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Ample Evidence. In the Dominican Republic itself, the U.S. was instrumental in bringing an end to the Trujillo dictatorship. In the recent crisis, U.S. policy may well have suffered from some mistakes and misinformation. But the fact remains that the country was on the verge of a bloodbath, and that the Communists were swiftly profiting from the chaos. U.S. troops, whether 5,000 or 20,000, enforced a more or less peaceful settlement—and the U.S., in the end, was far tougher with the loyalist "reactionaries" than with the Communist-infiltrated rebels.
Last week, as Provisional President Héctor García-Godoy completed his second week in office, 9,200 U.S. and OAS troops were still in the Dominican Republic. García-Godoy needs them there. During the revolt, the three shades of Communism—the Peking-lining Dominican Popular Movement, the Moscow-oriented Dominican Communist Party, the Castroite 14th of June Movement—controlled some 2,500 armed fighters. All three groups have been smuggling arms out of Santo Domingo to stash them in other cities and in the hills.
After Fulbright's speech, President Johnson was asked how he now felt about the intervention. His reply: "I would do it all over again, only we'd have done it earlier and tougher."