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Despite U.S. demands for explanation of the C-47 force-down and U.S. charges that the Dominican Republic tricked Ambassador Farland into being photographed giving Pilot Ventura Simó an apparently congratulatory handshake, Trujillo last week greeted the crews of three visiting U.S. Coast Guard vessels as though he did not have a care in the world. He swapped toasts with the U.S. officer in charge at a palace reception, passed around a muddy U.S. flag he said one of the invasion boats was flying when it was sunk.
A few rebels were still stubbornly refusing to be mopped up in the hills around Constanza; Dominican intelligence said it had learned that a new 1,000-man invasion force, financed with $8,000,000 provided by Cuba's Trujillo-hating Fidel Castro, was preparing to board a pair of U.S. war-surplus landing ships in Cuba's Oriente province for a new invasion. Feeding the fire at week's end, Cuba broke off diplomatic relations with the Dominican Republic and had its U.N. delegate announce that he would go before the U.N. to ask world action in support of the Dominican rebels—if there are any.