Balaguer And The Dominican Military

Following the 1961 assassination of dictator Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican Republic descended into a period of national turmoil and political instability, culminating in 1965 when a catastrophic civil war engulfed the capital city of Santo Domingo. The intervention of foreign troops, particularly U.S. troops, played a critical role in the multinational effort to allow presidential elections to take place in June 1966. The result was the installation of Joaquin Balaguer in the presidency. Subsequently, this skillful civilian leader defeated both a right wing coup and a Cuban-based guerrilla expedition, and successfully gained control of the chaotic Dominican officer corps by the mid-1970s. In this comprehensive study of the Dominican Republic's Balaguer era, the author draws upon declassified U.S. State Department and military documents and his own experiences as an army attache in the U.S. Embassy, Santo Domingo, during the early 1970s. The result is a unique, inside look at Balaguer's presidency, his skillful manipulation of rival officers and cliques, and American involvement in the political history of the Dominican Republic.

Traces the interaction of the military & the civilian population, showing the many ways in which the military ethos has permeated Dominican culture.

This chronicle and interpretation of recent military and political events in the Dominican Republic analyzes the political behavior of the country's armed forces and scrutinizes policies put in action since the nation's civil war and the subsequent U.S. intervention of 1965.

The 1965 U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic remains a unique event: the only time the Organization of American States has intervened with force on a member state's territory. It is also a classic example of a U.S. military operation that drew in America's hemispheric allies. Finally, its outcome was that rare feat in the annals of diplomacy—a peaceful political settlement of a civil war. Here for the first time is the full story of that action, as told by one of its leading participants. General Palmer was the U.S. Army's operations chief in Washington in April 1965 when the Dominican crisis broke, and was placed in command of U.S. forces deployed to the Republic. His perspective thus reflects both the perceptions of Washington officials and those of the U.S. commander on the scene. Palmer's instructions from President Johnson were to prevent another Cuba. Although the intervention remains controversial today, especially with Latin Americans, it was successful both politically and militarily, bringing unprecedented stability to the long-troubled Dominican Republic. The lesson Palmer draws is that success in such a venture comes only when political and military actions are orchestrated toward a common political goal. Palmer concludes with an assessment of the current situation in the broader Caribbean area, including a comparison of the 1965 Dominican and 1983 Grenadian interventions, and an analysis of the situation in Panama with its implications for the Canal Treaty. His book is a timely contribution to the history of the Caribbean that enlarges our understanding of this region's vital importance to the United States.

This study of the political, economic, and sociocultural relationship between the Dominican Republic and the United States follows its evolution from the middle of the nineteenth century to the mid-1990s. It deals with the interplay of these dimensions from each country's perspective and in both private and public interactions. From the U.S. viewpoint, important issues include interpretation of the rise and fall of the Dominican Republic's strategic importance, the legacy of military intervention and occupation, the problem of Dominican dictatorship and instability, and vacillating U.S. efforts to "democratize" the country. From the Dominican perspective, the essential themes involve foreign policies adopted from a position of relative weakness, ambivalent love-hate views toward the United States, emphasis on economic interests and the movement of Dominicans between the two countries, international political isolation, the adversarial relationship with neighboring Haiti, and the legacy of dictatorship and the uneven evolution of a Dominican-style democratic system. The Dominican Republic and the United States is the eleventh book in The United States and the Americas series, volumes suitable for classroom use.

General study of and study of the political pattern in the Dominican Republic - covers historical and geographical aspects of the country, political problems, political leadership, sociological aspects, the Church, social structures, education, cultural factors, the economy, government structures, political parties, interest groups, the agrarian reform programme, foreign policy, etc. Bibliography pp. 235 to 237, and map.

Joaquín Balaguer, Memory, and Diaspora draws on the growing interest in the legacies of authoritarianism and state violence and its interplay with migration and memory. Ana S. Q. Liberato discusses the relationship between memory and government pedagogy—or the meanings constructed and disseminated by Joaquín Balaguer in political ads and public speeches and through public policy and autobiographical work. Liberato argues that there is a revival of memory in the Dominican Republic today, including pro-Balaguer memorialization efforts, and that Balaguer’s political pedagogy had an effect on public memory. The influence of his political pedagogy on memory transpires in memorializations which reproduce notions of Balaguer's political and moral exceptionalism. This book shows that Balaguer’s authoritarian pedagogy has been consumed, anchored, and shared among different Dominican publics, in the island and overseas, through the prism he created. Liberato also reveals Balaguer as a contested political character who provokes particular emotions and well-defined experiences and notions of the past. She demonstrates how his legacy was legitimized and contested by comparing him to caudillos José Francisco Peña Gómez and Juan Bosch, as well as through instances when he is praised or questioned for being an American protégée. This book exhibits how diasporic Dominicans maintain and transplant their political knowledge after migration. In particular, notions of democracy, political trust, political accountability, human rights, and sovereignty associated with authoritarian pedagogy accumulate in their narratives of the past and in their accounts of politics and history. Key roles are played by shared historical, cultural, and linguistic symbols associated with the legacy of authoritarianism. Liberato demonstrates how Balaguer influenced the Dominican nation through implementing effective political pedagogies, which in turn helped reinforce and reinscribe some aspects of the pedagogies implemented by Dictator Trujillo and previous authoritarian leaders. Joaquín Balaguer, Memory, and Diaspora will be of particular interest to Caribbean and Latin American Studies students and scholars, as well as anyone working in the areas of migration studies, sociology, Latin American politics, U.S. foreign policy, Latina/o studies, Caribbean studies, and the sociology of knowledge.