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Iron Curtain, negotiated a nonaggression pact with Fidel Castro. He promised to let a Fidelista political party organize and sent flunkies around the country making leftist speeches. Son Ramfis faces the certainty that of all Dominican opposition factions, the Communists and the Castroites are best organized to fill the power vacuum left by his father's death.
And vacuum there will be. After years of autocracy, the Dominican Republic was a stunned place. Thousands of Dominicans, many of them wailing hysterically, tried to jam into the tiny crypt of the church in San Cristóbal, where Trujillo's closed coffin was laid to rest. Ramfis ordered them out, then, with eyes blazing, vowed at his father's tomb to kill every one of the opposition. After the funeral, 1,000 suspected opponents of the regime were rounded up. Diaz' son was reported killed, and his wife held for torture; the government announced the death of one assassin, the capture of three others.
Into the Vacuum. In one sense, Trujillo's death had cleared the air. Many Latin American nations had been unwilling to move against Castro so long as Trujillo's longer-lasting dictatorship continued unchecked and uncondemned. But in the chaotic aftermath, there was danger of a bloodbath instituted by Trujillo's unproved heirs, or the counterdanger of a revolt in which a Castro might emerge triumphant. Washington sounded out members of the Organization of American States on the possibility of joint action to maintain order inside the Dominican Republic, got firm assent from key nations. As the threat of Ramfis Trujillo's reprisals grew stronger at week's end, the U.S. served notice that it wanted the era of terror ended. State Department Press Officer Lincoln White reported that "unwarranted repression" was being employed in Ciudad Trujillo "against anyone who is felt to be not loyal to the regime." Pointedly, he opened the possibility that U.S. forces, already gathering in the Caribbean, might move in to protect U.S. lives "should this situation erupt."