It is the death of New Deal coalition!
Per The Guns of August and WWI debate, has our government in TTL just otherwise thrown out the Nye Committee!
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It is the death of New Deal coalition!
Per The Guns of August and WWI debate, has our government in TTL just otherwise thrown out the Nye Committee!
Are you projecting a little in that last paragraph?
Very interesting stuff - though I don't think Rab Butler would openly back Scoop's harsh words.
Very interesting stuff - though I don't think Rab Butler would openly back Scoop's harsh words.
Kurt_Steiner: Jackson really did believe Tuchman was wrong in asserting that World War One broke out because of countries misinterpreting each other. He really did believe that we got The Great War because of German ambition.
One of the problems Scoop had was that he increasingly became the odd one out when the Democratic Party moved more towards the left. The reason he never got nominated for President in the 1970s is because he was seen as being out of step with McGovern's anti-war stance and Carter's effort to negotiate the SALT II Treaty with the Soviet Union. Jackson opposed detente and was constantly at odds with Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter over it. It was with Reagan that Jackson found someone who shared his views about the Cold War.
volksmarschall: Jackson and McGovern really did hate each other, just like how Thomas E. Dewey and Robert Taft really hated each other. This gives me great natural material to work with.
The 1964 Presidential Election is going to be quite interesting...assuming I can ever get there.
Kurt_Steiner: *stares at you blankly* Isn't the answer obvious?
NikephorosSonar: That's what I'm thinking. If the Democrats dump Jackson for McGovern in '64, it will certainly shake things up.
volksmarschall: That would make Jackson the last New Deal President, wouldn't it?
I forgot about the Nye Committee.
Jape: Yes. I tend to end my updates with foreshadowing (if that's the right word).
Should I remove that part then?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The East Timor Crisis
In April 1962:
(A scene from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”, one of the top grossing films of 1962 and the first film to star both James Stewart and John Wayne)
For Jackson, April 1962 began with yet another foreign policy crisis in Asia. This time though, it wasn't China or South Vietnam. Instead, the crisis was over an obscure island no one in America ever heard of. On April 2nd, Indonesian troops invaded the Portuguese colony of East Timor. The invasion, the result of a territorial dispute between the two nations, put the United States in the tough position of having to choose sides since she was friends with both Indonesia and Portugal. Following the end of World War Two in 1947, the Dutch East Indies acquired its’ independence from the Netherlands and became the modern sovereign state of Indonesia. However, the Dutch maintained control over the western half of New Guinea while the Portuguese continued to control the eastern half of Timor. This naturally didn’t sit well with the Indonesian government, which regarded Western New Guinea and East Timor as their rightful territory. In the early 1960s, Indonesian President Sukarno decided that the time had come to force the Europeans out of their colonies and bring them into the Indonesian fold. He would tackle East Timor first, believing he would have an easier time wresting the colony away from Portugal. Western New Guinea would come later.
The Portuguese first arrived in East Timor in 1515 and by 1702 had established a colony there. Despite the fact that other European powers were gradually dismantling their colonial empires, the Portuguese government regarded East Timor as an overseas province equal with the provinces that made up continental Portugal and therefore refused to cede control of it over to Indonesia. The Indonesian government was particularly incensed at being told that they had no rights to this territory because the Republic of Indonesia didn’t exist when East Timor came under Portuguese rule. With the Portuguese government refusing to discuss the matter any further, Sukarno decided that his only course of action was to take East Timor by force. “The continuance of East Timor under Portuguese rule is impossible,” he told Major General Suharto. Suharto was then ordered to take military action and capture East Timor in the name of liberating an occupied Indonesian territory. Pre-invasion reconnaissance revealed that the Portuguese - incredibly - had no military forces in place to defend East Timor. Hardly able to believe his luck, Suharto boasted that he could easily take the colony with just one infantry division. For all their talk about never giving up East Timor, the Portuguese curiously didn’t seem to take the defense of their colony all that seriously. At 9:45 AM on April 2nd, 1962, Suharto personally led his infantry division across the border into East Timor in a military action codenamed Operation Lotus. Just like the reconnaissance indicated, Suharto’s forces encountered no opposition and had little difficulty securing complete control over East Timor. For the first time in over two-and-a-half centuries, a flag belonging to a nation other than Portugal was fluttering over the eastern half of Timor.
(President Sukarno and General Suharto, the two men behind the successful East Timor operation)
The Indonesian invasion of Portuguese East Timor triggered an international crisis which put the United States in a tight spot. At the time, America enjoyed +50 relations with Portugal and +200 relations with Indonesia. The latter was the result of diplomacy conducted during the Sparkman Administration to bring Indonesia into America’s sphere in order to counterbalance the rise of China. As Vice President in the late 1950s, Jackson had seen Sparkman work hard to establish strong ties with Sukarno. The question facing Jackson in the East Timor Crisis was whether the United States would stand by Indonesia. Certainly the President didn’t think much of Portugal’s Asian colonies, having already written off Macao as a lost cause in the event of a Chinese invasion. He worried instead about offending Indonesia by opposing the invasion, especially at a time when he was about to commit 40,000 combat soldiers to South Vietnam. Like other Asian leaders, Sukarno was concerned about Chiang Kai-shek’s saber-rattling and very public plans to build a Chinese empire in Asia. If Southeast Asia fell and the Chinese empire extended all the way south to Singapore, then Chiang would be knocking on Sukarno’s front door. Scoop needed his support in opposing China and he knew he would be risking that support by opposing Sukarno’s move into East Timor. If he allowed Sukarno to seize control of the colony, then America’s relationship with Indonesia wouldn’t take a hit and the Indonesian President would be more likely to provide that crucial support. On the other hand, Portugal was also a friend of America’s – if to a lesser degree. If the US backed Indonesia in the East Timor Crisis, her relationship with Portugal would certainly take a hit...perhaps beyond the point of repair. Jackson would be criticized for undermining another Western European nation, having already turned the historic Franco-American friendship ice cold. There were also concerns that if America condoned Indonesia’s use of force to resolve her dispute with Portugal, it might encourage the Chinese to take similar action against Macao and Hong Kong. After all, went the reasoning, if one Asian nation was allowed to forcefully expel European colonialism from what they considered to be their territory, why not let other Asian nations do the same?
(Timor, which became a global hotspot in April 1962)
While Jackson tried to figure out how to respond to the East Timor Crisis, Indonesia and Portugal engaged in a strong war of words. The day after the invasion, Portugal demanded that Indonesia withdraw at once and cease her provocative behavior. Indonesia rejected that demand, insisting that the “elimination of colonialism on Timor” was in the best interest of her people and that Portugal’s occupation of the eastern half of the island was “unlawful” and “oppressive”.
As far as Sukarno was concerned, Portuguese East Timor constituted “a threat to international peace and security, and stands in the way of the unity of the Republic of Indonesia.”
There was really nothing the Portuguese could do to retake East Timor. They lacked the military means to launch a counterattack and the Indonesians sent reinforcements to Timor once the island had been unified under their control. A total of four Indonesian infantry divisions would ultimately be stationed there. Still, the Portuguese refused to accept the fact that their colony had been overrun. Rather than surrender East Timor to Indonesia, Portugal formally severed relations with that country and declared their colony to have been illegally seized. She even encouraged the natives of East Timor to rise up against Indonesian rule. Prime Minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, Portugal’s right-wing dictator since 1932, defiantly told his nation that Indonesia’s action was an attack on their national sovereignty. “We cannot negotiate,” he declared, “Not without denying and betraying our own, the cession of national territory and the transfer of populations that inhabit them to foreign sovereigns.”
He dug in his heels, vowing that his government would resist the takeover of East Timor to the utmost. Thus the standoff between Portugal and Indonesia over this province raged throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s with neither side showing signs of backing down.
(Prime Minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, a conservative dictator who opposed left-wing ideology of all stripes)
After discussing the crisis with his national security team and weighing the pros and cons of taking either side, Jackson finally made a decision. He faced a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation where supporting one side would undoubtedly upset the other side. Looking for a third option, Scoop decided to follow President George Washington’s example by not choosing sides. When England and France engaged in their routine pastime of fighting each other in the 1790s, Washington rejected pressure to align his newborn country with either European power and kept the United States strictly on the sidelines. Jackson chose to do the same. Rather than do something about the invasion of East Timor, he would instead do nothing and allow the hostility between Indonesia and Portugal to fester. The United States wouldn’t recognize the Indonesian annexation of East Timor but she wouldn’t condemn Indonesia’s armed action either. The truth was that Scoop didn’t really care who controlled the eastern half of Timor. His overriding concern was China's reaction. He restrained the United States from getting involved in the East Timor Crisis because he felt that choosing sides would send the wrong message to Nanjing. If the US backed Indonesia, then the Chinese could use that as justification to move against Hong Kong (which his Administration didn’t want). If the US backed Portugal, it might create the impression that the US would come to Portugal’s aide in the event of a Chinese invasion of Macao (which his Administration had no intention of doing). Of course, once he had decided not to do anything, Jackson stuck to it and didn’t second-guess himself. As he explained in a press conference:
“I do not believe it would be wise to involve the United States in every single dispute everywhere in the world. It is not isolationist to recognize that we lack the unlimited power to be the world’s policeman.”
Also viewing the East Timor Crisis through the prism of China was the United Kingdom. Whereas President Jackson cautiously felt it would be best not to respond, Prime Minister Rab Butler used the crisis to send an unmistakable message to the Chinese. London strongly condemned “the decision of the Government of Indonesia to use military force to attain its political objectives.”
Butler wanted Chiang to know in no uncertain terms that his country opposed Indonesia’s decision to resort to force in her dispute with Portugal. The take-away from his tough stance was that he would oppose any Chinese effort to take Macao and especially Hong Kong, whose defense Butler was stepping up. The Netherlands were naturally alarmed by the Indonesian takeover of East Timor, fearing that it would be a prelude to an attack on Dutch New Guinea. Brazil, a nation that had nothing to do with Asia, rushed to Portugal’s side in a display of staunch solidarity with the country that had once ruled her. With their ties forged by blood and sentiment, the Brazilian Government declared that “a Portuguese wound is Brazilian pain.”
