Fifty years ago today, on 28 April 1965, 42,000 American troops invaded the Dominican Republic. The justification for the invasion was the unrest that resulted from the attempts to restore the Juan Bosch government. By the end of the campaign, 3,000 Dominicans and 31 US military personnel had lost their lives.
Bosch’s government was unpopular with the United States as well as with military and business figures in the Dominican Republic because of its support for Cuban leader Fidel Castro and for its economic policies. Within seven months of it being established there was a coup, Bosch was ousted and a military junta took over.
On the 24 April 1965, a group of young army officers wanting to restore Bosch rebelled and civil war broke out. Following a warning from the US Embassy in the country that pro-Bosch and pro-communist rebels were winning, the United States marines arrived.
US President Johnson’s decision to send troops into the Dominican Republic was met with criticism in the United States. The justifications were viewed as flimsy, and in the context of the growing discontent over US involvement in the Vietnam War, the events in the Dominican Republic brought US foreign policy further into question. For many Latin American countries, the US intervention in the Dominican Republic set a worrying precedent, suggesting a return of the US intervention in Latin American affairs that had been so common in the early 20th century.
The US military finally achieved its objective of halting the restoration of the Juan Bosch government and installed a provisional government in September 1965. Elections followed in 1966, and Joaquin Balaguer, the original successor to Rafael Trujillo, was installed in power.
http://www.newhistorian.com/usa-invades-the-dominican-republic/3619/