Anyone wanting to understand Latin America or the Kennedy Administration's approach to Latin America, Castro and the Alliance for Progress must read this book.
I served as an American diplomat in Santo Domingo 20 years after the assassination. There I met several people intimately familiar with events leading up to the assassination and afterwards. Donald Reid Cabral, who was involved in planning for a civilian, elected government (but was not a shooter), told me that "everything in the book is true, but not everything that is true is in the book. We talked to Diederich, but we had to protect our friends."
This book is valuable far beyond the immediate facts of Trujillo's death. Explicit or implicit in all this is how the New Frontiersmen's "can do" attitude, infatuation with covert operations drove events they hardly understood. The book reminds us that people everywhere operate on what they see as their own requirements and not our calendar. After the Bay of Pigs led to a rethinking of this covert action program, a CIA officer told the assassins to postpone things while Washington was cogitating. The assassins made it clear that they were not killing Trujillo for our reasons, but for their own. They wanted U.S. help, but would not allow it to make them into puppets.
All of which leads me to speculate on alternate outcomes. Had the assassins received the automatic weapons we had promised them, the assassination might have gone more "cleanly" and scores of lives might have been saved.
I highly suggest for you to stop projecting. I perfectly understand that when people run out of arguments their personal pride leads them to use labels and ad hominems, but you should control your impulses.You know, you have always been a Trujillista, but you were always a Trujillista in spite of Trujillo's brutality. Now you are trying to rewrite history completely. It won't work. It won't.
Where is the trail of atrocities by General Imbert? He carefully and purposefully avoided executing rebels in the 1940s during a failed invasion of the country when he was governor of Puerto Plata. Trujillo was enraged by Imbert's political maneuvers and fired him. I don't see any trail of torture and murder behind Imbert Barreras.
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Mario Vargas Llosa, the author of «La fiesta del chivo» (The Feast of the Goat), in the interval of 2:38 and 3:00 minutes clearly says that his book is a novel, not a disguised history book. He claims that he wrote a novel that has more invention than reality. He goes even further by saying that he developed the characters and the events with the full liberty that is proper of a fictional story.
[video=youtube;7QbGquwza28]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QbGquwza28[/video]
I highly suggest for you to stop projecting. I perfectly understand that when people run out of arguments their personal pride leads them to use labels and ad hominems, but you should control your impulses.
Hopefully you will not come up with nonsensical labels in an attempt to contradict what the author himself said about the veracity of his book. You can believe as many reviewers of the book that say what you want to believe, but I will side with the author himself.
From a book review of The Death of the Goat
I served as an American diplomat in Santo Domingo 20 years after the assassination. There I met several people intimately familiar with events leading up to the assassination and afterwards. Donald Reid Cabral, who was involved in planning for a civilian, elected government (but was not a shooter), told me that "everything in the book is true, but not everything that is true is in the book. We talked to Diederich, but we had to protect our friends."
Perhaps not during the Trujillo era (and I am skeptical of this given how he was on the inner circle), but he has quite an extensive trail of bodies from his stint as the head of the rival pro-coup government during the 1965 civil war. If you doubt this, look for the details of the Operación Limpieza he ordered to be carried out on the northern parts of the Distrito Nacional.
Perhaps not during the Trujillo era (and I am skeptical of this given how he was on the inner circle)
He aqui la verdad de esos supuestos "Heroes", no eran heroes nada. Actuaron en contra del pais en su peor momento. Trujillo fue el MEJOR gobernante Dominicano. Voten Ramfis.
Here it is anyway: A group of Dominicans decided they could no longer tolerate Trujillo's brutality and they took an incredible risk and moved against El Jefe. Trujillo was killed, and most of the people in the plot were hunted down and killed by Trujillo's sons. Many of them were tortured horrifically before they died. Most of the plotters sacrificed their lives for their countrymen. The End.
Correction: A group of commie Dominicans influenced by Fidel Castro decided that they could no longer tolerate Trujillo's law and order, and, as a result of their actions against El Jefe, were hunted down and killed by Trujillo's men and Dominican campesinos loyal to El Jefe.
You obviously have never studied Trujillo's assassination. What you just posted was moronic. None of the people involved in assassinating Trujillo were communists. Trujillo's assassins came from the right. General Juan Tomas Diaz's--the coup instigator--brother stated at a secret meeting that it was important that non-communists killed El Jefe. The moral high ground could not be lost to the communists. You would know that if you cracked a book sometime. But I won't hold my breathe.
The people you mentioned had nothing to do with Trujillo's assassination. You are clueless.
He is referencing to a whole different attempt that took place before the suceessful one backed up by Fidel Castro. Trujillo and Castro hated each other. Trujillo killed every single men after entering Dominican territory. He knew about the attempt thanks to his spies in cuba.
Quote Originally Posted by Ogre of the Caribbean View Post
Here it is anyway: A group of Dominicans decided they could no longer tolerate Trujillo's brutality and they took an incredible risk and moved against El Jefe. Trujillo was killed, and most of the people in the plot were hunted down and killed by Trujillo's sons. Many of them were tortured horrifically before they died. Most of the plotters sacrificed their lives for their countrymen. The End.
Correction: A group of commie Dominicans influenced by Fidel Castro decided that they could no longer tolerate Trujillo's law and order, and, as a result of their actions against El Jefe, were hunted down and killed by Trujillo's men and Dominican campesinos loyal to El Jefe.
No he wasn't. He was referring to the plot led by General Juan Tomas Diaz and Antonio de la Maza.
Feud With Castro
In the decades to come, Trujillo ruled the country with an iron fist, taking over for his personal gain such industries as oil refining, cement manufacturing, and food production, pocketing large amounts of cash for years to come.
In 1956, Castro was planning a revolt in Cuba whose goal was the removal of the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Secretly, Trujillo offered Batista military supplies to stop Castro but there was never any lasting relationship between the two dictators. Trujillo referred to Batista as “that ****ty sergeant,” and said, “I’m going to oust the bastard.” But Trujillo had no love for Castro either. Trujillo sent arms and ammunition to anti-Castro dissidents then living the Miami area. On New Year’s Eve 1959, Castro and his band of revolutionaries ousted the hated Batista, and Castro proclaimed himself the leader of Cuba.
On June 14, 1959, an abortive invasion to topple Trujillo began. On that day, a plane with Dominican markings left Cuba and landed at the Cordillera Central in the Dominican Republic. On board were 225 men led by a Dominican named Enrique Jimenez Moya and a Cuban named Delico Gomez Ochoa, both of whom were friends of Castro. The invasion force was composed of men from various Latin American countries and Spain. Some Americans also participated. As soon as the invaders landed, they were met by soldiers of the Dominican Army, and 30 to 40 men escaped.
A week later, another group of invaders boarded two yachts and was escorted by Cuban gunboats to Great Inagua, in the Bahamas, heading for the Dominican coast. Instead, the group was spotted by Dominican soldiers who blasted the yacht to pieces. Trujillo ordered his son, Ramfis, to lead the hunt for the invaders, and soon they were captured. The leaders of the invasion were taken aboard a Dominican Air Force plane and then pushed out in midair, falling to their deaths.
The plot was, in reality, tactically directed by many opposition leaders inside the country. Trujillo blamed Castro for the plot, and secretly Castro was behind the entire affair. In time, Trujillo set up a plan to invade Cuba (which never took place) and had his followers loot the Cuban embassy in the capital city of Ciudad Trujillo. Cuba subsequently severed all diplomatic relations with the Dominican Republic.