Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, The United Nations; The Western Hemisphere, Volume II

611.39/10–951

Policy Statement Prepared in the Department of State

secret

[ Washington ,] October 9, 1951.

Dominican Republic

a. objectives

Our objectives with particular reference to the Dominican Republic are: 1) to obtain the support of the Dominican Government and people in efforts to promote inter-American and world-wide peace and prosperity; 2) to build in the Dominican Republic an appreciation of the institutions and practices of representative government; 3) the economic development of the Dominican Republic and the promotion and protection of legitimate US business interests; 4) to promote mutual understanding and friendship between the peoples of the Dominican Republic and the United States; and 5) the improvement of relations between the Dominican Republic and its neighbors.

b. policies

US policies toward the Dominican Republic are of particular importance because they exemplify our attitude towards dictatorial governments in a nearby area of political and strategic significance to us. Since 1930 the Dominican Republic has been under the complete control of one of the most efficient and ruthless dictators to be found in the other American republics, Generalissimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina, under whose rule the Dominican Republic has nevertheless made very substantial progress economically and in public health and instruction. Trujillo and his favorites have, however, a stranglehold on the political and economic life of the country, except for public utilities and the sugar industry, which is principally American-owned and provides through taxation the main source of the government’s revenues.

US-Dominican relations are colored by the long history of Dominican financial and political tutelage under the US, as well as by our policy at various times during Trujillo’s rule—the most recent being the period 1944–47—of making known our disapproval of his regime. In 1905 under the so-called Theodore Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the US began the collection of Dominican customs to service the Dominican foreign debt and thus meet a potential threat of intervention by some other power. Customs control was followed in 1916 by military occupation, and for the next eight years the Dominican Republic was under a US military government. Although political sovereignty was restored in 1924, complete financial independence was not regained until 1947 with the liquidation of the remaining privately held Dominican foreign debt.

The period of US control aroused in the Dominicans an ardent desire to become and remain free from dependence on foreign governments. While Dominican opinion did not become permanently hostile to the US as a result of our intervention, and the Dominican Government fully cooperated with us in the recent war, it has been reluctant to ask our help even in undertakings which might be of benefit to it. This reluctance was intensified during and as a result of the 1944–47 period when our official relations with the Trujillo Government were on a “correct but cool” basis, and when we therefore rejected certain Dominican requests.

In seeking to achieve our first objective it is our policy to make known to the Dominican Government our international objectives and our views on specific international problems. The Dominican Government has usually made a point of cooperating with us in the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations. At the same time it has occasionally taken an aggressive stand on matters that are of particular interest to it, such as the Spanish question, how to deal with international communism, the creation of an effective inter-American organization (now achieved in the OAS), and the use of OAS machinery to curb threats of aggressive and interventionist international action against the Dominican Republic. In this last regard Dominican policy is in line with our policy of strong support for the OAS as a regional security system within the United Nations.

Efforts to achieve our first objective also play a leading role in determining our policy towards Dominican arms requests, both from the point of view of the effect which a possible refusal on our part to license arms shipments to the Dominican Republic would have on that Government’s general attitude toward us, and from the point of view of the result of such shipments on the ability of the Dominican Republic to contribute to world and Hemisphere defense against aggression. The Dominican Government has for a number of years been strengthening its armed forces, principally on the grounds that this is necessary to meet threats to Trujillo’s regime from Dominican exiles and their allies abroad. Under our 1944–47 policy of official disapproval of Trujillo’s regime as dictatorial, the Dominican Government was barred from obtaining export licenses for arms in the United States, although it would have preferred to obtain equipment here. Consequently, it obtained substantial quantities of arms elsewhere, while in turn exhibiting a cool attitude towards us. It has been our policy since the middle of 1947 to license the export of reasonable quantities of arms, aircraft, and vessels to the Dominican Republic from commercial sources. The views of the Dominican Government as to what is reasonable have not, however, always coincided with ours, but not to the extent of raising any serious barrier to basically friendly relations. We made available a small amount of ground and naval equipment from US surplus stocks in accordance with the “interim” program formulated on the basis of the 1945 military staff conversations with the other American republics, and are willing within the limitations of available supplies to consider Dominican requests under the Mutual Defense Assistance Act.¹ The Dominican Republic is now the best armed of the Caribbean and Central American republics.

