The execution (not assassination) of Chapita Trujillo, was the culmination of putting up with 30 years of abuse and humiliation, of the Dominican people, by Trujillo, his family and cohorts.
Thousands of Dominicans, in spirit, where behind the trigger finger that finally did away with Chapita Trujillo, culminating in his execution that memorable night of May 30 Th, 1961.
If really wish he were alive today, to finish him off again while snoozing in his rocking chair.

Trujillo was a Tyrant who drained the country of it's resources for his own personal gain. Now switch the word "Tyrant" from my last sentence and we have just defined the current government.......see where i'm going?????

Here's another take on the matter.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC


How the Agency Killed Trujillo

By Norman Gall


The New Republic - April 13, 1963, republished June 28, 1975

The assassination of the Dominican Republic’s Rafael L. Trujillo was carried out with assistance from the US Central Intelligence Agency. Arms for the May 30, 1961. slaying of the 69-year-old dictator on a lonely stretch of highway near his capital were smuggled by the CIA into the country at the request of the assassins, according to highly qualified sources I interviewed in Santo Domingo shortly after the collapse of the Trujillo rule.

The arms had to come from the outside, I was told, because of the close scrutiny imposed by Trujillo on the removal of guns from military bases. These controls kept the conspirators from obtaining their own weapons without awakening suspicion, despite the involvement in the plot of the Secretary of State for the Armed Forces, Gen. Jose Rene Roman Fernandez, and other leading military officers.

The CIA began shipping arms to the Dominican Republic in late 1960, following a series of talks between US Consul Henry Dearborn, Chief Political Officer John Barfield of the US Consulate, and Luis Amiama Tio, who had extensive banana and cattle holdings and had been mayor of Santo Domingo. Also involved in the plot was Antonio Imbert who had been Governor of Puerto Plata province. Both Amiama and Imbert are tough guys and ambitious. Both were made four-star generals by the provisional council that took over after Trujillo’s death. However, when leading army officers balked at their elevation to the highest military rank, Amiama and Imbert said the honor bestowed upon them was too great and modestly demoted themselves to brigadier generals.

1960 was a bad year for the Dominican Republic. The economy was in the dumps. The country was in disgrace internationally as a result of Trujillo’s backing of a plot against the life of Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt. In June, a car full of explosives blew up alongside Betancourt’s automobile during a Caracas Armed Forces Day procession, wounding the President and killing two others. A Venezuelan naval officer later admitted that the elaborate bomb was prepared in the Dominican Republic, presumably as an act of retaliation against Venezuela for having asked the OAS in February 1960, to censure Trujillo for "flagrant violations of human rights."

In August that same year, the Organization of American States did censure the Dominican Republic, and the US and several Latin American nations thereupon suspended diplomatic relations with the Trujillo regime, though Washington kept a consulate in Ciudad Trujillo to protect its commercial interests.

This was one of the stormiest periods of Trujillo’s 31-year rule. On June 14, 1959, the Dominican Republic’s southern coast had been invaded by Cuba-based Dominican exiles. They were wiped out, but then Trujillo uncovered a plot to kill him, only 24 hours before it was to be carried out on January 21, 1960. Mass purges, arrests and some killings followed. Tensions within the regime mounted rapidly, as did its Byzantine-style ruler’s greed. Assuming the presidency of the Dominican Central Bank, the dictator forced exporters, as part of an "austerity" program, to deposit with the bank half of their dollar earnings, which soon found their way into Trujillo accounts abroad.

During this time, Trujillo was completing an intensive drive, begun in the mid-1950s with the purchase of the Haina complex of sugar mills and lands in the southern part of the Republic, to expand sugar production and appropriate more and more of it to himself. He went so far as to deprive thousands of peasant families of their squatters’ settlements, forcing them to sell their cattle and work as sugar peons. It had been hoped, of course, that the Dominican Republic would get a generous share of the US sugar quota previously allotted to Cuba. An intensive Washington lobbying campaign was carried on to this end, largely through the Dominican Consul-General in Washington, Marco A. Pena. In the late summer of 1960, Congress did raise the Dominican allotment from 27,000 to 250,000 tons, but President Eisenhower slapped a punitive excise tax on it in September, after the OAS ministerial conference voted economic sanctions against the Trujillo regime and a break of diplomatic relations.

