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5. American Popular History C. After 1860

General Bruce Palmer, Jr. Intervention in the Caribbean: The Dominican Crisis of 1965. The University Press of Kentucky, 1989. 226 pp. $29.95 Cloth.

I know this Story By Joe Petrulionis

General Bruce Palmer commanded the U.S. military intervention into the Dominican Republic’s political crisis of 1965. A generation later, after serving in both the American Enterprise Institute and the Central Intelligence Agency, he wrote this book from his retirement. In its preface, the author explains his intent in a credible and certain style that has become a recognizable trait of senior-most Army officers. He wants to tell the story of the events and to express the noble hope that the role of the U.S. Army, “which virtually all writers ignore,” will no longer be overlooked. In addition, he intends to describe the complex relationships between the military and the various political organizations involved--organizations such as the U.S. Department of State and the Organization of American States.

But submerged between these objectives, an alert reader will observe other layers of unstated purpose. First, as the ranking U.S. commander of the Dominican intervention, General Palmer would, understandably, like to polish posterity’s recollection of the mission and to put a spit shine on his own reputation as well. In his version of the episode, the intervention was a major success. As he explains, “It had accomplished its mission. It had stopped the Dominican civil war, provided a measure of security and tranquility to the country, brought the republic safely through honest, free, and fair presidential elections a little more than a year after the intervention, and assured the safe transition to a legally constituted government (136-137). The General is proud of his helmsmanship and even his one mistake turned out well (105).

In addition to Palmer’s concerns with correcting historical inaccuracy, there are ample examples of the author using his chronicle as a forum to snipe at the professional competence of fellow officers. But usually these critiques are covert. Inconceivably, as the transport planes were being loaded for takeoff from North Carolina in the spring of 1965, two general officers, one from the Army and one from the Air Force, were personally supervising the “airlift coordination.” Palmer blames a two-hour delay (in the two week long transport of 23,000 soldiers and their equipment) on “refueling difficulties and a cranky outboard turboprop engine” (10). His implication is that this short delay was the fault of the other two generals by virtue of their presence, blithely ignoring the third general officer on the scene, Palmer, who commanded the mission.

Finally, General Palmer hints loudly that he supports the already too familiar call for greater military independence from meddling politicians. In 1989, an already oft-cited excuse for U.S. failures in Vietnam was micro-management by politicians. And we must remember that after the Dominican “affair,” General Palmer served as Deputy Commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

A reader should avoid viewing any event through the eyes of just one witness. General Palmer’s book is an assemblage of the memories, personal notes, private photos, papers, and classified communiqué of one commander. Lower ranking soldiers are usually prohibited from collecting classified notes and sensitive photographs, so it is unlikely that an alternate viewpoint from, say, an enlisted sergeant, will emerge with comparable archival credibility. Clearly, some of the book’s other biases arise from the age, class, race, background, and gender of the author.

Palmer, a second generation West Point grad, was born the year President Wilson began his first term. So we might understand, but should never overlook, Palmer’s insensitive descriptions of Dominican culture. These descriptions would be anachronistic, even in 1989 when the book was published. This observation is not intended to excuse Palmer for the tone of his remarks, but to make another point: these slurs reflect Palmer’s personal views that decidedly impacted his version of events. Note the use of the word “disproportionate,” and the inconsistent manner of describing ethnicity:

“There are no Jim Crow laws against racial or ethnic groups, but subtle and inexorable economic law bars disproportionate numbers

of blacks and persons of mixed black and European blood from staying in the better hotels, attending the best theaters, eating in the famous

restaurants…” (15)

We can detect other forms of bias as well. In 1916, when Palmer was three years old, the U.S. invaded the Dominican Republic and stayed until 1924. During this earlier episode, the U.S. created a quasi-military police force to maintain order and to sustain U.S. “economic interests,” roles that Palmer defends (142, 153, 173-175). This police force’s U.S. selected officer corps included Rafael Trujillo, a brutal dictator later denounced by the Catholic Church, the OAS, and the United Nations. In 1961, Trujillo was overthrown after a 31-year reign. The next year, free elections with official international observers, yielded a sweeping win for the PRD, a revolutionary party. The U.S. trained “police force” responded by organizing a successful coup against this legally elected government. Under pressure from President Kennedy, a pro-business junta (not a return to the elected government) was established under a triumvirate, “headed by Donald Reid Cabral, a well known, American-educated businessman” (18). This is the context for the U.S. and Palmer’s later “intervention.”

The book’s organization and narrative approach may sweep an unwary reader through much of the complex (and questionable) causality and right past many of the possible alternative explanations for events. The pace rarely lingers over controversial decisions and alternative viewpoints. And when the author is an acknowledged expert in practical battlefield tactics of deception, bluff, feint, and false retrograde, his chronicle must be handled with extra care. For example, the pace quickens when Palmer mentions anti-left paranoia that may have led to the creation of the various puppet governments. Invariably, the narrative slows again to complain at length and often about bureaucratic interference with a military mission, or slanted press reports, or squabbles over rank and authority between the various officers, branches of the armed forces, and sovereign governments (44, 57, 61, 63, 65, etc.).

In approaching this book, a reader must maintain a critical attitude and professional caution that should be afforded any primary historical document. Still, General Palmer’s book will enrich the scholarship of historians of the Cold War. The narrative provides a hindsight glimpse into the rationalizations of a retired U.S. commander, himself trying to seem like a moderate. His well received works were, at the time of his death, considered to be rather critical of the U.S. handling of both the Dominican and Vietnam blunders. So Palmer’s chronicle has value, not as a last word on the subject, but as an example of the personality and psychology of one decision maker in the episode. A comparative study of the recollections of other commanders from all sides of the Dominican civil war, representatives of OAS, United Nations, and the U.S. Department of State would be productive areas for further exploration. An interesting focus for such a project would be a close analysis of General Palmer’s constant insistence that the U.S. remained entirely neutral during the intervention.

Today, four decades after the events in question, we might expect to read about the “Dominican affair” with a comfortable detachment that would have been impossible fifteen years ago. But this book provides little comfort. The U.S.’s recent unilateral interventions into the affairs of other sovereign nations (for reasons not accurately disclosed this time either) may have soured today’s readers to the kinds of rhetoric contained in Intervention in the Caribbean. Perhaps we have become less vulnerable to bombastic appeals from uniformed patriots calling for the protection of far-flung economic interests, or perhaps not.

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