weekend
themes
“President Lyndon Johnson regretted sending U.S. troops into the Dominican Republic in 1965, telling aides less than a month later, 'I don't want to be an intervenor,' according to new transcripts of White House tapes published today (along with the tapes themselves) for the first time by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.”
“Johnson
ordered U.S. Marines into Santo Domingo 50 years ago today. Three
weeks later, he lamented both that the crisis had cost American lives
and that it had turned out badly on the ground as well as for the
United States' – and Johnson's own – political standing.
Nevertheless, he insisted he would 'do the same thing right this
second.'”
“Johnson's
public explanation for sending the Marines into Santo Domingo was to
rescue Americans endangered by civil war conditions in the Dominican
Republic. But his main motivation, the tapes and transcripts confirm,
was to prevent a Communist takeover. Basing his decision largely on
assertions by the CIA and others in the U.S. government that Cuba's
Fidel Castro had been behind the recent uprising, Johnson confided to
his national security advisor, 'I sure don't want to wake up ... and
find out Castro's in charge.' That intelligence, along with other
information Johnson received during the crisis, turned out to be
erroneous – a possibility LBJ himself worried about at the time.”
Full
research:
These
materials are reproduced from www.nsarchive.org with the permission
of the National Security Archive.
Comments
Post a Comment