As Trujillo’s political and financial problems deepened, talks continued between Dearborn, Barfield and leaders of the anti-Trujillo conspiracy. Toward the end of 1960, contact was established between Amiama and a CIA agent who, according to Arturo R. Espaillat, former head of Trujillo’s Military Intelligence Service, was named Plato Cox. Espaillat made this statement in a press conference in Ottawa in 1962; his word alone cannot, of course, be accepted as conclusive proof. But whatever the name of the agent, the smuggling of firearms into the Republic for the assassination began.

The key link between the assassins and the CIA in the arms shipments was a long-time American civilian resident of Ciudad Trujillo, Lorenzo Perry, otherwise known as "Wimpy," who operated a supermarket in a fashionable neighborhood where Trujillo also lived. "Wimpy" was put under brief arrest after the killing but was later allowed to leave the country.

The weapons were imported in small parts, to be assembled later by the plotters, among the routine grocery shipments for the supermarket arriving regularly in the capital’s port. The gun-parts entered the Republic in specially marked food cans, which were later turned over to the conspirators.

Plans for the intended assassination were worked out during the same period in which the abortive assault on Cuba was being prepared. However, when the CIA-organized April 17, 1961 invasion at the Bay of Pigs failed and world attention was focused on Washington’s complicity in that operation, a postponement of the attempt on Trujillo’s life was ordered because of the embarrassment another such failure might cause the United States. But the order to hold up came too late. According to what I was told in the Dominican Republic, the needed weapons were already in the hands of the conspirators, who refused appeals by Dearborn and Barfield to delay the assassination. They insisted on moving at the first opportunity. This came on May 30, when Trujillo and his chauffeur drove out into the country in an unescorted 1959 Chevrolet for a rendezvous at a San Cristobal estate, La Fundacion, with Trujillo’s 20-year-old mistress, Mona Sanchez.

It was Trujillo’s custom to call on his 94-year-old mother, Julia Molina. before going on to La Fundacion. His departure for San Cristobal from his mother’s home was signaled to the killers by Sen. Modesto Diaz, a neighbor of Julia Molina and brother of Brig. Gen. Juan Tomas Diaz, one of the principal gunmen in the plot. It is said that General Diaz was bitter toward Trujillo because of his forced, premature retirement from the army in 1960 on the dictator’s orders.

The plan was to finish off Trujillo, seize control, form a provisional government to be recognized by the US, and hold the elections which Trujillo had promised for May 1962. The assassins intended to be candidates.

The scheme, however, was frustrated soon after the murder when the assassins could not locate Gen. Roman Fernandez, who had been ordered to the San Isidro Air Force Base that afternoon by Trujillo and told to stay there until some administrative irregularities were corrected. Since he was thus kept 10 miles outside Ciudad Trujillo until next morning, Roman was not able to carry out the assignment he had been given. General Roman was to have summoned the entire Trujillo clan to La Fortaleza de Ozama in the capital, informed them of Trujillo’s death and had them killed on the spot.

Around 10:30 pm on May 30, two carloads of gunmen fired 27 shots into the dictator’s body and pummelled it mercilessly on the main highway between the capital and the Agricultural Fair Grounds, where Trujillo annually received tributes for his prize cattle. Having dumped the riddled corpse into the trunk of one of the attack cars, the assassins went to the house of Roman, only to learn there he was not in the capital. They then scattered. In succeeding days all the known assassins, including Roman, were rounded up and slain either at once or shortly before the mass departure of the Trujillo family in November 1961. The two surviving exceptions were Imbert and Amiama.

