Santo Domingo – Tomorrow, the country commemorates 59 years since the second U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic, which took place on April 28, 1965, and which provoked adverse reactions and rejection, not only in the Dominican sector but also in other parts of the world.
One justification of the American nation for the infamous invasion was the supposed protection of the lives of Americans and other foreigners. Still, it soon became evident that it intended to prevent the occupied nation from becoming communist, as Washington officials maintained.
The intervention greatly polarized the country and soon ushered in the government of Joaquín Balaguer, an authoritarian president who was in many ways a throwback figure to an earlier and, to some extent, discredited era.
An essay published by the Archivo General de la Nación (AGN) in 2015 points out that within the United States itself, the military occupation also produced adverse reactions, as essential sectors showed energetic opposition to the action, so much so that the five newspapers most widely read in Washington policy-making circles at the time, such as the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Christian Science Monitor, published highly critical reports.
Prominent leaders, mainly from the governing Democratic Party, attacked the policies of then President Lyndon B. Johnson, as did Senator J. William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who made firm charges.
The insurrection
The insurrection to the invasion was led by the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) and its allies of the revolutionary left, who, with a group of military men who advocated the return of Bosch, stormed the National Palace and installed Rafael Molina Ureña as provisional president.