The achievement of our second objective—the development of an appreciation of representative government—poses an extremely difficult problem, in view of our policy of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other friendly countries and the impossibility in any case of imposing democracy from the outside. As a matter of fact, the Dominican Republic offers a classic example of the truth of the latter proposition. From 1916 to 1924 while we were in complete control of the Dominican Republic, we endeavored to pave the way for the Dominicans themselves to establish genuine representative and democratic government in the Dominican Republic. The ostensibly democratic government which assumed power through a free election upon the withdrawal of the US Marine occupation force lasted only six years before Trujillo seized power in 1930.

Policies which we are following to achieve our second objective include: 1) an effort, through the USIE program’s portrayal of life in the United States, to bring to the Dominican people an understanding of what the democratic way of life can mean; 2) cooperation in projects for the improvement of economic, health, and educational conditions, in order to provide a foundation on which effective democracy can be based; and 3) our efforts to promote international stability and thereby to remove any basis for the claim that a “strong man” is necessary to keep the Dominican Republic safe from outside attack. We do not permit the fact that the Dominican Government is an absolute dictatorship to prevent us from maintaining normal relations with it and treating it in basically the same general manner as we do all the other American republics. Nevertheless, we refrain from positive steps which would be widely interpreted as a demonstration; of warm friendship for Trujillo and his regime, such as, for example, an official invitation to him to visit the US.

In an effort to promote the economic development of the Dominican Republic it is our policy to encourage the Dominican Government to provide a favorable climate for foreign private investment, and to encourage private US investors to give full consideration to the Dominican Republic as a field for investment. At the same time we are prepared to discuss frankly and confidentially with potential private investors the political and other circumstances affecting the security of investments in the Dominican Republic. The present value of private US investments approximates $120 million. We are not averse to the investment of non-US private foreign capital in the Dominican Republic on an equal footing with US capital, Requests to US Government agencies for financial assistance will be considered according to the criteria of economic justification and the availability of private capital.

It is also our policy to give sympathetic consideration, within the framework of the Point IV program and the expanded UN Technical Assistance program to requests of the Dominican Republic for technical assistance² in justifiable fields of activity. The Dominican Republic has not been the recipient of as much technical and financial assistance from the US Government as have many other American republics. While it would undoubtedly benefit from such assistance, its government has preferred to develop the country through a policy of vigorous economic self-improvement and the investment of private foreign capital on a contract or concession rather than a loan basis. Save for the small unpaid balance of an Export-Import Bank loan of $3 million granted in 1940 for construction purposes, and being liquidated with regular payments, the Dominican Government has no foreign debt. It tends to regard foreign loans and large scale technical assistance programs as implying a kind of economic inferiority and vassalage. Its views in this connection are conditioned by the Republic’s unfortunate experience with foreign loans, which resulted in the establishment of the previously mentioned US Government restrictions on Dominican financial sovereignty from 1905–1947.

A further factor in this independent policy of economic development has been relatively favorable conditions in the Dominican Republic in comparison with other Caribbean island areas with respect to such matters as density of population and continued availability of agricultural resources in this basically agricultural country. The Dominican Republic has not, therefore, presented us with a chronic economic problem as have certain other countries and regions in this area of primary interest to us. Aside from the already mentioned $3 million Exports-Import Bank loan of 1940, US Government assistance in recent years has been limited to the assignment of a relatively few US technical experts to the Dominican Republic and the training of a similar number of Dominican technicians in the United States, and to small health and education programs conducted by the Institute of Inter-American Affairs.³ The former program terminated in 1947, and the latter in 1948, although it has recently been revived as a vocational training program. It is anticipated, however, that US technical cooperation will be expanded under the Point IV program, in which the Dominican Government has evinced an interest, and to this end we have signed a Point TV General Agreement with the Dominican Government.⁴

It is our policy to cooperate with the Dominican Government in all possible ways to encourage and increase trade between the United States and the Dominican Republic. We encouraged the Dominican Republic to become a party to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)⁵ and to this end were one of several countries which conducted trade negotiations with her at Annecy in 1949⁶ resulting in her accession to GATT in 1950. Limited negotiations were also carried out at Torquay in 1950–51⁷ with the Dominican Republic.