It can be reported on excellent authority that close associates of the slain dictator knew of the US role within a few days following the killing. Almost immediately upon his May 31 return from Paris to assume command of the Dominican armed forces, Lt. Gen. Rafael (Ramfis) Trujillo Jr. was fully briefed.

However, Ramfis and other retainers, of the dead dictator were warned not to launch reprisals agai1nst Americans involved in the plot. Ramfis’ hand was probably stayed also by the presence of numerous foreign newsman in Ciudad Trujillo within 48 hours after the assassination, and the reported readiness of US naval and marine forces, waiting in off-shore waters, to intervene in the Dominican Republic should there be any loss of American life or property. Likewise, an OAS fact-finding commission arrived in early June, and that may have helped prevent a bloodbath. Ramfis’ six months in power did, however, allow him to liquidate what moveable family wealth he could. US diplomats were telling him that if he behaved himself he could leave the country a rich man, which he did. He "donated" the family sugar mills and lands to the nation.

Dearborn, Barfield and Berry had meanwhile been rushed out of the Dominican Republic by US officials. Subsequently, Dearborn went to Colombia as Consul, and Barfield first to Italy and then to Washington where he was a staff assistant to Edwin Martin, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. Since the ouster of the Trujillos, Perry ("Wimpy" has returned to operate his handsomely appointed supermarket in Santo Domingo, greeting customers with calm and courtesy, as if Trujillo had never lived.


http://www.normangall.com/dominicanr_art2.htm

Spartacus, USA History, British History, Second World War, First World War, Germany,




Rafael Trujillo



Rafael Trujillo was born in San Cristobal, Dominican Republic, in 1891. After leaving school he worked as a telegraph operator. At the time Dominican Republic was occupied by the United States. In 1918 Trujillo joined the Dominican National Guard that had been created by the Americans. He made rapid progress in his new career and by the time the US Marines left in 1924 he was the head of the Dominican National Guard.

In 1930 Trujillo ran against incumbent Horacio Vasquez for president. Trujillo was able to use his power to win the election. He afterwards claimed he had won ninety five percent of the vote. After he gained power Trujillo established a secret police force that tortured and murdered the opposition to his rule.

Trujillo used his political control to obtain great personal wealth. He achieved support from the United States by becoming Latin America's leading anti-communists. Cordell Hull, US Secretary of State (1933-1944), defended Trujillo by saying: " He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he is our son-of-a-bitch."

President Dwight Eisenhower began to change his opinion of Trujillo after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista by Fidel Castro in January, 1959. Eisenhower observed that: "It's certain that American public opinion won't condemn Castro until we have moved against Trujillo."

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) also warned Eisenhower that Trujillo was so unpopular in Dominican Republic that it was only a matter of time before he became the victim of a left-wing revolution. Therefore it was suggested that the CIA should become involved in replacing him with a more suitable pro-American supporter. CIA's Black Operations (Executive Action) was brought in to remove Trujillo.

This plan had the support of President Romulo Betancourt of Venezuela. He told Eisenhower: "If you don't eliminate him, we will invade". A training camp was setup in Venezuela by Dominican exiles flown there from the United States and Puerto Rica by the CIA. This group had been recruited from the privileged sectors of Dominican society in order to make sure that the overthrow of Trujillo did not result in the establishment of a communist government.

Rafael Trujillo was assassinated on 30th May 1961 when his car was machine-gunned by a group of men on a quiet road outside the capital. Before the CIA could get their people in power, Rafael Trujillo Jr. rushed home from France and installed himself as the country's new ruler. Over the next six months he executed all his known opponents.

President John F. Kennedy favoured Joachim Balaguer as the temporary ruler of the Dominican Republic. As Kennedy remarked at the time: "Balaguer is our only tool. The anti-communist liberals are not strong enough. We must use our influence to take Balaguer along the road to democracy." To reinforce this policy a US naval task force with 1,800 US Marines aboard appeared off the Dominican coast on 19th November, 1961. As a result Trujillo and his supporters left the country. Once in power Balaguer began deporting all the major left-wing leaders in the Dominican Republic.