The Soviet Union on the other hand applauded Sukarno for taking action against East Timor. General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev telegraphed the Indonesian President to ignore indignation “from those who are accustomed to strangle the peoples striving for independence and from those who enrich themselves from colonialist plunder.”
Then there was the curious reaction from China. In his statement, Chiang expressed both support for overthrowing “Western imperialism” and condemnation for the attack on East Timor. Regarding Sukarno as an enemy of his ambition, Chiang ridiculed him for choosing to seize territory from “the world’s tiniest imperialist country” and asserted that “internal unrest” forced him to “take action against East Timor to please the Indonesian people.”
(After moving into East Timor, the Indonesians erected this statue to represent integration)
Having toppled Portuguese rule, the Indonesians moved quickly to signal that the province was now under new management. Soldiers stationed there engaged in anti-partisan activities in order to root out and eliminate any opposition from the local East Timorese population. Exactly how many people they killed remains highly controversial. The official estimate from the Indonesian government puts the number of deaths at 18,600. However, a couple independent studies conducted in the 1970s and the 1980s have claimed that anywhere from 50,000 to 80,000 East Timorese died from anti-partisan activities. A 1999 study conducted by the United Nations found that the official Indonesian number of direct deaths was more-or-less accurate but estimated that the number of indirect deaths resulting from starvation and disease reached as high as 183,000. Following annexation, East Timor officially became the twenty-seventh province of the Republic of Indonesia and was divided into districts, sub-districts, and villages following the Java Model. At the same time they were using the stick against East Timorese partisans, the Indonesians tried to use the carrot by giving traditional tribal leaders positions in the restructured East Timor with the aim of assimilating the population through patronage. The government launched initiatives to improve the province’s poor infrastructure and increase production in commercial farming. Indeed, East Timorese farmers doubled their production of coffee and cloves...but were forced by the government to sell their products at low prices to village cooperatives.
Jackson never regretted his handling of the East Timor Crisis. As he saw it, getting involved in the international dispute between Portugal and Indonesia would have made the situation worse. Instead, he was content to stand on the side lines and watch Sukarno gobble up East Timor. As stated previously, Scoop didn’t really care all that much about who controlled an obscure piece of real estate that no one in America ever heard of. As he would soon do in response to Fidel Castro’s power grab in Cuba, the President decided that the best thing to do was to do nothing. Why engage in counterproductive knee-jerking? Besides, he had another crisis to deal with – this one much closer to home.
One of the problems Scoop had was that he increasingly became the odd one out when the Democratic Party moved more towards the left. The reason he never got nominated for President in the 1970s is because he was seen as being out of step with McGovern's anti-war stance and Carter's effort to negotiate the SALT II Treaty with the Soviet Union. Jackson opposed detente and was constantly at odds with Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter over it. It was with Reagan that Jackson found someone who shared his views about the Cold War.
volksmarschall: Jackson and McGovern really did hate each other, just like how Thomas E. Dewey and Robert Taft really hated each other. This gives me great natural material to work with.
The 1964 Presidential Election is going to be quite interesting...assuming I can ever get there.
Kurt_Steiner: *stares at you blankly* Isn't the answer obvious?
NikephorosSonar: That's what I'm thinking. If the Democrats dump Jackson for McGovern in '64, it will certainly shake things up.
volksmarschall: That would make Jackson the last New Deal President, wouldn't it?
I forgot about the Nye Committee.
Jape: Yes. I tend to end my updates with foreshadowing (if that's the right word).
Should I remove that part then?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The East Timor Crisis
In April 1962:
- In England, Brian Jones (age 20) is introduced to childhood pals Mick Jagger (age 18) and Keith Richards (age 18) at a London blues club. They would subsequently form a rock band called The Rolling Stones – named after a 1950 Muddy Waters blues song.
- Walter Cronkite replaces Douglas Edwards as anchorman of the “CBS Evening News”. Cronkite would be the face of the evening news on CBS for the next nineteen years, concluding each broadcast with the parting phrase “And that’s the way it is.”
- The Los Angeles Lakers defeat the Boston Celtics 4-3 to win the 1962 NBA Finals. The winning moment came during the last five seconds of regulation in Game 7 when Laker Frank Selvy nailed an open twelve-foot jump shot from the baseline. Selvy’s basket won the sixth championship for the Los Angeles Lakers, ending the Boston Celtics’ three championship streak.
- President Henry M. Jackson gives the opening address at the Century 21 Exposition in Seattle, Washington. Over the next six months, nearly ten million people would visit the world’s fair that was spread out across seventy-four acres. Towering over the visitors is the new 605 foot-tall Space Needle observation tower, the tallest structure west of the Mississippi River.
- Paramount Pictures releases the black-and-white Western film “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”. Directed by the highly-acclaimed John Ford and starring box office draws James Stewart and John Wayne, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” is about an Eastern lawyer and a troubled rancher who compete for a woman’s hand in marriage while dealing with a psychopathic frontier outlaw. The film would be a financial and critical hit, grossing eight million dollars at the box office.
(A scene from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”, one of the top grossing films of 1962 and the first film to star both James Stewart and John Wayne)
For Jackson, April 1962 began with yet another foreign policy crisis in Asia. This time though, it wasn't China or South Vietnam. Instead, the crisis was over an obscure island no one in America ever heard of. On April 2nd, Indonesian troops invaded the Portuguese colony of East Timor. The invasion, the result of a territorial dispute between the two nations, put the United States in the tough position of having to choose sides since she was friends with both Indonesia and Portugal. Following the end of World War Two in 1947, the Dutch East Indies acquired its’ independence from the Netherlands and became the modern sovereign state of Indonesia. However, the Dutch maintained control over the western half of New Guinea while the Portuguese continued to control the eastern half of Timor. This naturally didn’t sit well with the Indonesian government, which regarded Western New Guinea and East Timor as their rightful territory. In the early 1960s, Indonesian President Sukarno decided that the time had come to force the Europeans out of their colonies and bring them into the Indonesian fold. He would tackle East Timor first, believing he would have an easier time wresting the colony away from Portugal. Western New Guinea would come later.
The Portuguese first arrived in East Timor in 1515 and by 1702 had established a colony there. Despite the fact that other European powers were gradually dismantling their colonial empires, the Portuguese government regarded East Timor as an overseas province equal with the provinces that made up continental Portugal and therefore refused to cede control of it over to Indonesia. The Indonesian government was particularly incensed at being told that they had no rights to this territory because the Republic of Indonesia didn’t exist when East Timor came under Portuguese rule. With the Portuguese government refusing to discuss the matter any further, Sukarno decided that his only course of action was to take East Timor by force. “The continuance of East Timor under Portuguese rule is impossible,” he told Major General Suharto. Suharto was then ordered to take military action and capture East Timor in the name of liberating an occupied Indonesian territory. Pre-invasion reconnaissance revealed that the Portuguese - incredibly - had no military forces in place to defend East Timor. Hardly able to believe his luck, Suharto boasted that he could easily take the colony with just one infantry division. For all their talk about never giving up East Timor, the Portuguese curiously didn’t seem to take the defense of their colony all that seriously. At 9:45 AM on April 2nd, 1962, Suharto personally led his infantry division across the border into East Timor in a military action codenamed Operation Lotus. Just like the reconnaissance indicated, Suharto’s forces encountered no opposition and had little difficulty securing complete control over East Timor. For the first time in over two-and-a-half centuries, a flag belonging to a nation other than Portugal was fluttering over the eastern half of Timor.
(President Sukarno and General Suharto, the two men behind the successful East Timor operation)
The Indonesian invasion of Portuguese East Timor triggered an international crisis which put the United States in a tight spot. At the time, America enjoyed +50 relations with Portugal and +200 relations with Indonesia. The latter was the result of diplomacy conducted during the Sparkman Administration to bring Indonesia into America’s sphere in order to counterbalance the rise of China. As Vice President in the late 1950s, Jackson had seen Sparkman work hard to establish strong ties with Sukarno. The question facing Jackson in the East Timor Crisis was whether the United States would stand by Indonesia. Certainly the President didn’t think much of Portugal’s Asian colonies, having already written off Macao as a lost cause in the event of a Chinese invasion. He worried instead about offending Indonesia by opposing the invasion, especially at a time when he was about to commit 40,000 combat soldiers to South Vietnam. Like other Asian leaders, Sukarno was concerned about Chiang Kai-shek’s saber-rattling and very public plans to build a Chinese empire in Asia. If Southeast Asia fell and the Chinese empire extended all the way south to Singapore, then Chiang would be knocking on Sukarno’s front door. Scoop needed his support in opposing China and he knew he would be risking that support by opposing Sukarno’s move into East Timor. If he allowed Sukarno to seize control of the colony, then America’s relationship with Indonesia wouldn’t take a hit and the Indonesian President would be more likely to provide that crucial support. On the other hand, Portugal was also a friend of America’s – if to a lesser degree. If the US backed Indonesia in the East Timor Crisis, her relationship with Portugal would certainly take a hit...perhaps beyond the point of repair. Jackson would be criticized for undermining another Western European nation, having already turned the historic Franco-American friendship ice cold. There were also concerns that if America condoned Indonesia’s use of force to resolve her dispute with Portugal, it might encourage the Chinese to take similar action against Macao and Hong Kong. After all, went the reasoning, if one Asian nation was allowed to forcefully expel European colonialism from what they considered to be their territory, why not let other Asian nations do the same?
(Timor, which became a global hotspot in April 1962)
While Jackson tried to figure out how to respond to the East Timor Crisis, Indonesia and Portugal engaged in a strong war of words. The day after the invasion, Portugal demanded that Indonesia withdraw at once and cease her provocative behavior. Indonesia rejected that demand, insisting that the “elimination of colonialism on Timor” was in the best interest of her people and that Portugal’s occupation of the eastern half of the island was “unlawful” and “oppressive”.
As far as Sukarno was concerned, Portuguese East Timor constituted “a threat to international peace and security, and stands in the way of the unity of the Republic of Indonesia.”