The principal Dominican interest in its economic relations with the United States is a large scale opening of the US market to Dominican sugar, the country’s largest export. The preferential tariff treatment granted Cuba has since 1902 operated to the distinct disadvantage of the Dominican sugar industry. When the sugar import quota system was established by the Congress in the Sugar Act of 1934,⁸ imports of sugar from the Dominican Republic and other “full-duty” countries were virtually barred. Cuba’s preferential position was maintained in the Sugar Act of 1937⁹ and increased in the Sugar Act of 1948.¹⁰ For the foregoing reasons, Dominican sugar has traditionally found a market in Great Britain and, because the war stimulated a boom in world demand for sugar, the Dominican sugar export situation has been favorable in recent years. However, with the increasing production of sugar in the British Commonwealth and the growing uncertainty regarding the continued availability of dollars for British or other European purchases of Dominican sugar exports, as well as with the Dominican realization of dependence on the United States as the supplier of approximately 75% of Dominican imports and the consequent need for dollar exchange, there has recently been a concerted effort on the part of Dominicans to obtain a fundamental change in our sugar policy, so that the Dominican Republic will ultimately be able to dispose of a good share of its sugar output in the US market. In accordance with our policy looking toward eventual elimination of tariff preferences in world trade the United States has reduced somewhat the margin of tariff preference enjoyed by Cuba on sugar¹¹ while the preferences on a number of other products (mostly, however, unimportant ones) have been eliminated entirely.

With respect to an increase in the quota for Dominican sugar, we have been sympathetic to the Dominican problem in this connection, and with the Department of Agriculture recommended to the Congress an approximate 300% increase in the small quota for all full duty countries, including the Dominican Republic, when new sugar legislation was under consideration in the summer of 1951. Although enacted into law,¹² this change, which beginning in 1953 would increase the basic Dominican quota from 5,468 tons to 29,469 tons at the present level of US consumption, does not satisfy the Dominican authorities, who asked for a quota of 250,000 tons.¹³

In efforts to achieve our objective of promoting mutual understanding and friendship between the peoples of the Dominican Republic and the United States, we pursue the policy of informing the Dominican people about the United States and its people through our program of International Information and Educational Exchange. This entails an active press, radio, and motion picture program. In view of the strong de facto censorship existing in the Dominican Republic with respect to matters distasteful to the Government, our information program there is directed to themes which we feel will not arouse the opposition of the Government (as, for example, might a direct portrayal of the advantages of democracy over dictatorship) and perhaps result in difficulties for USIE activities in the Dominican Republic. We sponsor, with the Dominican Government, a Dominican-US Cultural Center in Ciudad Trujillo, which is actively supported both by Dominican cultural and official leaders and by American citizens resident in Ciudad Trujillo. The Center provides a meeting place for Dominicans and Americans interested in learning more of each other’s culture through lectures, extensive library facilities, the teaching of English, and various other means. We have from time to time sent US professors and lecturers to the Dominican Republic for the purpose of teaching their specialties or imparting to Dominicans information about the United States. Many Dominican students, intellectual leaders, and technicians have also visited the United States to pursue their studies and specialties, some of them under our student exchange and travel grant program.

