963; Manuel Gonzalez Gonzalez, a Communist, suspected Cuban intelligence agent, and a probable military leader of the revolt; Hector Florentino Olivares, ardent follower of China's Mao Tse-tung, and a key Communist recruiter for guerrilla activities; Cayetano Rodriguez del Prado, Communist revolutionary and party leader who trained in Cuba, the Soviet bloc and Communist China, joined Cuban intelligence in 1963 to smuggle himself, two others, arms and communications equipment into the Dominican Republic; Miguel Angel Deschamps Erickson, graduate of Castro's subversive warfare and explosives school, and a courier who carried instructions from Cuba for a 1963 guerrilla operation.

U.S. intelligence flatly reported that ousted President Bosch had been in contact with several Communist leaders from the Dominican Republic shortly before the rebellion. In Santo Domingo, one of Bosch's lieutenants who pulled out of the revolution after the first few days advised a U.S. embassy officer that Reds were rooted deeply in the revolution. Said Colombia's Alfredo Vazquez Carrizosa, one of the five-man OAS investigating team, after four days on the scene: "It is clear now that the world of Communism is no longer separated from this hemisphere by the great oceans. Communism is a clear and frightening presence."

All this and more the U.S. presented in urging Latin America to join in an OAS peace-keeping force. President Johnson sent Old Troubleshooter Averell Harriman winging south on a whirlwind six-day visit to Latin America's pivotal nations. In Caracas, Castroite terrorists machine-gunned the U.S. embassy; in Montevideo, students lobbed fire bombs at U.S. businesses; in Santiago, they stoned the U.S. consulate. Among government officials Harriman found a growing awareness. Chile's Eduardo Frei and Peru's Fernando Belaunde were still adamantly opposed to any force, U.S. or OAS. Yet Brazil's Castello Branco supported the intervention, and in Buenos Aires one Argentine Foreign Ministry official said wryly: "Nonintervention is an excellent principle, but we are not going to let ourselves get killed defending it."

Three-Day Debate. At OAS headquarters in Washington's Pan American Union, the debate raged for three days before the final vote came, and covered all the well-known arguments for sovereignty and nonintervention. "Gentlemen," sighed U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker at one point, "we're losing time while we're talking." At last Costa Rica's eloquent Ambassador Gonzalo Facio took the floor. "From the oratory, it would appear that nonintervention is the only principle concerned. But do not forget the principle of humanitarianism, the principle of democratic representation, the principle of human rights. In the Dominican Republic, even the most elemental institutions have been destroyed. There is no government. The people are threatened with death, hunger and plague. The political groups have no control. We must act collectively to solve this Dominican tragedy."

When the vote on a joint OAS military task force finally came up, Uruguay, Mexico, Chile, Peru and Ecuador were still against; Venezuela abstained. "This force," read the resolution, "will have as its sole purpose that of cooperating in the restoration of normal conditions in the Dominican Republic, in maintaining the security of its inhabitants and the inviolability of their essential rights, and in the establishment of an atmosphere of peace and conciliation which will permit the functioning of democratic institutions."

How many men the Latin Americans can, or will, supply has yet to be decided. The U.S. has announced that it will pull out some of its troops as the Latin soldiers arrive. But from the look of things in the Dominican Republic, it seems likely that the bulk of the peace-keeping force will be U.S. troops, and that they will be patrolling Santo Domingo for quite a while. The figure going around Washington last week was up to two years.

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