Juan Bosch was elected as the new president and took power in February, 1963. He was more left-wing than Kennedy and the CIA wanted. Bosch immediately announced a programme of public works, land reform, low-rent housing and the nationalization of selected businesses. He also ruled that communists and socialists would not be persecuted as long as they obeyed the law. The United States press now began comparing Bosch to Fidel Castro. The Miami News reported that: "Communist penetration of the Dominican Republic is progressing with incredible speed and efficiency."

The CIA now decided to use the Dominican Army to overthrow Bosch. In July, 1963, a group of army officers warned Bosch that the military would only continue to support him if he adopted a policy of "rigorous anti-communism". Bosch responded by going on television to announce that in a democratic society the military must remain out of politics.

Juan Bosch was overthrown as a result of a military coup in September, 1963. Newsweek Magazine reported that: "Democracy was being saved from Communism by getting rid of democracy."

CIA: Executive Action



The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was established in September 1947. Its role was to evaluate intelligence reports and coordinate the intelligence activities of the various government departments in the interest of national security. Richard Bissell joined the CIA and was placed in charge of the Directorate for Plans, an organization instructed to conduct covert anti-Communist operations around the world. His deputy was Richard Helms, who had successfully mounted a mount a massive convert campaign against the Communist Party during the post-war elections in Italy.

The Directorate for Plans was responsible for what became known as the CIA's Black Operations. This involved a policy that was later to become known as Executive Action (a plan to remove unfriendly foreign leaders from power). This including a coup d'état that overthrew the Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 after he introduced land reforms and nationalized the United Fruit Company.

Other political leaders deposed by Executive Action included Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, the Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo, General Abd al-Karim Kassem of Iraq and Ngo Dinh Diem, the leader of South Vietnam. However, his main target was Fidel Castro who had established a socialist government in Cuba.

In March I960, President Dwight Eisenhower of the United States approved a CIA plan to overthrow Castro. The plan involved a budget of $13 million to train "a paramilitary force outside Cuba for guerrilla action." The strategy was organised by Bissell and Helms. An estimated 400 CIA officers were employed full-time to carry out what became known as Operation Mongoose.

Sidney Gottlieb of the CIA Technical Services Division was asked to come up with proposals that would undermine Castro's popularity with the Cuban people. Plans included a scheme to spray a television studio in which he was about to appear with an hallucinogenic drug and contaminating his shoes with thallium which they believed would cause the hair in his beard to fall out.

These schemes were rejected and instead Bissell decided to arrange the assassination of Fidel Castro. In September 1960, Richard Bissell and Allen W. Dulles, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), initiated talks with two leading figures of the Mafia, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana. Later, other crime bosses such as Carlos Marcello, Santos Trafficante and Meyer Lansky became involved in this plot against Castro.

Robert Maheu, a veteran of CIA counter-espionage activities, was instructed to offer the Mafia $150,000 to kill Fidel Castro. The advantage of employing the Mafia for this work is that it provided CIA with a credible cover story. The Mafia were known to be angry with Castro for closing down their profitable brothels and casinos in Cuba. If the assassins were killed or captured the media would accept that the Mafia were working on their own.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation had to be brought into this plan as part of the deal involved protection against investigations against the Mafia in the United States. Castro was later to complain that there were twenty ClA-sponsered attempts on his life. Eventually Johnny Roselli and his friends became convinced that the Cuban revolution could not be reversed by simply removing its leader. However, they continued to play along with this CIA plot in order to prevent them being prosecuted for criminal offences committed in the United States.

When John F. Kennedy replaced Dwight Eisenhower as president of the United States he was told about the CIA plan to invade Cuba. Kennedy had doubts about the venture but he was afraid he would be seen as soft on communism if he refused permission for it to go ahead. Kennedy's advisers convinced him that Fidel Castro was an unpopular leader and that once the invasion started the Cuban people would support the ClA-trained forces.