Our fifth objective—the improvement of relations between the Dominican Republic and its neighbors—is given particular import by virtue of the fact that during the past several years the Dominican Republic has been directly involved, both as an intended victim and as a participant, in a series of plots and counter plots directed against various governments of the Caribbean area by political exiles and adventurers, with the support at times of other governments in the area in violation of international obligations. The result was a mounting international tension and deterioration of relations between certain countries, including relations between the Dominican Republic on the one hand, and Cuba, Guatemala, Haiti, and at times Venezuela and Costa Rica on the other. It is our policy in the achievement of this objective to endeavor, both through appropriate direct representations and through our membership on OAS bodies dealing with these matters, to encourage these countries to work towards this end; through the latter means we also expect to prevent and punish possible violations of international obligations in connection with such conspiracies and thereby to diminish international tension in the area.

c. relations with other states

As already indicated, among the foreign relations of major concern to the Dominican Republic are those with certain of its neighbors. The state of these relations is determined primarily by the attitudes and activities of other governments toward the Trujillo regime, and vice versa, or by Trujillo’s beliefs concerning these attitudes and activities. He has believed at various times, with some reason, that certain elements, if not government officials, in Cuba, Guatemala, Haiti, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Mexico have been allied with Dominican exiles in the latter’s unceasing propaganda campaign against him, as well as in the organization of two armed expeditions to unseat him. On the other hand, certain Dominican officials have participated in the past few years in similar movements directed against other countries in the Caribbean area.

Relations with Haiti have historically presented the greatest difficulties for the Dominican Republic. There is a constant underlying strain on these relations owing to historical and racial factors and to population pressure from Haiti on the much less densely settled Dominican Republic. In 1937 the Dominican authorities perpetrated a wholesale massacre of Haitian peasants who had infiltrated into the Dominican Republic.¹⁴ Early in 1950 certain Dominican officials were found by a special investigating committee of the OAS to have been involved several months before in a plot to overthrow the Haitian Government.¹⁵ On the other hand, a basic Dominican fear has been that Haitian territory will be used as a base of operations for revolutionary activities against it. Although the same OAS Investigating Committee was unable to confirm any factual basis for such Dominican fears in the several immediately preceding years, there were later reports tending to confirm to a certain degree Dominican apprehensions at that time. Since the overthrow of the Estimé¹⁶ regime in Haiti in May 1950,¹⁷ Trujillo has felt much less apprehension on this score, and there has been a gradual improvement of relations, including a meeting between Presidents Trujillo and Magloire¹⁸ and their joint declaration that they would work towards agreements on several matters of common interest and a strengthening of economic and cultural ties between the two countries.

Dominican relations with Cuba and Guatemala have been particularly strained in recent years owing to the organization within their respective territories of two military expeditions by Dominican exiles and other anti-Trujillo elements, as confirmed by the aforementioned report of the OAS Caribbean Investigating Committee early in 1950. The expedition, organized in Cuba in 1947, had the active support of certain high Cuban Government officials and was tolerated for several months by the Cuban Government, in violation of Cuba’s international obligations. Although the expedition was eventually broken up by the Cuban armed forces, and the OAS in April 1950 condemned Cuba’s part in it, relations between the two countries have continued to be strained owing to: 1) the Dominican Government’s feeling that the Cuban Government has failed to give complete satisfaction for Dominican grievances arising out of Cuban toleration of the expedition; 2) the Cuban Government’s apparent sympathy for the objectives of Trujillo’s enemies and the Dominican Government’s belief that the Cuban Government is actively cooperating with anti-Trujillo elements to undermine Trujillo’s position; 3) continued anti-Trujillo propaganda and other activities in Cuba short of actual organization of another military expedition; 4) a vociferous and manifest public hostility to the Dominican Government in Cuba; 5) alleged threats to the physical safety of the personnel of the Dominican diplomatic mission in Habana; and 6) rivalry between the two countries over their respective shares of the US sugar quota.

Relations with Guatemala have likewise continued strained since the June 1949 organization in that country of an air expedition against the Dominican Republic, one plane of which actually arrived in and attacked Dominican territory. Despite the failure of the expedition, the Guatemalan Government has continued its policy of open hostility towards the Trujillo regime and friendship for its foes. The Guatemalan Government, and the Costa Rican Government as well, have not maintained diplomatic relations with the Dominican Government for a number of years because of their openly stated enmity to dictatorship of the Trujillo type. In large part because of their common enmity towards Guatemala and lack of friendship for Costa Rica, Trujillo and President Somoza¹⁹ of Nicaragua, both dictators, feel a natural affinity and have long maintained friendly relations.

