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The next morning, high-ranking army officers, anxious to use the revolt as an excuse for getting rid of Reid, told him that they would not fire on the rebel troops. Reid had no choice but to resign, and fled into hiding at a friend's home. It was already too late to smother the mob's pent-up passions. Insistently, the rebel radio exhorted: "Kill a policeman! Kill a policeman!" "Come into the street and bring three or four others with you!" The frightened army men who had forced Reid's resignation turned the government over to Lawyer Rafael Molina Ureña, a Bosch supporter, until Bosch himself could return. In San Juan, Bosch announced that he would be in Santo Domingo "just as soon as the air force sends a plane for me."
"Bring Them to Us." The Dominican air force was loyal to Wessin y Wessin. Up to this point he had only watched from the sidelines at San Isidro. At last he took a hand. Instead of a DC-3 to San Juan, he ordered his F-51s to strafe the palace and the approaches to the Duarte Bridge, which his tanks would cross to reach the city. Several people were killed in the raids, which roused the rebel radio and TV stations to a new frenzy. Well-known members of three Communist groups, including the 14th of June, appeared on TV in Cuban-style uniforms to harangue the audience into action. They broadcast the addresses of loyalists' supporters and relatives. "Wessin's sister lives at 25 Santiago!" "Find the pilots' families and bring them to us!" And the mob did. Wives and children of air force pilots were dragged before TV cameras. Warned the announcer: "We are going to hold them at the bridge. If you strafe there, you kill them."
On Sunday afternoon, army defectors distributed four truckloads of weapons among rebels in the Ciudad Nueva, a low-cost housing area in the city's southeast: bazookas, .50-cal. machine guns, automatic rifles. Pro-Bosch rebels numbering about 2,000 to 4,000 began waging an urban guerrilla war, making forays into the business district, thus paralyzing the city. Rebel mobs sacked the new Pepsi-Cola plant, set fire to the offices of a pro-Reid newspaper, destroyed Reid's auto agency.
From his command post at San Isidro, Wessin y Wessin announced operación libre to liberate the city. The army garrison at San Cristóbal rallied to his side; the navy joined in, lobbed 3-in. shells at the palace. Air force planes made repeated strafing runs. Then across the river rumbled the tanks, firing almost point-blank into rebel Ciudad Nueva.