On April 14, 1961, B-26 planes began bombing Cuba's airfields. After the raids Cuba was left with only eight planes and seven pilots. Two days later five merchant ships carrying 1,400 Cuban exiles arrived at the Bay of Pigs. The attack was a total failure. Two of the ships were sunk, including the ship that was carrying most of the supplies. Two of the planes that were attempting to give air-cover were also shot down. Within seventy-two hours all the invading troops had been killed, wounded or had surrendered.

In February, 1962, the FBI became aware of this CIA assassination plot on Fidel Castro. When Robert Kennedy, U.S. Attorney General, found out about these plots in Febuary 1962, he was furious. He turned against Richard Helms for not telling him of the plots, and for using the same gangsters he was trying to prosecute. However, Kennedy did not bring an end to the operation. Instead he insisted that he was kept informed about the development of the project.

In April 1962, William Harvey took control of the ZR/RIFLE project. He told Johnny Roselli that Santos Trafficante and Sam Giancana had to cease involvement in the project to kill Castro. Ted Shackley, the new head of JM WAVE, also began to play a more important role in planning the assassination.

Eventually Johnny Roselli and his friends became convinced that the Cuban revolution could not be reversed by simply removing its leader. However, they continued to play along with this CIA plot in order to prevent them being prosecuted for criminal offences committed in the United States.

In February, 1963, William Harvey was removed as head of the ZR/RIFLE project. Harvey was now sent to Italy where he became Chief of Station in Rome. Harvey was convinced that Robert Kennedy had been responsible for his demotion. A friend of Harvey's said that he "hated Bobby Kennedy's guts with a purple passion".

On 22nd November, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Rumours began to circulate that gang bosses such as Johnny Roselli, Santos Trafficante, Carlos Marcello and Sam Giancana, were involved in the crime. Some CIA agents such as David Atlee Phillips, William Harvey and David Morales were also implicated in this conspiracy.

In 1970 it seemed that Salvador Allende and his Socialist Workers' Party would win the general election in Chile. Various multinational companies, including International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), feared what would happen if Allende gained control of the country. Richard Helms agreed to use funds supplied by these companies to help the right-wing party gain power. When this strategy ended in failure, Nixon ordered Helms to help the Chilean armed forces to overthrow Allende. On 11th September, 1973, a military coup removed Allende's government from power. Allende died in the fighting in the presidential palace in Santiago and General Augusto Pinochet replaced him as president.

In 1975 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began investigating the CIA. Senator Stuart Symington asked Richard Helms if the CIA had been involved in the removal of Salvador Allende. Helms replied no. He also insisted that he had not passed money to opponents of Allende.

Investigations by the CIA's Inspector General and by Frank Church and his Select Committee on Intelligence Activities showed that Hems had lied to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They also discovered that Helms had been involved in illegal domestic surveillance and the murders of Patrice Lumumba, General Abd al-Karim Kassem and Ngo Dinh Diem. In 1977 Helms was found guilty of lying to Congress and received a suspended two-year prison sentence.

27 May 2011 Last updated at 19:18 ET


'I shot the cruellest dictator in the Americas'



Rafael Trujillo, centre, in 1955 Rafael Trujillo's dictatorship is considered one of the bloodiest in the Americas


Before his assassination on a dark highway on 30 May 1961, the Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo, ruled with an iron fist for almost 30 years. Tim Mansel meets one of the men who shot him.

Rafael Trujillo's rule is considered one of the most brutal periods in the history of the Dominican Republic. Taking power in 1930, his hold over the country was absolute. He brooked no opposition.

Those who dared to oppose him were imprisoned, tortured and murdered. Their bodies often disappeared, rumoured to have been fed to the sharks.

In 1937, Trujillo ordered the racially motivated massacre of several thousand Haitians living in the country.
Gun battle

His rule ended when he was gunned down on 30 May 1961.
Gen Antonio Imbert Gen Imbert went into hiding after the assassination



Antonio Imbert is 90. Fifty years ago he was one of the seven men who ambushed and killed Rafael Trujillo.

He is a large man with closely cropped hair and he has put on a military uniform for my visit.

