Office of the Historian

3. Airgram From the Embassy in the Dominican Republic to the Department of State1

A–315
Santo Domingo, February 16, 1964.

SUBJECT

  • Balagueristas Discover Plot to Overthrow Reid

There is enclosed a memorandum of a recent conversation between two leaders of Joaquín Balaguerʼs Partido Reformista and an Embassy officer.2 The balagueristas alleged the existence of a plot on the part of [Page 9] Rafael Bonnelly, Ramón Tapia,3 Antonio Imbert and others to depose Triumvirate President Donald Reid Cabral as a means of preventing the issuance of a law granting general political amnesty and the consequent return to the DR of Balaguer.

The Embassy is inclined to doubt that Bonnelly and Tapia are contemplating another golpe. However, the balaguerista charges are another indication that serious dissension has arisen within the GODR over the amnesty issue and the problem of Balaguer. Reid had correctly sensed the political necessity for some kind of amnesty gesture and, in all probability, sees it as a means of advancing his own political fortunes. (Reid continues to stand surprisingly high with a good part of the opposition which sees him as better intentioned and more honest than his colleagues.) On the other side Tapia (and probably Manuel Tavares), backed by Imbert and the radical right of Rafael Bonilla Aybar oppose any concessions at this time to political prisoners and exiles. Unión Cívica Nacional favors a limited amnesty but bitterly objects to extending it to the partyʼs old enemy Balaguer. In all, the amnesty issue carries with it the elements of a political crisis, one that could be on us shortly if Reid is serious in his plan to pass a law February 27.

For the Chargé dʼAffaires, a.i.
HWS
Second Secretary of Embassy
  1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, POL 23–8 DOM REP. Confidential. Drafted by Shlaudeman on February 14 and approved by DCM Spencer M. King.↩
  2. The attached memorandum of conversation, February 14, among Augusto Lora, President of the Partido Reformista, Hector Garcia Godoy of the Partido Reformista, and Political Officer Harry Shlaudeman is not printed.↩
  3. Rafael Bonnelly was President of the Dominican Republic and of the Council of State that governed the Republic from 1962 until February 27, 1963. Ramón Tapia was Secretary of State for Presidency under the Council of State, 1962–February 27, 1963, and member of the Triumvirate after Juan Boschʼs overthrow in September 25, 1963.↩