Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

Patterns of Intervention
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
235
economy, was rather larger than that of his allies who had to content
themselves with a percentage of the sugar industry.” 168 He had become
an annoyance, as well as an embarrassment to the rhetoric of the
Kennedy Administration, which was extolling our transcendent purpose
in an effort to shore up the Fifth Freedom against further disasters of the
Castro variety. Trujillo was duly assassinated, after CIA efforts to
eliminate him. 169
In the country’s first free elections, Juan Bosch was elected president
in 1962. Though his views were basically those of the Kennedy
Democrats, the Kennedy Adminstration worked to undermine him. The
military structure of the Trujillo years remained, and it was evident that
a military coup would be attempted unless Bosch succeeded in
mobilizing substantial popular support. US officials (whose word was
law) prevented Bosch from removing hostile officers who controlled the
armed forces, blocked agrarian reform, and with the assistance of US
labor leaders, forestalled his efforts to develop a strong, united labor
movement. US military officers in the Dominican Republic meanwhile
“developed rapport with their military counterparts and were critical of
what seemed to some an indecisive and unreliable civilian president.”
Bosch’s unreliability was revealed by his attempts to mobilize popular
support through reform measures, his securing of a Swiss line of credit
(diminishing reliance on the US), and his abrogation of a contract with
Esso oil company for a refinery, all criticized by the US Embassy. “U.S.
pressures hampered [Bosch’s] efforts to mobilize mass political support
behind his regime from his most likely sources—rural and industrial
labor,” and sought to “move him toward business groups.” The US
Embassy decided to “let him go” (Ambassador Martin’s phrase) when
the inevitable military coup took place in 1963. The “announced U.S.
goal of promoting democracy . . . was subordinated to U.S. private and
public vested interests,” specifically, “concern for U.S. investors and