General Imbert - he was given the military rank later to enable him to receive a state pension - is officially a national hero.

He is brought into the room by his wife, Giralda, moving slowly towards a small rocking chair. His wife lights a cigarette for him.

"What do you want to know?" he asks.

It was late evening when Trujillo was shot dead in a gun battle on the road that leads from the capital to San Cristobal, where the dictator kept a young mistress.

“Start Quote

Nobody told me to go and kill Trujillo. The only way to get rid of him was to kill him”

Gen Imbert

In their vehicle, Gen Imbert and three other conspirators were waiting for Trujillo's chauffeur-driven Chevrolet to come past. Gen Imbert was driving. Other gunmen were stationed further up the road.

The old man's memory is not what it was. But he does remember taking up the chase as Trujillo's car sped past and he recounts the first shots being fired.

He remembers Trujillo's driver slowing down and he has not forgotten the decision to pull across in front of Trujillo's car, blocking its path.

"Then we started shooting," he says.

Trujillo and his chauffeur were armed, and fought back.

Gen Imbert recounts how he and one of the others got out of the car to get closer to their target.

"Trujillo was wounded but he was still walking, so I shot him again," he says.

At the end of the gun battle, the dictator, commonly known simply as El Jefe, was left sprawled dead across the highway.

"Then we put him in the car and took him away," says Gen Imbert. They took his body to the house of a plotter, where it was eventually discovered by police.

'Salvation'

Fifty years later I wonder if he is happy to have shot the Dominican dictator?

"Sure," he replies. "Nobody told me to go and kill Trujillo. The only way to get rid of him was to kill him."

Gen Imbert is not alone in having drawn this conclusion.

In a letter to his State Department superior in October 1960, Henry Dearborn, de facto CIA station chief in the Dominican Republic, wrote: "If I were a Dominican, which thank heaven I am not," I would favour destroying Trujillo as being the first necessary step in the salvation of my country and I would regard this, in fact, as my Christian duty."

'Cordial relations'

During his rule, Trujillo collected medals and titles, and expropriated property and businesses for himself and his family. He renamed the capital city Ciudad Trujillo, and the country's highest mountain Pico Trujillo.

Throughout this, he maintained cordial relations with the US - a picture taken in 1955 shows him in smiling embrace with then US vice-president Richard Nixon.

But the relationship gradually soured over Trujillo's human rights record. The final straw was an assassination attempt sponsored by Trujillo, against the president of Venezuela, Romulo Betancourt. The US closed its embassy and withdrew its ambassador.

President Eisenhower had already approved a contingency plan to remove Trujillo if a suitable successor could be persuaded to take over. But the new Kennedy administration withdrew formal support for the attempt on Trujillo's life at the last minute.


The failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs had taken place the previous month, and President Kennedy was worried that a power vacuum in nearby Dominican Republic could allow another Castro to take power there.

"The Cold War had moved to the Caribbean," says Bernardo Vega, Dominican historian and former ambassador to Washington.

The only material support provided by the US for the assassination was three M1 carbines left in the US Consulate after the withdrawal of embassy staff, and handed over with CIA approval.

Within days of the assassination, Trujillo's son Ramfis took charge and almost everyone involved in the conspiracy and members of their extended families were rounded up.

Two of Gen Imbert's fellow conspirators were killed in gun battles while resisting arrest. The other four were imprisoned and later shot.

A plaque near the spot where Trujillo died commemorates their sacrifice. It refers to the killing not as assassination but as "ajusticiamiento", a Spanish word that implies justice being done.

"We Dominicans react very negatively when the people who killed Trujillo are called assassins," says Bernardo Vega.

"Ajusticiamiento is a way to give it a positive twist, to say that it was a good thing to do."
'Personal revenge'

Gen Imbert owes his survival to the courage of the Italian consul in Santo Domingo who allowed him to hide in his house for six months.

He still has one of the American M1 carbines, but he won't allow me to see it. "You don't show things like that," he says.