There was really nothing the Portuguese could do to retake East Timor. They lacked the military means to launch a counterattack and the Indonesians sent reinforcements to Timor once the island had been unified under their control. A total of four Indonesian infantry divisions would ultimately be stationed there. Still, the Portuguese refused to accept the fact that their colony had been overrun. Rather than surrender East Timor to Indonesia, Portugal formally severed relations with that country and declared their colony to have been illegally seized. She even encouraged the natives of East Timor to rise up against Indonesian rule. Prime Minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, Portugal’s right-wing dictator since 1932, defiantly told his nation that Indonesia’s action was an attack on their national sovereignty. “We cannot negotiate,” he declared, “Not without denying and betraying our own, the cession of national territory and the transfer of populations that inhabit them to foreign sovereigns.”
He dug in his heels, vowing that his government would resist the takeover of East Timor to the utmost. Thus the standoff between Portugal and Indonesia over this province raged throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s with neither side showing signs of backing down.
(Prime Minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, a conservative dictator who opposed left-wing ideology of all stripes)
After discussing the crisis with his national security team and weighing the pros and cons of taking either side, Jackson finally made a decision. He faced a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation where supporting one side would undoubtedly upset the other side. Looking for a third option, Scoop decided to follow President George Washington’s example by not choosing sides. When England and France engaged in their routine pastime of fighting each other in the 1790s, Washington rejected pressure to align his newborn country with either European power and kept the United States strictly on the sidelines. Jackson chose to do the same. Rather than do something about the invasion of East Timor, he would instead do nothing and allow the hostility between Indonesia and Portugal to fester. The United States wouldn’t recognize the Indonesian annexation of East Timor but she wouldn’t condemn Indonesia’s armed action either. The truth was that Scoop didn’t really care who controlled the eastern half of Timor. His overriding concern was China's reaction. He restrained the United States from getting involved in the East Timor Crisis because he felt that choosing sides would send the wrong message to Nanjing. If the US backed Indonesia, then the Chinese could use that as justification to move against Hong Kong (which his Administration didn’t want). If the US backed Portugal, it might create the impression that the US would come to Portugal’s aide in the event of a Chinese invasion of Macao (which his Administration had no intention of doing). Of course, once he had decided not to do anything, Jackson stuck to it and didn’t second-guess himself. As he explained in a press conference:
“I do not believe it would be wise to involve the United States in every single dispute everywhere in the world. It is not isolationist to recognize that we lack the unlimited power to be the world’s policeman.”
Also viewing the East Timor Crisis through the prism of China was the United Kingdom. Whereas President Jackson cautiously felt it would be best not to respond, Prime Minister Rab Butler used the crisis to send an unmistakable message to the Chinese. London strongly condemned “the decision of the Government of Indonesia to use military force to attain its political objectives.”
Butler wanted Chiang to know in no uncertain terms that his country opposed Indonesia’s decision to resort to force in her dispute with Portugal. The take-away from his tough stance was that he would oppose any Chinese effort to take Macao and especially Hong Kong, whose defense Butler was stepping up. The Netherlands were naturally alarmed by the Indonesian takeover of East Timor, fearing that it would be a prelude to an attack on Dutch New Guinea. Brazil, a nation that had nothing to do with Asia, rushed to Portugal’s side in a display of staunch solidarity with the country that had once ruled her. With their ties forged by blood and sentiment, the Brazilian Government declared that “a Portuguese wound is Brazilian pain.”
The Soviet Union on the other hand applauded Sukarno for taking action against East Timor. General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev telegraphed the Indonesian President to ignore indignation “from those who are accustomed to strangle the peoples striving for independence and from those who enrich themselves from colonialist plunder.”
Then there was the curious reaction from China. In his statement, Chiang expressed both support for overthrowing “Western imperialism” and condemnation for the attack on East Timor. Regarding Sukarno as an enemy of his ambition, Chiang ridiculed him for choosing to seize territory from “the world’s tiniest imperialist country” and asserted that “internal unrest” forced him to “take action against East Timor to please the Indonesian people.”
(After moving into East Timor, the Indonesians erected this statue to represent integration)
Having toppled Portuguese rule, the Indonesians moved quickly to signal that the province was now under new management. Soldiers stationed there engaged in anti-partisan activities in order to root out and eliminate any opposition from the local East Timorese population. Exactly how many people they killed remains highly controversial. The official estimate from the Indonesian government puts the number of deaths at 18,600. However, a couple independent studies conducted in the 1970s and the 1980s have claimed that anywhere from 50,000 to 80,000 East Timorese died from anti-partisan activities. A 1999 study conducted by the United Nations found that the official Indonesian number of direct deaths was more-or-less accurate but estimated that the number of indirect deaths resulting from starvation and disease reached as high as 183,000. Following annexation, East Timor officially became the twenty-seventh province of the Republic of Indonesia and was divided into districts, sub-districts, and villages following the Java Model. At the same time they were using the stick against East Timorese partisans, the Indonesians tried to use the carrot by giving traditional tribal leaders positions in the restructured East Timor with the aim of assimilating the population through patronage. The government launched initiatives to improve the province’s poor infrastructure and increase production in commercial farming. Indeed, East Timorese farmers doubled their production of coffee and cloves...but were forced by the government to sell their products at low prices to village cooperatives.
Jackson never regretted his handling of the East Timor Crisis. As he saw it, getting involved in the international dispute between Portugal and Indonesia would have made the situation worse. Instead, he was content to stand on the side lines and watch Sukarno gobble up East Timor. As stated previously, Scoop didn’t really care all that much about who controlled an obscure piece of real estate that no one in America ever heard of. As he would soon do in response to Fidel Castro’s power grab in Cuba, the President decided that the best thing to do was to do nothing. Why engage in counterproductive knee-jerking? Besides, he had another crisis to deal with – this one much closer to home.
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Jackson probably picked the best course of action but it - as you say - only leaves the issue of Timor and East Asian colonies in general to fester. In the short term its a smart balancing act but with Vietnam, Hong Kong and West Papua still issues he's arguably only kicked the issue into the long grass.
On Butler and the UN, I imagine he would say something weedy like "we see were Mr. Jackson is coming from but cannot agree with such bellicose language. Britain has the fullest confidence in the United Nations - that if we all work together we can maintain an equal congress of nations".
Butler might very well agree with Scoop in private but its quite an aggressive speech and Britain sees the UN as a forum for her ex-colonies so wants to be friendly to the organisation. A PM Butler would be very pro-detente and working alongside a hawk like Scoop would try to be a moderating force.
On Butler and the UN, I imagine he would say something weedy like "we see were Mr. Jackson is coming from but cannot agree with such bellicose language. Britain has the fullest confidence in the United Nations - that if we all work together we can maintain an equal congress of nations".
Butler might very well agree with Scoop in private but its quite an aggressive speech and Britain sees the UN as a forum for her ex-colonies so wants to be friendly to the organisation. A PM Butler would be very pro-detente and working alongside a hawk like Scoop would try to be a moderating force.
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If Scoops keeps understanding everything as well as he understood Tuchman, the colonies are not the only thing to fester in this AAR soon...
I hope that he's not going to try a Jacksonian version of the Reaganomics...
I hope that he's not going to try a Jacksonian version of the Reaganomics...
We already have Jacksonian Democracy, time for another Jackson to have a memorable naming legacy
I fancy Arthur Schlesinger Jr. to write a new update to his The Age of Jackson, one from 1829-1837 and now this one...
Jape: Like you said, it might be wise for Jackson to do nothing but it isn't going to help his successors any.
Thanks for the advice about Butler, Jape. I'll go back and rewrite that part. I really appreciate your input.
SotV: I was inspired to do the East Timor update after looking at the HOI map. Seeing how easily the Indonesians could take the province inspired me to do the invasion a decade early.
Kurt_Steiner: Makes one long for JFK, doesn't it?
I can assure you that isn't going to happen. Jackson is too FDR-ish when it comes to the economy. Heck, he has FDR's portrait hanging above the fireplace in the Oval Office. Now that I think about it, Reagan was a fan of Coolidge's portrait.
volksmarschall: Believe me, we'll get a book or two from Arthur Schlesinger Jr. After all, he has been working at the White House since 1953, writing speeches for three Democratic Presidents.
On an early 1960s sidenote, singer Lesley Gore died yesterday in New York at age sixty-eight. In June 1963, her song "It's My Party" reached Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
Thanks for the advice about Butler, Jape. I'll go back and rewrite that part. I really appreciate your input.
SotV: I was inspired to do the East Timor update after looking at the HOI map. Seeing how easily the Indonesians could take the province inspired me to do the invasion a decade early.
Kurt_Steiner: Makes one long for JFK, doesn't it?
I can assure you that isn't going to happen. Jackson is too FDR-ish when it comes to the economy. Heck, he has FDR's portrait hanging above the fireplace in the Oval Office. Now that I think about it, Reagan was a fan of Coolidge's portrait.
volksmarschall: Believe me, we'll get a book or two from Arthur Schlesinger Jr. After all, he has been working at the White House since 1953, writing speeches for three Democratic Presidents.
On an early 1960s sidenote, singer Lesley Gore died yesterday in New York at age sixty-eight. In June 1963, her song "It's My Party" reached Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
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Thanks for the advice about Butler, Jape. I'll go back and rewrite that part. I really appreciate your input.
No problem, as I said its only my guess my knowledge of Butler isn't particularly deep. I can see him taking Macmillan's approach of "Greeks in this new empire", viewing old Britain as a tutor to these brash Americans who obviously are uneducated in the ways of global power. Its a willingness to help but a slightly patronising one.
Also Butler was considered a bit weak by colleagues, the fact he didn't serve in WW2 was held against him, and his deep interest in think-tank proposals gave him a 'nerdy' reputation if that makes sense. Also prior to the war he was Foriegn Under-Secretary and supported appeasement. All of this could come into play in dealing with Jackson.
All that said he wouldn't be a dedicated dove, if he's seized power I imagine he's decided to be more aggressive than IOTL to dispel his weakling image. He'd still be put off by Jackson's speech as 'brash' but I could well see him wanting to show muscle given the opportunity, say send some Malaya veterans to Vietnam to help 'educate' the Americans in anti-guerilla warfare, maybe hit harder in places like Aden and come 1963 - crucially given Indonesia's warm relations with America - in Borneo.
Jape: I'm afraid I don't get the "Greeks in this new empire" reference.
Ah, yes. Appeasing the Germans. That obviously didn't work, so I imagine Butler as Prime Minister not making the same mistake twice when it comes to dealing with China. The Chinese want to expel the British from Hong Kong, so Butler needs to do all he can to defend the island city and its' major naval base. If Hong Kong falls, it's possible that Butler falls along with it. I base that on the fact that Chamberlain fell after the loss of Denmark and Norway in 1940.
