175. Memorandum From the Presidentʼs Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson1
[less than 1 line of source text not declassified] has supplied us with the first partial results of the Dominican Republic poll. It covers a sample of 600 out of the 1,000 planned.2
The sample includes the whole of the DR except the towns of Santiago and Santo Domingo; that is, it covers 60% of the potential voting population.
The comparison with the March poll follows:
| March 1966 | May 1966 | |
| Balaguer | 54.8 | 46.1 |
| Bosch | 19.2 | 34.8 |
| Bonnelly | 3.0 | 5.2 |
| Other | 1.4 | — |
| Undecided | 21.6 | 13.9 |
To the question: Whom do you expect to win?, the answer was:
- Bosch—36.4
- Balaguer—31.7
- Bonnelly—1.5
- Donʼt know—30.4
[less than 1 line of source text not declassified] comments as follows:
- a.
- Balaguer should do well in Santiago; but he is weak in Santo Domingo.
- b.
- In general, it looks like a horse race.
- c.
- He is mildly encouraged by the fact that the differences between voter preferences and voter estimate of who will win does not indicate a landslide mentality.
I underlined again that nothing should be spared which will not be counterproductive to get out the rural vote.
- Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Intelligence File, Dominican Republic Elections—1966. Top Secret; Eyes Only; Sensitive. An “L” on the memorandum indicates the President saw it.↩
- In a May 11 memorandum to the President, Rostow summarized the “unweighted full” Dominican Republic poll results as follows: “Balaguer 43%, Bosch 37%, Bonnelly 4%, and Undecided 16%.” (Ibid.)↩