But he does let me see the hat he wore to disguise himself in the hectic days after the shooting.

He tells a story of how he took a public bus and the driver recognised him, but wouldn't take any payment out of respect for what he'd done.

And his wife brings out the pair of scuffed brown brogues that he was wearing the night he shot Trujillo.

They're surprisingly small - size seven-and-a-half - with worn patches on the soles.

"They've never been repaired," his wife tells me. "He puts them on every 30th of May and sometimes he wears them for several days."

Miles de personas de todos los estratos sociales desfilaron ante el féretro que contenía los restos de Trujillo, el hombre que había sido sembrado en sus mentes como su protector y guía, que podía ayudarlos y defenderlos, El único dominicano que aparentemente lo podía todo y que por consiguiente estaba más cerca de Dios este hombre estaba muerto.

El documental esta disponible en la Sirena, Jumbo, cuesta, Molina, tambien puedes buscar mas informacion en http://www.videocinepalau.com/ el documental se llama el Poder del Jefe
"LA MUERTE DE TRUJILLO "

1961: Four for the assassination of Rafael Trujillo

November 18th, 2011 Headsman

Fifty years ago today, four men were shot for the ajusticiamiento — “execution” — of longtime Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo.

El Jefe had run his half of Hispaniola for more than thirty years, mirroring his contemporary Stalin for creepy personality cult — giant signs reading “God and Trujillo”; the capital city renamed after him — and dictatorial ruthlessness. Except, of course, that Trujillo was violently anti-communist. He’s the very man for whom U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull coined the memorable (and endlessly recyclable) quip, “He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he is our son-of-a-bitch.” The guy could even get away with disappearing people from New York City.


The Mario Vargas Llosa novel Feast of the Goat revolves around the Trujillo assassination.

But by the last decade of Trujillo’s reign, Dominicans were increasingly tired of his being their son-of-a-bitch.

An abortive 1959 invasion by Dominican exiles was defeated militarily but helped spawn the dissident 14th of June movement — which naturally met with state repression, most emblematically the 1960 murder of the Mirabal sisters. World opinion turned against Trujillo, and even Washington, chastened by the recent Cuban Revolution, feared that their son-of-a-bitch was becoming counterproductive.

So the CIA had actually collaborated with the plot against him hatched among other Dominican elites, providing guns, money, and its all-important blessing. “From a purely practical standpoint, it will be best for us … if the Dominicans put an end to Trujillo before he leaves this island,” the spy agency’s local station chief reported to his superiors late in 1960,

If I were a Dominican, which thank heaven I am not, I would favor destroying Trujillo as being the first necessary step in the salvation of my country and I would regard this, in fact, as my Christian duty. If you recall Dracula, you will remember it was necessary to drive a stake through his heart to prevent a continuation of his crimes. I believe sudden death would be more humane than the solution of the Nuncio who once told me he thought he should pray that Trujillo would have a long and lingering illness.

On May 30, 1961 (Spanish link), Trujillo’s car was ambushed on Avenida George Washington outside “Ciudad Trujillo” by members of his own armed forces, and riddled with gunfire. When the bullets stopped flying, Rafael Trujillo’s body was a bloody heap on the asphalt. Today, the spot is marked by a memorial plaque — commemorating not Trujillo, but the men who killed him.

That did for the dictator, but the larger aspiration of regime change experienced a little blowback.

Rather than a new dawn of liberalism and human rights, Trujillo’s son Ramfis seized power and vengefully went after his father’s killers. The Dominican Republic became prey thereafter to that familiar cycle of military coups and unstable juntas, leading a few years later to outright American occupation.

But before Trujillo fils was pushed out of the job, he had six of the assassins hunted down: two were killed resisting capture, and the other four put to death by firing squad on this date — their remains allegedly thrown to the sharks (pdf) after their executions.

There’s a BBC interview from spring 2011 with a surviving co-conspirator, Gen. Antonio Imbert, here.

Entrevista a Ramfis Trujillo en el 1961 de los archivos de la CIA