FORTY YEARS AGO, on the morning of April 26, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson spoke with a top State Department official about fast-moving events in the Dominican Republic. A popular rebellion was on the verge of toppling a military junta and restoring the country's democratically elected president, Juan Bosch, to power.
"This Bosch is no good," Mr. Johnson said. "He's no good at all," replied Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Mann, who added: "If we don't get a decent government in there, Mr. President, we get another Bosch. It's just going to be another sinkhole."
Two days after that phone conversation, thousands of U.S. Marines landed on the beaches of Santo Domingo. By then, the White House spin machinery was in high gear. When the president went on television to declare that the military action was necessary to rescue U.S. citizens, he didn't mention that nearly all of them had already been evacuated before the Marines arrived.
The invasion of the Dominican Republic turned out to be the first in a modern series of U.S. military interventions that produced quick victories overseas and evident satisfaction at home. The sudden and overwhelming arrival of U.S. troops in Santo Domingo was a prototype for the lightning-strike invasions of Grenada and Panama in the 1980s.
In their phone conversation two days before the Marines landed, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Mann were already planning the post-invasion government of the Dominican Republic.
A tape recording of the discussion conveys large doses of imperial arrogance. "We're going to have to really set up that government down there," the president said, "and run it and stabilize it some way or other."
Forty years later, it's easy to imagine similar conversations in the present-day Oval Office.
As young Marines, we didn't know or give a shit about the politics. We were eager to go somewhere and kick some ass. We assumed it was legit and our government was telling the truth. Please remember that it was the dawn of time as far as public awareness and speedy communication went. I got a real pretty Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal campaign ribbon out of the deal.
Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, we were used as unwitting tools by the administration, as servicemen have always been and will continue to be.
Iraq aside, when I read this article, for some reason Venezuela came to mind.
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