British involvement in Vietnam is something I'm not sure about. I know the Australians sent troops, but I'm not sure if the British would do the same. I can see them getting involved if the Chinese threathen Malaya and Singapore, but a former French colony? As for Borneo, it sounds interesting but whether I'll mention it or not is a questionmark.
Ah, yes. Appeasing the Germans. That obviously didn't work, so I imagine Butler as Prime Minister not making the same mistake twice when it comes to dealing with China. The Chinese want to expel the British from Hong Kong, so Butler needs to do all he can to defend the island city and its' major naval base. If Hong Kong falls, it's possible that Butler falls along with it. I base that on the fact that Chamberlain fell after the loss of Denmark and Norway in 1940.
British involvement in Vietnam is something I'm not sure about. I know the Australians sent troops, but I'm not sure if the British would do the same. I can see them getting involved if the Chinese threathen Malaya and Singapore, but a former French colony? As for Borneo, it sounds interesting but whether I'll mention it or not is a questionmark.
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"Greeks in this new empire" was an allusion to Greek influence on Rome through culture, philosophy, political science and the hope Britain would be a similar influence/educator to America's superpower. Basically, we might not be number one but we'll be the top dog's trusted advisor.
I only mention all this to give a bit of flavour and context (however limited). On Vietnam, it was kicked about. Domino theory wasn't the preserve of the State Department, plus again that Greeks in the New Empire thing - "oh we beat the snot out of the Reds in Malaya - come here you're doing it all wrong!" - post-Rab this concept would be dead though, whethers by moderniser not interested in Imperial baggage (Heath/Wilson) or decidely anti-Atlanticists (Bevanites/Powellites)
I only mention all this to give a bit of flavour and context (however limited). On Vietnam, it was kicked about. Domino theory wasn't the preserve of the State Department, plus again that Greeks in the New Empire thing - "oh we beat the snot out of the Reds in Malaya - come here you're doing it all wrong!" - post-Rab this concept would be dead though, whethers by moderniser not interested in Imperial baggage (Heath/Wilson) or decidely anti-Atlanticists (Bevanites/Powellites)
Jape: Ah. After I read the explanation, volksmarschall's work came flowing to me in this "Duh" moment.
Anti-Atlanticists? I don't think I have ever heard that word before.
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The Trujillo Era
Although the White House is their official residence, Presidents typically have other residences that they can stay at during their tenure. George Washington had Mount Vernon, Abraham Lincoln had the Soldiers’ Home, Theodore Roosevelt had Sagamore Hill, Franklin D. Roosevelt had Springwood and Warm Springs, and Thomas E. Dewey had Dapplemere. As for Scoop Jackson, he had his home in Everett, Washington. Located at 1703 Grand Avenue, Jackson’s white two-story stately home was known during his time in office as the Western White House. To beef up security, the Secret Service had erected an iron fence around the property to keep out wandering visitors and had set up a command post across the street. April 20th, 1962 found the President at the Western White House, preparing for the next day when the Century 21 Exposition would open in Seattle. Since this world’s fair would be taking place in his neck of the woods, Jackson was particularly keen on being involved with it. For instance, he had been a part of the ground breaking ceremony for the construction of the massive Space Needle observation tower which would dominate the city's skyline. The President was scheduled to attend the opening ceremony, where he would give the speech welcoming visitors to all that Seattle had to offer. He and his wife would then tour the fair with Ed Sullivan, who was in town to do a live telecast of his weekly CBS variety show. Jackson was very much looking forward to spending the weekend in Seattle.
(Millions of people flocked to the Century 21 Exposition. Even California Senator Richard Nixon took his family there)
Unfortunately for Jackson, events overseas wouldn’t take a break for him. While working on his welcoming speech, the President received word that General Rafael Trujillo, the long-standing dictator of the Dominican Republic, had been assassinated. Trujillo had been a problem for the United States for months, so his sudden death could’ve been received with a sigh of relief. Instead, Scoop’s reaction was one of uncertainty. Trujillo had been such a dominating force in the Dominican Republic that it wasn’t immediately clear who would be his successor. Jackson directed his national security team to closely monitor the situation in the Caribbean and went on with his plans. Although he was all smiles as he officially opened the world’s fair on April 21st, the Trujillo assassination wasn’t far from his thoughts. He returned to the White House two days later and held an emergency meeting with his national security team in the wood-paneled Situation Room. The update Jackson received was grim: the Dominican Republic was a nation sliding into chaos. Anarchy was growing rampant in the streets of Santo Domingo as the military and left-wing rebels clashed in violent street battles. With Trujillo gone, his government had collapsed like a house of cards and people were now fending for themselves. Lawlessness was spreading everywhere. “There’s no one in charge in the Dominican Republic right now,” Secretary of State Dean Rusk reported, “No one in position to pull the country back together.”
Like Charlie Brown, Jackson thought “Good grief!” It should be pointed out that he wasn’t the first President to have to deal with the Dominican Republic. Theodore Roosevelt had intervened there at the start of the Twentieth Century in order to clean up the country’s financial mess and prevent the Europeans from doing the same. His successor William Howard Taft had used diplomatic mediation to try to restore political stability in a country that wasn’t used to it. When that didn’t work, Taft’s successor Woodrow Wilson had intervened militarily in May 1916 and had established an occupation government to run the country. The US occupation of the Dominican Republic was vigorously opposed by Wilson’s successor Warren G. Harding, who put an end to it in October 1922. Forty years later, it fell to Jackson to deal with the mess in this Caribbean nation.
To understand the sudden explosion of violence in the Dominican Republic, you have to understand this man whose assassination had triggered it: Rafael Trujillo. Born in October 1891, Trujillo began his rise to power as a result of President Wilson’s intervention in 1916. The occupation government established the Dominican National Guard to impose order, which Trujillo joined in 1918. Over the course of nine years, he steadily rose in rank from Lieutenant to General to Commander-in-Chief of the Army. With a lust for power, Trujillo used his high-ranking position to organize a coup in 1930 which overthrew the civilian government in Santo Domingo and installed himself as dictator for life. His first action was to jail his opponents, sending an unmistakable signal of what was to come in the Dominican Republic. Under his iron-fisted rule which would become known as the Trujillo Era, all traces of democracy were swept away. Opposition political parties were shut down and government employees were required to donate ten percent of their salary to the national treasury for Trujillo to spend as he pleased. Anyone who was caught planning opposition to his rule or refused to donate part of their salary were immediately taken away by the police force and killed. People were routinely required to express their loyalty to the government and Trujillo’s image was plastered everywhere to provide a reminder – if one was needed – of who was in charge and who had the final word.
(A stamp issued in 1933 to honor Trujillo’s forty-second birthday)
By 1936, you couldn’t go anywhere in the Dominican Republic without feeling Trujillo’s presence. Even the name of the capital had been changed from Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo. Statues of him were mass-produced and erected across the country. He named everything after himself: streets, mountains, schools, bridges, and public buildings. He decreed that the government-run newspapers kick off each daily edition by praising him on the front page. Wanted to drive a vehicle? You were required by law to obtain a license plate featuring the slogan “¡Viva Trujillo!” Trujillo was so Trujillo-centric that he even recommended himself for the Nobel Peace Prize, believing himself to be worthy of that high honor (he was never awarded it). The dictator regarded the Dominican Republic to be his private property and the people of the country as his subjects. He decided who lived and who died...and there would be a lot of deaths under his rule. Trujillo brutally eliminated anyone he considered to be a threat, real or imagined. Like in any other tyrannical state, people were routinely arrested and executed at the mere whim of the government. Over the course of Trujillo’s bloody reign of terror, over 50,000 people were put to death. The most notorious example occurred in October 1937 when the Army killed 26,000 Haitians for committing the crime of living on the Dominican side of the border. Instead of using bullets, soldiers slaughtered the Haitians using machetes and left behind a rather gruesome sight.
(Trujillo is seen here with his second wife Bienvenida Ricardo in March 1934. He would have a total of three wives...and many mistresses)
For all the brutal repression and copious murdering done during the Trujillo Era, there were positive results as well. Government reforms improved healthcare, education, and the transportation system. Hospitals, medical clinics, schools, roads, and houses were constructed across the country all for the peoples’ benefit. Trujillo instituted a popular pension program and made the country debt-free in 1947. He was also a surprising environmentalist:
(Trujillo was a man who had money...in more ways than one)
Mindful of America’s tendency to get involved in Dominican affairs, Trujillo did his best to keep his country on her good side. In 1941, he negotiated a deal with the Willkie Administration in which the United States agreed to relinquish control – in place since 1907 – over the collection and application of Dominican customs revenues. In return, the Dominican Republic agreed to deposit consolidated government revenues into a special bank account to guarantee repayment of foreign debt. A year later, after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor propelled the United States into World War Two, Trujillo stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her by declaring war on Germany and Japan on February 19th. After the war, he supported the creation of the United Nations in order to please the Americans. When Scoop Jackson took office in January 1961, he inherited a policy of peaceful coexistence with the Dominican Republic. Despite the brutality of the Trujillo Era, the US Government was more-or-less willing to tolerate it because Trujillo himself was a good and supportive ally. In the midst of the Cold War, that was really all that mattered. Jackson, not seeing any reason to rock the boat, was initially content to maintain the status quo. However, events would soon force his hand. In the early 1960s, Trujillo was facing growing opposition to his regime. A young generation of Dominicans, not having any memories of the instability and poverty which had preceded Trujillo, was clamoring for Democratic reforms. The dictator responded by cracking down on his people and subjecting them to greater repression. This only galvanized the calls for change. Feeling paranoid from the rising tide of opposition, Trujillo took his frustrations out on one man in particular.
