To visitors at the White House last week, President Johnson quoted a new version of a Latin American slogan: "Constitutionalism, sí! Communism, no!" It was a slogan that exactly described the U.S. position in the Dominican Republic's civil war. Yet in a week of deepening frustration, every U.S. and OAS effort to bring the rival factions peacefully together in some sort of non-Communist coalition, constitutional government was destined to fail. Despite an official ceasefire, the war went on, with mounting casualties on all sides.
As his special envoy, President Johnson sent John Bartlow Martin, 49, to plead for "broad-based" government between the rebels, led by Colonel Francisco Caamaño Deñó, and the five-man loyalist junta headed by Brigadier General Antonio Imbert Barreras. Martin was U.S. ambassador in Santo Domingo in 1963 during the administration of exiled President Juan Bosch, in whose name the original revolt was launched. He was a friend of Bosch, knew both Caamaño and Imbert. He carried only one condition from Johnson: that Communists among the rebels must be excluded from any new government. Martin shuttled repeatedly between the two camps without making any progress. "When the killing started," he said, "ideas disappeared."
"We Must Work." The problem was not so much Imbert, who was struggling to return some sort of order to the 90% of Santo Domingo he said he controlled. With U.S. permission, Imbert dipped into Alianza funds for $700,000 to pay government employees and get them back to work, called the city's top businessmen to the Congressional Palace and urged them to start up their factories. "We must create a national movement and work for our country," he said. "The Communists work night and day, but we don't."
Imbert declared himself ready to talk to Caamaño "any time, any place." He quickly cleared the decks of six high-ranking military men unacceptable to the rebels, unceremoniously giving them each $1,000 pocket money, permitting one phone call to their families, then shipping them off to Puerto Rico aboard a Dominican gunboat. The one man he did not exile was Brigadier General Elías Wessin y Wessin, leader of the loyalists in the early stages of the revolt. At one point, Wessin y Wessin seemed on the verge of resigning, then changed his mind. Imbert refused to force his hand. "The government has not asked for his resignation," said Imbert. "He should know what to do." For his part, Wessin said: "I will not resign as long as one Communist remains in the country."
"We Are Stronger." In his downtown headquarters, Rebel Leader Caamaño reacted to all this with hoots of derision. With his chief lieutenant, Héctor Aristy, he spent the week posturing before newsmen, claiming 47,000 men under arms in the rebel zone (the figure is closer to 12,000) and proclaiming, "We are growing stronger every day." While the rebels denied that Communists were among their leaders, they were calling loyalists gusanos, meaning worms, a favorite Castroite term. And if they were genuinely interested in peace, they showed little sign of it.