386. Memorandum of Conversation1
SUBJECT
- Presentation of Credentials
PARTICIPANTS
- The President
- Mr. Angier Biddle Duke, Chief of Protocol, State
- Mr. Edwin M. Martin, Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs, State
- Ambassador Del Rosario, new Dominican Ambassador to US
[Here follows discussion on the Managua Conference in Central America, April 3-4.]
The President then asked what we were going to do about Haiti. The Ambassador said that the Dominican Republic would prefer to have the OAS act. The President felt they would not do so under present circumstances with which the Ambassador agreed. The Ambassador indicated that they were working directly with some of the Haitian military. The President indicated that this was good, but he guessed there were not very many of them. He pointed out that there were many difficulties about United States intervention, and the history of the Dominican relations with Haiti made it difficult for the Dominicans to get too involved directly in Haitian affairs. Therefore, from both our standpoints, it was desirable to have a strong Haitian group ready to move in case the situation developed in such a way that action was appropriate and not have to rely entirely on Dominican and US forces. The United States wanted to work with the Dominicans on this and support their efforts.
The Ambassador commented on the difficulty in finding a leader that could be trusted and who seemed able. There wasn’t much to choose from. The President agreed, but said we had to do the best we could, and he wanted to make sure that, if President Bosch at any time had any requests to make in this regard, he, the President, wanted to know personally about them.
[Here follows discussion of U.S.-Dominican relations unrelated to Haiti.]
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 17-1 DOM REP-US. Top Secret; Limit Distribution. Drafted by Martin and approved by the White House on June 14. The time of the meeting was taken from the President’s Appointment Book. (Kennedy Library)↩