His name: Romulo Betancourt. Born in February 1908, Betancourt was the reformist President of Venezuela who had greatly improved his country’s economy and education system. Betancourt emerged as the leading critic of Trujillo in the Americas, fiercely denouncing his dictatorship and covertly aiding Dominicans wishing to overthrow him. In response, Trujillo developed a personal hatred of Betancourt and became obsessed with getting rid of him first. He struck on May 26th, 1961 when he personally ordered his foreign agents in Caracas, Venezuela to assassinate Betancourt. They planted a bomb in a parked car and detonated it as Betancourt’s car drove by. The resulting blast killed the President’s head of security and severely injured his driver. A shocked nation watched anxiously as Betancourt was rushed to the hospital, his fate unknown. Word soon spread that he had fortunately survived the assassination attempt and would be okay – much to the relief of the Venezuelans. After his doctors allowed him to leave the hospital, Betancourt was photographed walking out with both his hands burned and wrapped in bandages. The photos quickly spread around the world, inflaming public opinion against the man responsible for trying to kill the President of Venezuela.
The Betancourt Incident as it would become known as seemed to do Trujillo more harm than good. Outraged nations across Central and South America severed diplomatic relations with his government. Jackson recalled his Ambassador to the Dominican Republic and signed a bill passed by Congress imposing economic sanctions on the country. It was hoped that these actions would make Trujillo realize he had gone too far and cease further aggression. Instead, he doubled down on going after his adversaries. On October 27th, 1961, he went after the Mirabal Sisters. The Mirabal Sisters were four Dominican sisters – Minerva, Maria Teresa, Patria, and Dedé – who were actively opposing his dictatorship. They not only distributed pamphlets talking about the many people whom Trujillo had killed over the years, the Sisters – who called themselves The Butterflies – also obtained guns and bombs to use for an open revolt. They were determined to bring freedom to their country no matter how far they had to go to achieve it. Trujillo obviously couldn’t allow them to succeed. On October 27th, he dispatched members of his police force to find and eliminate The Butterflies. All four Mirabal Sisters were rounded up and beaten to death for their defiance. The government-controlled newspapers then showed photographs of their lifeless bodies with the intention of making them examples to the rest of the country. The reaction from the public was the exact opposite of what the government wanted. Instead of instilling fear, the assassination of the Sisters angered Dominicans in a way that most of Trujillo’s actions did not. There was something about seeing these men stand triumphantly over the dead bodies of four battered women that touched a nerve...and not just in the Dominican Republic. When asked about the brutal incident at a press conference afterwards, Scoop expressed his disgust with what would become one of his best known quotes:
“To say that it is wrong is not a strong-enough condemnation. It is heinous for a man to take pride in killing a defenseless woman. It is barbaric to believe that violence against women is ever justified.”
The Betancourt Incident and the slaughtering of the Mirabal Sisters became the straws which broke the camel’s back. In the winter of 1962, Jackson decided that Trujillo’s dictatorship could no longer be tolerated by the United States. It was time for him to go. Since there was no way the repressive ruler would voluntarily step down, the President did what he always did whenever he was faced with a troublesome regime. In March, he ordered CIA Director John McCone to develop a plan to oust Trujillo in a coup. This of course wasn’t the first time McCone had received such an order and Jackson was confident that the Central Intelligence Agency could do the job. Before the CIA could act however, Trujillo's own people got to him first. On April 20th, left-wing opponents of the regime carried out a daring plot to assassinate their much despised leader. Since the brutal dictator had the blood of tens of thousands of people on his hands, the plotters felt that nothing less than a gruesome attack would be appropriate. They named the plan “Las Mariposas”, Spanish for “The Butterflies” – an obvious reference to the slain Mirabal Sisters. Indeed, what the plotters conspired to do was quite violent. They took advantage of the fact that Trujillo was regularly driven back-and-forth between Santo Domingo and his residence in San Cristobal. It was on this often-traveled road that the assassins set up an ambush. For Trujillo, it was a normal car ride on a normal Friday. Accompanied only by his chauffeur, the dictator paid little heed to the countryside – which he knew like the back of his hand – as his blue 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air car was driven towards the capital at regular speed. He also paid little attention to the older model Buick which passed him by. It was such a routine ride that Trujillo let his guard down, believing that nothing would happen to him. Thus he was jolted out of his complacency when his chauffeur shouted out in surprise. The Buick had come to a sudden stop in front of the blue top-down car for seemingly no reason. The chauffeur had no time to bring the car to a safe stop and avoid a collision. The last thing Trujillo felt before being consumed by the resulting fireball was being thrown forward by the impact of his car plowing into the back of the stopped Buick.
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina (October 24th, 1891 – April 20th, 1962)
Now I know what you are probably thinking:
“Wait a minute, Nathan. Fireball? Cars don’t explode in a rear-end collision.”
That’s true. Cars fortunately don’t erupt into flames whenever there is a rear-end collision. Unfortunately for Trujillo, the Buick that his car collided with wasn’t an ordinary Buick. Secretly stored in the back of the stopped car were seven sticks of dynamite wired to a switch held in the right hand of the driver. Since Trujillo had tried to assassinate another leader with a car bomb, the planners of “Las Mariposas” decided to give the seventy-year-old a taste of his own medicine by attacking him with a car bomb and seeing how he liked it. However, there was a deadly catch: their car bomb couldn’t be stationary. In order to effectively exploit Trujillo’s predictable routine, the Buick would have to be moving. The driver would have to crash into him and detonate the explosion by hand. This of course would kill the driver, along with the target. One of the plotters stepped forward and volunteered to be the suicide bomber, bravely willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of his country. If he could rid the Dominican Republic of this much hated despot, then his death would be worth it. To quote American spy Nathan Hale, who was caught and executed by the British in September 1776:
“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
When Trujillo’s car crashed into the trunk of the Buick, the suicide bomber flipped the switch. His car exploded with a force big enough to level a small mountain. All three men were killed in the massive blast; in fact, people who rushed to the gruesome scene afterwards could only find shards of flesh and bone that had once been Trujillo’s body. Several hours and four time zones later, the news of Trujillo's assassination reached Jackson in Everett. The President, who had been handed one crisis after another for the last few months, now had yet another crisis to deal with: the aftermath.
Anti-Atlanticists? I don't think I have ever heard that word before.
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The Trujillo Era
Although the White House is their official residence, Presidents typically have other residences that they can stay at during their tenure. George Washington had Mount Vernon, Abraham Lincoln had the Soldiers’ Home, Theodore Roosevelt had Sagamore Hill, Franklin D. Roosevelt had Springwood and Warm Springs, and Thomas E. Dewey had Dapplemere. As for Scoop Jackson, he had his home in Everett, Washington. Located at 1703 Grand Avenue, Jackson’s white two-story stately home was known during his time in office as the Western White House. To beef up security, the Secret Service had erected an iron fence around the property to keep out wandering visitors and had set up a command post across the street. April 20th, 1962 found the President at the Western White House, preparing for the next day when the Century 21 Exposition would open in Seattle. Since this world’s fair would be taking place in his neck of the woods, Jackson was particularly keen on being involved with it. For instance, he had been a part of the ground breaking ceremony for the construction of the massive Space Needle observation tower which would dominate the city's skyline. The President was scheduled to attend the opening ceremony, where he would give the speech welcoming visitors to all that Seattle had to offer. He and his wife would then tour the fair with Ed Sullivan, who was in town to do a live telecast of his weekly CBS variety show. Jackson was very much looking forward to spending the weekend in Seattle.
(Millions of people flocked to the Century 21 Exposition. Even California Senator Richard Nixon took his family there)
Unfortunately for Jackson, events overseas wouldn’t take a break for him. While working on his welcoming speech, the President received word that General Rafael Trujillo, the long-standing dictator of the Dominican Republic, had been assassinated. Trujillo had been a problem for the United States for months, so his sudden death could’ve been received with a sigh of relief. Instead, Scoop’s reaction was one of uncertainty. Trujillo had been such a dominating force in the Dominican Republic that it wasn’t immediately clear who would be his successor. Jackson directed his national security team to closely monitor the situation in the Caribbean and went on with his plans. Although he was all smiles as he officially opened the world’s fair on April 21st, the Trujillo assassination wasn’t far from his thoughts. He returned to the White House two days later and held an emergency meeting with his national security team in the wood-paneled Situation Room. The update Jackson received was grim: the Dominican Republic was a nation sliding into chaos. Anarchy was growing rampant in the streets of Santo Domingo as the military and left-wing rebels clashed in violent street battles. With Trujillo gone, his government had collapsed like a house of cards and people were now fending for themselves. Lawlessness was spreading everywhere. “There’s no one in charge in the Dominican Republic right now,” Secretary of State Dean Rusk reported, “No one in position to pull the country back together.”
Like Charlie Brown, Jackson thought “Good grief!” It should be pointed out that he wasn’t the first President to have to deal with the Dominican Republic. Theodore Roosevelt had intervened there at the start of the Twentieth Century in order to clean up the country’s financial mess and prevent the Europeans from doing the same. His successor William Howard Taft had used diplomatic mediation to try to restore political stability in a country that wasn’t used to it. When that didn’t work, Taft’s successor Woodrow Wilson had intervened militarily in May 1916 and had established an occupation government to run the country. The US occupation of the Dominican Republic was vigorously opposed by Wilson’s successor Warren G. Harding, who put an end to it in October 1922. Forty years later, it fell to Jackson to deal with the mess in this Caribbean nation.
To understand the sudden explosion of violence in the Dominican Republic, you have to understand this man whose assassination had triggered it: Rafael Trujillo. Born in October 1891, Trujillo began his rise to power as a result of President Wilson’s intervention in 1916. The occupation government established the Dominican National Guard to impose order, which Trujillo joined in 1918. Over the course of nine years, he steadily rose in rank from Lieutenant to General to Commander-in-Chief of the Army. With a lust for power, Trujillo used his high-ranking position to organize a coup in 1930 which overthrew the civilian government in Santo Domingo and installed himself as dictator for life. His first action was to jail his opponents, sending an unmistakable signal of what was to come in the Dominican Republic. Under his iron-fisted rule which would become known as the Trujillo Era, all traces of democracy were swept away. Opposition political parties were shut down and government employees were required to donate ten percent of their salary to the national treasury for Trujillo to spend as he pleased. Anyone who was caught planning opposition to his rule or refused to donate part of their salary were immediately taken away by the police force and killed. People were routinely required to express their loyalty to the government and Trujillo’s image was plastered everywhere to provide a reminder – if one was needed – of who was in charge and who had the final word.
