839.00/3355: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in the Dominican Republic ( Curtis )
19. Your 35, March 18, 5 p.m. The Department regrets that it cannot authorize the issuance of the statement which you suggested. We feel that through scrupulously avoiding even the appearance of interfering in the internal affairs of the Dominican Republic our relations with Santo Domingo have been put on a very sound basis in the 6 years since the withdrawal of the military occupation.
Your view that it is most unfortunate that the head of the Army should use that position for his own political advancement and as a means of obtaining the Presidency is concurred in by the Department. The Department would be willing for you to talk personally, confidentially and in the most friendly manner with Trujillo, urging on him as your personal advice the damage which he will do to the political development of the Dominican Republic by being a candidate rather than by using his power to guarantee free and fair elections. The Department feels that if you appeal to Trujillo in a thoroughly friendly and sympathetic way on the basis of the good of the Dominican Republic and the unique opportunity which he holds for the good of his country, he alone can go very far toward putting his country on the road to stability and establishing constitutional government on republican lines. The Department is inclined to feel that your [Page 719] only chance of success in preventing the candidacy of Trujillo is in a personal appeal in this way and that any duress through a public statement would defeat the ends we are seeking.
While the Department hopes that you will be able to persuade Trujillo not to be a candidate, yet it realizes the great difficulty of bringing it about and should you not succeed and Trujillo be elected it is most important that you should not impair in any way your relations with him. Therefore the Department cannot emphasize too strongly the necessity of making your appeal in a most friendly spirit. For your strictly confidential information the Department desires you to know that it expects to recognize Trujillo or any other person coming into office as a result of the coming elections and will maintain the most friendly relations with him and his Government and will desire to cooperate with him in every proper way.
It is not clear to the Department from your telegrams Nos. 25 and 28 of February 27, 11 a.m., and February 28, 3 p.m., and your despatch No. 22 of March 1, whether the agreement that Trujillo would not be a candidate was an oral or signed agreement and if signed whether Trujillo signed it or gave formal authorization to whomever did sign it to commit him in that way. Please make this clear.
It is the feeling of the Department that you might find it helpful in your talks with Trujillo to have the advantage of the great personal influence over him that the Department understands is exercised by Colonel Richard M. Cutts of the Marine Corps who is now in Haiti. Colonel Cutts was Trujillo’s commanding officer and trained him in his present duties, and the Department understands that Trujillo frequently consults him on important matters relating to Trujillo’s personal conduct and attitude. Colonel Cutts could drive over in an automobile to the Dominican Republic in a few hours, and the Department has telegraphed General John H. Russell, the American High Commissioner in Haiti, to send Colonel Cutts over if he receives a request from you to that effect. It would be possible for Colonel Cutts to get over without causing any comment by giving some other plausible reason for his coming than to visit Trujillo.