The Dictator Next Door: The Good Neighbor Policy and the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic, 1930-1945

368 Pages·1998·25.103 MB·English

by  Eric Paul Roorda

THE DICTATOR
NEXT DOOR
A book in the series
AMERICAN ENCOUNTERS / GLOBAL INTERACTIONS
A series edited by Gilbert M. Joseph
and Emily S. Rosenberg
THE DICTATOR
NEXT DOOR
•
The Good Neighbor Policy and
the Trujillo Regime in the
Dominican Republic,
I930-I945
ERIC PAUL ROORDA
DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS
DURHAM AND LONDON, 1998
© I998 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States
of America on acid-free paper @I
Typeset in Bembo by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear
on the last printed page of this book.
AMERICAN ENCOUNTERS / GLOBAL INTERACTIONS
•
A series edited by Gilbert M. Joseph
and Emily S. Rosenberg
This senes alms to stimulate critical perspectives and fresh interpretive
frameworks for scholarship on the history of the imposing global presence
of the United States. Its primary concerns include the deployment and
contestation of power, the construction and deconstruction of cultural and
political borders, the fluid meanings of intercultural encounters, and the
complex interplay between the global and the local. American Encounters
seeks to strengthen dialogue and collaboration between historians of U.S.
international relations and area studies specialists.
The series encourages scholarship based on multi archival historical re
search. At the same time, it supports a recognition of the representational
character of all stories about the past and promotes critical inquiry into
issues of subjectivity and narrative. In the process, American Encounters strives
to understand the context in which meanings related to nations, cultures,
and political economy are continually produced, challenged, and reshaped.
TO PEARL ELAINE AND WILLIAM SIMON ROORDA
AND
TO A. E. DOYLE
CONTENTS
+
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction
ONE. Dominican History, the United States in the Caribbean,
and the Origins of the Good Neighbor Policy 6
TWO • The Dominican Revolution of 1930 and the Policy
of Nonintervention 31
THREE. The Bankrupt Neighbor Policy: Depression Diplomacy
and the Foreign Bondholders Protective Council 63
FOUR. What Will the Neighbors Think? Dictatorship and
Diplomacy in the Public Eye 88
FIVE. Genocide Next Door: The Haitian Massacre of 1937
and the Sosua Jewish Refugee Settlement 127
SIX. Gold Braid and Striped Pants: The Culture of Foreign
Relations in the Dominican Republic 149
SEVEN • Fortress America, Fortaleza Trujillo: The Hull-Trujillo
Treaty and the Second World War 192
EIGHT. The Good Neighbor Policy and Dictatorship 230
Notes 245
Bibliography 307
Index 327

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
•
The process that produced this book began on a snowy afternoon in Balti
more in 1983, much like this one in Louisville in 1997, listening to Milton S.
u.s.
Eisenhower's views on the invasion of the Dominican Republic in
1965. After four hours of conversation and a big manhattan in a Disney car
toon tumbler, he suggested I apply to Johns Hopkins for graduate school.
My interest in the Dominican Republic and my association with the Johns
Hopkins University began with Dr. Eisenhower, and so does this attempt to
thank as many of the people who have helped me write this book as I can re
member. The first who comes to mind is my friend Paul Haspel, who initi
ated the chain of introductions that led to my interview with Milton Eisen
hower, and who drove me through the snow to see him. Since then, there
have been hundreds of people who have given me introductions and rides,
among a thousand other kinds of assistance, from my mentors to the people
who picked me up hitchhiking on the way to the Hoover Library in Iowa.
Edward Crapol's classes at William and Mary motivated me to study
diplomatic history, and he directed the thesis that involved my interview
with Milton Eisenhower, among other Eisenhower administration offi
cials. At Johns Hopkins, Louis Galambos, editor of the Dwight Eisenhower
Papers (and strayed disciple of Samuel Flagg Bemis), guided me through my
dissertation; Franklin W. Knight directed my Latin American studies and
assisted me in receiving a Fulbright Fellowship to do research in the Domi
nican Republic; and Francis E. Rourke schooled me in the perspectives of
political science and bureaucracy studies. Professors Galambos, Knight, and
Rourke constituted my dissertation committee, which was hard service at
x Acknowledgments
low pay. Johns Hopkins also supported my research with graduate fellow
ships and a grant to go to the Hoover Institute in Palo Alto, California.
Research at the Hoover and Roosevelt presidential libraries has been a
joy because of the helpful archivists in West Branch, Iowa, and Hyde Park,
New York, inspiring places both. Dwight Miller at the Hoover Library
was especially considerate to point me in the right direction. A Vigortone
Scholarship from the Hoover Foundation and Beeke-Levy Fellowship from
the Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt Library Foundation made possible the
weeks I spent among the papers of the presidents who figure in this study.
I encountered memorable settings, rich information, and affable experts
in the many places (twelve towns and three countries) where research for
this book took place. A list of all the people who boosted me along the
way would run as long as the closing credits of a cinema epic, because
they include staff members at the National Archives, old and new, espe
cially the Motion Picture Branch; the Library of Congress, especially the
Manuscripts Room and the Hispanics Branch; the Navy and Marine Corps
Historical Centers; the Columbus Library of the Organization of American
States; the National Air and Space Museum Archive; the Milton Eisen
hower Library; the Sterling Memorial Library; the Hoover Institute on
War and Peace; the Naval War College; the Pioneer Records Service; the
Public Record Office; the Universidad Aut6noma de Santo Domingo; the
Biblioteca Nacional and the Archivo General de la Naci6n.
Many scholars have been generous with their knowledge and time, sug
gesting approaches, sharing sources, collaborating on conference panels,
reading drafts, and providing friendship and encouragement. Lauren
"Robin" Derby has been especially motivational, beginning when we visited
Rafael Trujillo's ruined estate with Julie Franks, another I have to thank.
The National Endowment for the Humanities funded the 1993 visit when
I met them, support I gratefully acknowledge. The sessions the three of
us put together for the Latin American Studies Association and American
Historical Association meetings in 1994 triggered many fortunate events
for me. These panel presentations assisted me in deepening the study, and I
thank Catherine LeGrand, Bruce Calder, and Louis Perez Jr. for their par
ticipation. Panel presentations at two meetings of the Society for Historians
of American Foreign Relations also helped me a great deal, with the help
of Douglas Little, Judith Ewell, and Michael Weis. Anonymous reviewers
at Diplomatic History and Howard Wiarda helped me to improve the chapter
on the Haitian massacre (Chapter 5), which appeared as an article in that