(A stamp issued in 1933 to honor Trujillo’s forty-second birthday)
By 1936, you couldn’t go anywhere in the Dominican Republic without feeling Trujillo’s presence. Even the name of the capital had been changed from Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo. Statues of him were mass-produced and erected across the country. He named everything after himself: streets, mountains, schools, bridges, and public buildings. He decreed that the government-run newspapers kick off each daily edition by praising him on the front page. Wanted to drive a vehicle? You were required by law to obtain a license plate featuring the slogan “¡Viva Trujillo!” Trujillo was so Trujillo-centric that he even recommended himself for the Nobel Peace Prize, believing himself to be worthy of that high honor (he was never awarded it). The dictator regarded the Dominican Republic to be his private property and the people of the country as his subjects. He decided who lived and who died...and there would be a lot of deaths under his rule. Trujillo brutally eliminated anyone he considered to be a threat, real or imagined. Like in any other tyrannical state, people were routinely arrested and executed at the mere whim of the government. Over the course of Trujillo’s bloody reign of terror, over 50,000 people were put to death. The most notorious example occurred in October 1937 when the Army killed 26,000 Haitians for committing the crime of living on the Dominican side of the border. Instead of using bullets, soldiers slaughtered the Haitians using machetes and left behind a rather gruesome sight.
(Trujillo is seen here with his second wife Bienvenida Ricardo in March 1934. He would have a total of three wives...and many mistresses)
For all the brutal repression and copious murdering done during the Trujillo Era, there were positive results as well. Government reforms improved healthcare, education, and the transportation system. Hospitals, medical clinics, schools, roads, and houses were constructed across the country all for the peoples’ benefit. Trujillo instituted a popular pension program and made the country debt-free in 1947. He was also a surprising environmentalist:
- He created the nation’s first national park in 1934
- He banned the slash-and-burn method of clearing away land for agricultural use
- He created a forest warden agency to protect the park system
- He banned the logging of pine trees without his express permission
(Trujillo was a man who had money...in more ways than one)
Mindful of America’s tendency to get involved in Dominican affairs, Trujillo did his best to keep his country on her good side. In 1941, he negotiated a deal with the Willkie Administration in which the United States agreed to relinquish control – in place since 1907 – over the collection and application of Dominican customs revenues. In return, the Dominican Republic agreed to deposit consolidated government revenues into a special bank account to guarantee repayment of foreign debt. A year later, after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor propelled the United States into World War Two, Trujillo stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her by declaring war on Germany and Japan on February 19th. After the war, he supported the creation of the United Nations in order to please the Americans. When Scoop Jackson took office in January 1961, he inherited a policy of peaceful coexistence with the Dominican Republic. Despite the brutality of the Trujillo Era, the US Government was more-or-less willing to tolerate it because Trujillo himself was a good and supportive ally. In the midst of the Cold War, that was really all that mattered. Jackson, not seeing any reason to rock the boat, was initially content to maintain the status quo. However, events would soon force his hand. In the early 1960s, Trujillo was facing growing opposition to his regime. A young generation of Dominicans, not having any memories of the instability and poverty which had preceded Trujillo, was clamoring for Democratic reforms. The dictator responded by cracking down on his people and subjecting them to greater repression. This only galvanized the calls for change. Feeling paranoid from the rising tide of opposition, Trujillo took his frustrations out on one man in particular.
His name: Romulo Betancourt. Born in February 1908, Betancourt was the reformist President of Venezuela who had greatly improved his country’s economy and education system. Betancourt emerged as the leading critic of Trujillo in the Americas, fiercely denouncing his dictatorship and covertly aiding Dominicans wishing to overthrow him. In response, Trujillo developed a personal hatred of Betancourt and became obsessed with getting rid of him first. He struck on May 26th, 1961 when he personally ordered his foreign agents in Caracas, Venezuela to assassinate Betancourt. They planted a bomb in a parked car and detonated it as Betancourt’s car drove by. The resulting blast killed the President’s head of security and severely injured his driver. A shocked nation watched anxiously as Betancourt was rushed to the hospital, his fate unknown. Word soon spread that he had fortunately survived the assassination attempt and would be okay – much to the relief of the Venezuelans. After his doctors allowed him to leave the hospital, Betancourt was photographed walking out with both his hands burned and wrapped in bandages. The photos quickly spread around the world, inflaming public opinion against the man responsible for trying to kill the President of Venezuela.
The Betancourt Incident as it would become known as seemed to do Trujillo more harm than good. Outraged nations across Central and South America severed diplomatic relations with his government. Jackson recalled his Ambassador to the Dominican Republic and signed a bill passed by Congress imposing economic sanctions on the country. It was hoped that these actions would make Trujillo realize he had gone too far and cease further aggression. Instead, he doubled down on going after his adversaries. On October 27th, 1961, he went after the Mirabal Sisters. The Mirabal Sisters were four Dominican sisters – Minerva, Maria Teresa, Patria, and Dedé – who were actively opposing his dictatorship. They not only distributed pamphlets talking about the many people whom Trujillo had killed over the years, the Sisters – who called themselves The Butterflies – also obtained guns and bombs to use for an open revolt. They were determined to bring freedom to their country no matter how far they had to go to achieve it. Trujillo obviously couldn’t allow them to succeed. On October 27th, he dispatched members of his police force to find and eliminate The Butterflies. All four Mirabal Sisters were rounded up and beaten to death for their defiance. The government-controlled newspapers then showed photographs of their lifeless bodies with the intention of making them examples to the rest of the country. The reaction from the public was the exact opposite of what the government wanted. Instead of instilling fear, the assassination of the Sisters angered Dominicans in a way that most of Trujillo’s actions did not. There was something about seeing these men stand triumphantly over the dead bodies of four battered women that touched a nerve...and not just in the Dominican Republic. When asked about the brutal incident at a press conference afterwards, Scoop expressed his disgust with what would become one of his best known quotes:
“To say that it is wrong is not a strong-enough condemnation. It is heinous for a man to take pride in killing a defenseless woman. It is barbaric to believe that violence against women is ever justified.”
The Betancourt Incident and the slaughtering of the Mirabal Sisters became the straws which broke the camel’s back. In the winter of 1962, Jackson decided that Trujillo’s dictatorship could no longer be tolerated by the United States. It was time for him to go. Since there was no way the repressive ruler would voluntarily step down, the President did what he always did whenever he was faced with a troublesome regime. In March, he ordered CIA Director John McCone to develop a plan to oust Trujillo in a coup. This of course wasn’t the first time McCone had received such an order and Jackson was confident that the Central Intelligence Agency could do the job. Before the CIA could act however, Trujillo's own people got to him first. On April 20th, left-wing opponents of the regime carried out a daring plot to assassinate their much despised leader. Since the brutal dictator had the blood of tens of thousands of people on his hands, the plotters felt that nothing less than a gruesome attack would be appropriate. They named the plan “Las Mariposas”, Spanish for “The Butterflies” – an obvious reference to the slain Mirabal Sisters. Indeed, what the plotters conspired to do was quite violent. They took advantage of the fact that Trujillo was regularly driven back-and-forth between Santo Domingo and his residence in San Cristobal. It was on this often-traveled road that the assassins set up an ambush. For Trujillo, it was a normal car ride on a normal Friday. Accompanied only by his chauffeur, the dictator paid little heed to the countryside – which he knew like the back of his hand – as his blue 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air car was driven towards the capital at regular speed. He also paid little attention to the older model Buick which passed him by. It was such a routine ride that Trujillo let his guard down, believing that nothing would happen to him. Thus he was jolted out of his complacency when his chauffeur shouted out in surprise. The Buick had come to a sudden stop in front of the blue top-down car for seemingly no reason. The chauffeur had no time to bring the car to a safe stop and avoid a collision. The last thing Trujillo felt before being consumed by the resulting fireball was being thrown forward by the impact of his car plowing into the back of the stopped Buick.
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina (October 24th, 1891 – April 20th, 1962)
Now I know what you are probably thinking:
“Wait a minute, Nathan. Fireball? Cars don’t explode in a rear-end collision.”
That’s true. Cars fortunately don’t erupt into flames whenever there is a rear-end collision. Unfortunately for Trujillo, the Buick that his car collided with wasn’t an ordinary Buick. Secretly stored in the back of the stopped car were seven sticks of dynamite wired to a switch held in the right hand of the driver. Since Trujillo had tried to assassinate another leader with a car bomb, the planners of “Las Mariposas” decided to give the seventy-year-old a taste of his own medicine by attacking him with a car bomb and seeing how he liked it. However, there was a deadly catch: their car bomb couldn’t be stationary. In order to effectively exploit Trujillo’s predictable routine, the Buick would have to be moving. The driver would have to crash into him and detonate the explosion by hand. This of course would kill the driver, along with the target. One of the plotters stepped forward and volunteered to be the suicide bomber, bravely willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of his country. If he could rid the Dominican Republic of this much hated despot, then his death would be worth it. To quote American spy Nathan Hale, who was caught and executed by the British in September 1776:
“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
When Trujillo’s car crashed into the trunk of the Buick, the suicide bomber flipped the switch. His car exploded with a force big enough to level a small mountain. All three men were killed in the massive blast; in fact, people who rushed to the gruesome scene afterwards could only find shards of flesh and bone that had once been Trujillo’s body. Several hours and four time zones later, the news of Trujillo's assassination reached Jackson in Everett. The President, who had been handed one crisis after another for the last few months, now had yet another crisis to deal with: the aftermath.
Does it reflect poorly of me that when I saw the picture of the ladies and the butterflies I immediately thought of The Silence of the Lambs?
Invading Latin American countries is an American past time... :glare:
Invading Latin American countries is an American past time... :glare:
That is a very interesting choice of assassination tactics. And yes, looks like the Yankees are getting a holiday
The understatement of this made me laugh. Who knew blatantly blowing up a fellow head of state would be frowned upon? :laugh: Did Trujillo think if it went well people would be cool with it?
EDIT: I think I just made up the term Anti-Atlanticist. Atlanticists are British politicians who are seen as preoccupied by the Special Relationship.
EDIT EDIT: Really like that colour photo of Trujillo and the flag. The high picture quality and informality of it make it seem like it was taken yesterday.
The understatement of this made me laugh. Who knew blatantly blowing up a fellow head of state would be frowned upon? :laugh: Did Trujillo think if it went well people would be cool with it?
