Abstract:
This case details the twists and turns in the US relationship with the Dominican Republic, primarily between 1959 and 1966--a time during which two American presidents had to balance a theoretical commitment to the Caribbean nation's right to self-determination against the possibility of a communist government taking power. The Dominican Republic had long been in the shadow of American political and military influence, but the stakes in the island republic were raised with the victory of Fidel Castro in nearby Cuba in 1959. After discussing the US role in elections in 1962 and in thwarting coup attempts by forces linked to longtime Dominican strongman Rafael Trujillo, the case frames the situation before Lyndon Johnson in 1965 when he considered whether the threat of possible leftist control justified intervention by US troops. As in the case of the Truman administration and Greece, the case invites discussion of Johnson's rationale for intervention, framed, not in terms of anti-communism, but as a defense of Dominican self-determination and a step to prevent the loss of American civilian lives.