EDIT: I think I just made up the term Anti-Atlanticist. Atlanticists are British politicians who are seen as preoccupied by the Special Relationship.
EDIT EDIT: Really like that colour photo of Trujillo and the flag. The high picture quality and informality of it make it seem like it was taken yesterday.
Last edited:
I suppose the plus point for any intervention is that it would be very hard to make the Dominican Republic much worse, though I'm sure it's possible if any intervention is rushed without any thought of the aftermath or long term plan.
Kurt_Steiner: You read my mind there, Kurt.
volksmarschall: No it doesn't, volksmarschall. This was the only picture I could find of all four Mirabal Sisters. Historically only three were killed; Dedé somehow was spared and lived a long life. Unfortunately, she doesn't escape death TTL.
It is. Since I never engaged in the great AAR past time of invading Mexico and taking her land, I guess I gotta make up for it somewhere.
Jape: Historically, Trujillo got shot to death in an ambush. The decision to do a suicide car bombing instead was inspired by a real-life assassination plot that nearly happened. On December 11th, 1960, a mental nutcase named Richard Pavlick rigged his car with seven sticks of dynamite and sat parked outside President-elect John F. Kennedy's Palm Beach home in Florida. Utterly believing that JFK was going to hand the country over to the Vatican, Pavlick wanted to blow him up in order to prevent that from happening. Incredibly, the Secret Service had been warned about Pavlick's intention and even had his license plate number. Still, they somehow failed to notice that day that a strange-looking old man driving a car with that EXACT license plate number was parked right outside Kennedy's home. The reason Pavlick didn't attempt to blow JFK up was because he saw the President-elect heading out for the day with his wife and two children. Not wanting people to think he was a cold-blooded murderer by taking out the entire family, Pavlick aborted his assassination attempt and fled the scene. He was arrested a few days later when Palm Beach police noticed that the tag on his license plate was expired. Mind you, the Secret Service had his license plate number and DIDN'T NOTICE THAT PART.
Jeff Greenfield has written about the Pavlick assassination plot (which doesn't even appear in Robert Dallek's extensively-researched biography of JFK) and has speculated on might have happened had Pavlick gone through with it. It's in a book called "Then Everything Changed", which also includes alternate history essays on what might have happened had Robert F. Kennedy not been assassinated in 1968 and had President Gerald Ford won the 1976 Presidential election. Greenfield has also written an alternate history book about what might have happened had JFK not been assassinated in 1963. I have both books and they are both really interesting to read.
When you're an evil dicator, logic takes a holiday.
Ah, I see.
Me too.
El Pip: We shall see how it goes.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Decision Point
At 8:00 PM EST on Friday, April 27th, 1962, the Big Three television networks pre-empted their regular scheduled programming to broadcast an address to the nation by the President of the United States. Earlier in the day, the White House had formally asked ABC, CBS, and NBC for air time so the President could speak. The networks naturally obliged; for CBS, that meant cutting short their hour-long Western “Rawhide” starring Eric Fleming and featuring Clint Eastwood in his first major acting role. Sitting stern-faced behind his desk in the Oval Office, Jackson looked straight into the television camera and spoke on cue. “My fellow Americans,” he began, “As your President and Commander-in-Chief, it is my duty to report to you decisions I make regarding the issues of war and peace. They are issues that matter to every American. Recent events abroad have required me to make the hard decision to order the military forces of the United States to take action in two nations whose importance to our national interests cannot be overstated.”
The President announced that for the first time since the end of World War Two in 1947, American soldiers were being sent into combat. “As I speak,” he elaborated, “Four hundred Marines are being deployed to the capital of the Dominican Republic, which in recent days has become a war zone. It is a deployment I do not take lightly.”
The President reminded his national audience that exactly a week earlier, Rafael Trujillo was literally blown to pieces by a suicide bomber on the outskirts of Santo Domingo. Since then, a “serious situation” had developed in the Dominican capital. Anarchy had broken out as a result of a power struggle between the military and the left-wing opponents of the regime who were responsible for the assassination. The military, which had benefitted greatly from Trujillo’s rule, wanted to take control and maintain the status quo. Standing in their way was the Left, which wanted to liberalize the country now that Trujillo was finally gone. They wanted to restore civil liberties to all Dominicans and put the military under civilian control. Not surprisingly, the military leadership saw the Left as radical and threatening to the authoritarian way of life they had enjoyed for the past three decades. The result was open warfare between the military trying to establish a ruling junta and the Left who were determined to stop them. For the past week, Jackson and his national security team had been monitoring the street fighting in Santo Domingo. With the fighting intensifying and no signs of the Dominicans being able to “resolve the crisis” on their own, the national security team unanimously agreed that it was “necessary in this situation to intervene.”
“Last night,” Jackson said, “We held a meeting with the Congressional leaders of both parties in the Cabinet Room here at the White House. We briefed them on the facts of the situation in the Dominican Republic.”
At that meeting, Secretary of State Dean Rusk stressed to the assembled leaders of the House and Senate that the Administration’s decision to intervene and send Marines to Santo Domingo stemmed from their desire to restore order. Once the fighting had stopped and peace had taken hold in the Dominican capital, diplomacy would be used to negotiate the establishment of a new government that would be acceptable to both sides. The Administration was greatly concerned about what would happen if either side won the present power struggle. If the military won, then nothing would change and the opposition to the status quo would only continue to grow. “It would be almost impossible in that situation for stability to be restored in the country,” Rusk warned. The alternative of a Leftist victory was equally problematic as far as Jackson and his advisors were concerned. They feared that if the Leftists took over the Dominican Republic, they would push the country too far to the Left. According to CIA Director John McCone, “there is positive identification of three ring-leaders of the Rebels as Communists.”
“Gentlemen, there is no doubt in my mind,” Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen declared in his deep bass voice, “That we are facing a dangerous situation here. We cannot allow the Communists to set up a regime anywhere in the Western Hemisphere!”
Democratic House Minority Leader John McCormack agreed, stating in his gaunt manner that there should be bipartisan support for armed intervention. Nodding his head in approval, Republican Speaker of the House Charles Halleck took things a step further by recommending that the Administration consider establishing a permanent military presence in the Dominican Republic similar to what the US had at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba:
“Given the history of instability [in the Dominican Republic], I do not believe it would be wise for us to pull out completely once this current crisis has been resolved.”
(Charles Halleck, Speaker of the House since 1959 and second in the line of presidential succession)
“The members of the leadership expressed their support for this decision,” Jackson reported to the nation. Their approval cleared the way for the President to order “the Secretary of Defense [Paul Nitze] to put the necessary troops ashore.”
Four hundred Marines were now en route to Santo Domingo in the first deployment of forces in Latin America since the US military intervention in Nicaragua during the 1920s. Three marine and two airborne divisions had been earmarked for deployment in what the military had codenamed Operation Twist. Contrary to popular belief, the codename had nothing to do with the dance move that was being made popular at the time by singers like Chubby Checker and Joey Dee. The military coincidentally chose Twist as the codename because it suggested their desire to turn things around in the Dominican Republic. The goal of Operation Twist was to force “a cease-fire between the contending forces in the Dominican Republic for the interest of all Dominicans.”
Having explained his decision to intervene in the Dominican Republic, the President shifted his speech to the other country that he was sending forces to: South Vietnam. Until 1962, most Americans didn’t pay much attention to Vietnam. Indeed for many, their first exposure to this Southeast Asian country came two months earlier with the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem. Thus Scoop was forced to begin educating the American people on the Vietnam situation and why US intervention there was deemed necessary. “There are times in the affairs of nations,” he began, “When great principles are tested in an ordeal of conflict and danger. At stake are the lives of millions and the liberty of a nation.”
Jackson briefly explained that China had embarked on a “clear campaign” of destroying freedom in Southeast Asia and forcing people to live under her domination. Laos had been forcibly transformed into a puppet state whose strings were being pulled by Nanjing. Now Vietnam was in her sights. Having entered into an alliance with the Communist regime in North Vietnam, the Chinese were now supporting the Vietcong guerrillas in an effort to destroy the South Vietnamese government in Saigon. Should that happen, then Vietnam would be completely unified within the Chinese sphere of influence and there would be nothing standing in the way of China threatening Cambodia and Thailand with subjugation.
“Facing this clear danger,” Jackson explained, “Requires us to take equally clear action.”
He therefore announced his decision to send 40,000 soldiers to South Vietnam to battle and defeat the Vietcong. Scoop stressed that the 40,000 number had been recommended by General Maxwell Taylor who had worked out a battle plan that could be accomplished with just that amount. He warned the American people that given the currently limited strength of the South Vietnamese Army, Taylor’s force would have to do a lot of the fighting. As a result, the country should expect to see casualties as combat troops fought the guerillas in the jungles and rice paddies of South Vietnam. The good news was that “we will not have a presence in Vietnam forever.”
Once the Vietcong had been satisfactorily destroyed, Taylor’s force would shift the focus of their mission to helping the South Vietnamese rebuild their national security. As they grew more adept at defending themselves, the number of American soldiers serving in South Vietnam would be proportionally cut back. The President assured the nation that “we will withdraw our forces deployed to Vietnam as the situation allows.”
In short, the Commander-in-Chief would be sending 40,000 soldiers to eliminate China’s ability to undermine South Vietnam from within. Once that defined mission had been completed (as President George Bush would say a quarter of a century later), they would be gradually withdrawn. A strong and stable South Vietnam would then serve as a roadblock to China’s expansionist aims, safeguarding the rest of Southeast Asia. “It is not a light or an easy matter for me to send our brave sons to other countries,” Scoop said at the end of his televised address to the nation. “Tragically, some Americans will lose their lives and we will mourn their loss as a nation. However, I do not think that you, the American people, expect me as your President to hesitate or to vacillate in the face of danger. The decisions I have taken are hard ones because they put lives into harms’ way, but they are decisions that must be made.”
He paused for a moment, as if the gravity of the moment was hitting him.
“And I have made them.”
volksmarschall: No it doesn't, volksmarschall. This was the only picture I could find of all four Mirabal Sisters. Historically only three were killed; Dedé somehow was spared and lived a long life. Unfortunately, she doesn't escape death TTL.
It is. Since I never engaged in the great AAR past time of invading Mexico and taking her land, I guess I gotta make up for it somewhere.
Jape: Historically, Trujillo got shot to death in an ambush. The decision to do a suicide car bombing instead was inspired by a real-life assassination plot that nearly happened. On December 11th, 1960, a mental nutcase named Richard Pavlick rigged his car with seven sticks of dynamite and sat parked outside President-elect John F. Kennedy's Palm Beach home in Florida. Utterly believing that JFK was going to hand the country over to the Vatican, Pavlick wanted to blow him up in order to prevent that from happening. Incredibly, the Secret Service had been warned about Pavlick's intention and even had his license plate number. Still, they somehow failed to notice that day that a strange-looking old man driving a car with that EXACT license plate number was parked right outside Kennedy's home. The reason Pavlick didn't attempt to blow JFK up was because he saw the President-elect heading out for the day with his wife and two children. Not wanting people to think he was a cold-blooded murderer by taking out the entire family, Pavlick aborted his assassination attempt and fled the scene. He was arrested a few days later when Palm Beach police noticed that the tag on his license plate was expired. Mind you, the Secret Service had his license plate number and DIDN'T NOTICE THAT PART.
Jeff Greenfield has written about the Pavlick assassination plot (which doesn't even appear in Robert Dallek's extensively-researched biography of JFK) and has speculated on might have happened had Pavlick gone through with it. It's in a book called "Then Everything Changed", which also includes alternate history essays on what might have happened had Robert F. Kennedy not been assassinated in 1968 and had President Gerald Ford won the 1976 Presidential election. Greenfield has also written an alternate history book about what might have happened had JFK not been assassinated in 1963. I have both books and they are both really interesting to read.
When you're an evil dicator, logic takes a holiday.
Ah, I see.
Me too.
El Pip: We shall see how it goes.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Decision Point
At 8:00 PM EST on Friday, April 27th, 1962, the Big Three television networks pre-empted their regular scheduled programming to broadcast an address to the nation by the President of the United States. Earlier in the day, the White House had formally asked ABC, CBS, and NBC for air time so the President could speak. The networks naturally obliged; for CBS, that meant cutting short their hour-long Western “Rawhide” starring Eric Fleming and featuring Clint Eastwood in his first major acting role. Sitting stern-faced behind his desk in the Oval Office, Jackson looked straight into the television camera and spoke on cue. “My fellow Americans,” he began, “As your President and Commander-in-Chief, it is my duty to report to you decisions I make regarding the issues of war and peace. They are issues that matter to every American. Recent events abroad have required me to make the hard decision to order the military forces of the United States to take action in two nations whose importance to our national interests cannot be overstated.”
The President announced that for the first time since the end of World War Two in 1947, American soldiers were being sent into combat. “As I speak,” he elaborated, “Four hundred Marines are being deployed to the capital of the Dominican Republic, which in recent days has become a war zone. It is a deployment I do not take lightly.”
The President reminded his national audience that exactly a week earlier, Rafael Trujillo was literally blown to pieces by a suicide bomber on the outskirts of Santo Domingo. Since then, a “serious situation” had developed in the Dominican capital. Anarchy had broken out as a result of a power struggle between the military and the left-wing opponents of the regime who were responsible for the assassination. The military, which had benefitted greatly from Trujillo’s rule, wanted to take control and maintain the status quo. Standing in their way was the Left, which wanted to liberalize the country now that Trujillo was finally gone. They wanted to restore civil liberties to all Dominicans and put the military under civilian control. Not surprisingly, the military leadership saw the Left as radical and threatening to the authoritarian way of life they had enjoyed for the past three decades. The result was open warfare between the military trying to establish a ruling junta and the Left who were determined to stop them. For the past week, Jackson and his national security team had been monitoring the street fighting in Santo Domingo. With the fighting intensifying and no signs of the Dominicans being able to “resolve the crisis” on their own, the national security team unanimously agreed that it was “necessary in this situation to intervene.”
“Last night,” Jackson said, “We held a meeting with the Congressional leaders of both parties in the Cabinet Room here at the White House. We briefed them on the facts of the situation in the Dominican Republic.”
At that meeting, Secretary of State Dean Rusk stressed to the assembled leaders of the House and Senate that the Administration’s decision to intervene and send Marines to Santo Domingo stemmed from their desire to restore order. Once the fighting had stopped and peace had taken hold in the Dominican capital, diplomacy would be used to negotiate the establishment of a new government that would be acceptable to both sides. The Administration was greatly concerned about what would happen if either side won the present power struggle. If the military won, then nothing would change and the opposition to the status quo would only continue to grow. “It would be almost impossible in that situation for stability to be restored in the country,” Rusk warned. The alternative of a Leftist victory was equally problematic as far as Jackson and his advisors were concerned. They feared that if the Leftists took over the Dominican Republic, they would push the country too far to the Left. According to CIA Director John McCone, “there is positive identification of three ring-leaders of the Rebels as Communists.”
“Gentlemen, there is no doubt in my mind,” Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen declared in his deep bass voice, “That we are facing a dangerous situation here. We cannot allow the Communists to set up a regime anywhere in the Western Hemisphere!”
Democratic House Minority Leader John McCormack agreed, stating in his gaunt manner that there should be bipartisan support for armed intervention. Nodding his head in approval, Republican Speaker of the House Charles Halleck took things a step further by recommending that the Administration consider establishing a permanent military presence in the Dominican Republic similar to what the US had at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba:
“Given the history of instability [in the Dominican Republic], I do not believe it would be wise for us to pull out completely once this current crisis has been resolved.”
(Charles Halleck, Speaker of the House since 1959 and second in the line of presidential succession)
“The members of the leadership expressed their support for this decision,” Jackson reported to the nation. Their approval cleared the way for the President to order “the Secretary of Defense [Paul Nitze] to put the necessary troops ashore.”
Four hundred Marines were now en route to Santo Domingo in the first deployment of forces in Latin America since the US military intervention in Nicaragua during the 1920s. Three marine and two airborne divisions had been earmarked for deployment in what the military had codenamed Operation Twist. Contrary to popular belief, the codename had nothing to do with the dance move that was being made popular at the time by singers like Chubby Checker and Joey Dee. The military coincidentally chose Twist as the codename because it suggested their desire to turn things around in the Dominican Republic. The goal of Operation Twist was to force “a cease-fire between the contending forces in the Dominican Republic for the interest of all Dominicans.”
Having explained his decision to intervene in the Dominican Republic, the President shifted his speech to the other country that he was sending forces to: South Vietnam. Until 1962, most Americans didn’t pay much attention to Vietnam. Indeed for many, their first exposure to this Southeast Asian country came two months earlier with the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem. Thus Scoop was forced to begin educating the American people on the Vietnam situation and why US intervention there was deemed necessary. “There are times in the affairs of nations,” he began, “When great principles are tested in an ordeal of conflict and danger. At stake are the lives of millions and the liberty of a nation.”
Jackson briefly explained that China had embarked on a “clear campaign” of destroying freedom in Southeast Asia and forcing people to live under her domination. Laos had been forcibly transformed into a puppet state whose strings were being pulled by Nanjing. Now Vietnam was in her sights. Having entered into an alliance with the Communist regime in North Vietnam, the Chinese were now supporting the Vietcong guerrillas in an effort to destroy the South Vietnamese government in Saigon. Should that happen, then Vietnam would be completely unified within the Chinese sphere of influence and there would be nothing standing in the way of China threatening Cambodia and Thailand with subjugation.
“Facing this clear danger,” Jackson explained, “Requires us to take equally clear action.”
He therefore announced his decision to send 40,000 soldiers to South Vietnam to battle and defeat the Vietcong. Scoop stressed that the 40,000 number had been recommended by General Maxwell Taylor who had worked out a battle plan that could be accomplished with just that amount. He warned the American people that given the currently limited strength of the South Vietnamese Army, Taylor’s force would have to do a lot of the fighting. As a result, the country should expect to see casualties as combat troops fought the guerillas in the jungles and rice paddies of South Vietnam. The good news was that “we will not have a presence in Vietnam forever.”
Once the Vietcong had been satisfactorily destroyed, Taylor’s force would shift the focus of their mission to helping the South Vietnamese rebuild their national security. As they grew more adept at defending themselves, the number of American soldiers serving in South Vietnam would be proportionally cut back. The President assured the nation that “we will withdraw our forces deployed to Vietnam as the situation allows.”
In short, the Commander-in-Chief would be sending 40,000 soldiers to eliminate China’s ability to undermine South Vietnam from within. Once that defined mission had been completed (as President George Bush would say a quarter of a century later), they would be gradually withdrawn. A strong and stable South Vietnam would then serve as a roadblock to China’s expansionist aims, safeguarding the rest of Southeast Asia. “It is not a light or an easy matter for me to send our brave sons to other countries,” Scoop said at the end of his televised address to the nation. “Tragically, some Americans will lose their lives and we will mourn their loss as a nation. However, I do not think that you, the American people, expect me as your President to hesitate or to vacillate in the face of danger. The decisions I have taken are hard ones because they put lives into harms’ way, but they are decisions that must be made.”
He paused for a moment, as if the gravity of the moment was hitting him.
“And I have made them.”
Last edited:
Ah, here we go! Scoop takes the plunge, for better or worse.
Without Korea will the American public be more amiable to intervention I wonder?
What is the position of the Chinese government given they're backing the Vietcong - is it their historical vaguely leftist, vaguely nationalist stance. Is their support of the Vietcong couched in anti-colonial rhetoric or purely realpolitik? Have they done an India and mimicked Soviet central planning in the name of modernisation?
Great update, I'm excited/worried of what is to come.
Without Korea will the American public be more amiable to intervention I wonder?
What is the position of the Chinese government given they're backing the Vietcong - is it their historical vaguely leftist, vaguely nationalist stance. Is their support of the Vietcong couched in anti-colonial rhetoric or purely realpolitik? Have they done an India and mimicked Soviet central planning in the name of modernisation?
Great update, I'm excited/worried of what is to come.
Vietnam, I should think.
As to the Chinese, I wonder how long the "reorganization" of Chinese borders will hold. Perhaps a realpolitik President (like Nixon) could convince Chaing or his successors to turn on the Soviet Union in exchange for American support for a "rationalization" of borders within China.