Diplomatic relations between Venezuela and the Dominican Republic were resumed after the ousting in 1948 of Venezuela President Betancourt,²⁰ who Trujillo thought was cooperating in plotting against him, and there has been a cessation of Dominican charges that the Venezuelan Government was aiding and abetting Dominican exiles in revolutionary activities. Such charges continue to be made from time to time against the exiled leaders of the Betancourt Acción Democrática Party.

Relations with the UK have been of significance because the UK is the traditional market for Dominican sugar and the British Government for several years has purchased virtually all Dominican sugar exports, more recently with ECA financing. During the years 1946–49, the UK was the source of a number of military aircraft and warships obtained by the Dominican Government. Such military transactions were of particular significance to us as a source of dollars for Great Britain, but on the other hand ran counter to the objective of standardization of western hemisphere armament with US equipment.

Trujillo feels a personal and ideological affinity with General Franco²¹ of Spain, and strongly opposed the UN 1946 resolution²² on Spain. In the Fifth Regular Session of the General Assembly in 1950, the Dominican Republic was one of the governments sponsoring the resolution which modified the 1946 action.²³ The United States voted for this resolution. Shortly after the close of the Spanish Civil War, in an effort to impress world opinion that the Dominican Republic was willing to receive the oppressed, as well as to encourage white immigration, Trujillo had offered haven to a considerable number of Spanish Republican refugees, most of whom were later glad to leave the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican Republic has no relations with the USSR and is outspokenly anti-Communist. Trujillo regards himself as a hemisphere leader against Communism, and refers to all his enemies, Communists and non-Communists alike, as Communists. The Dominican Government has from time to time indicated its willingness to support the United States and the United Nations in anti-Communist measures.

d. policy evaluation

US policy with respect to the Dominican Republic can be considered to be successful in view of the almost unqualified Dominican Government support for our international objectives, and its willingness to cooperate with us in practically any matter in which we request its cooperation. One notable exception to date has been the Dominican Government’s failure to contribute to UN military forces, allegedly because of the need to maintain all its forces at home for defense against a possible attack from outside by the forces of “international communism” (i.e., anti-Trujillo Dominican exiles and their sympathizers). In addition, there are certain factors which, while not preventing basic Dominican support of our international objectives, irk the Dominican Government and cause it some chagrin. One of these factors is anti-Trujillo publicity in the United States. Another is the movement of anti-Trujillo Dominicans in and out of the United States. The Dominican Government believes we should prevent both of these types of activity in the interest of good US-Dominican relations. We have told the Dominican Government that while we are prepared to and will enforce US statutes which forbid activities against the security of foreign governments or activities which in their operation might have an adverse effect on such governments, we cannot undertake to limit the free activities or movements of anti-Dominican Government individuals, whether US citizens or aliens, which are not in violation of US law.

Another factor which has affected the Dominican Government’s general attitude towards us has been its dissatisfaction at times with our refusal to approve certain arms exports, or with what it regards as delay in the issuance of export licenses. At the same time we are frequently attacked by liberals and anti-Trujillo elements for permitting the export of armament to the Dominican Government. There are admittedly arguments on both sides with regard to the desirability of permitting arms to go to the Dominican Republic from the United States but on balance our present policy of licensing the export of reasonable quantities of arms from commercial sources and of according the Dominican Government opportunity to share in available supplies of military equipment under the Mutual Defense Assistance Act is justifiable if we are to maintain officially friendly relations with the Dominican Government and secure its cooperation in matters of interest to us. Our efforts to persuade the Dominican Government to rely primarily on the OAS and the United Nations for the military defense of the Dominican Republic against aggression have met with only limited success. We have pointed out in this connection that the Dominican Government could more profitably use its resources for the material development of the country than for armaments. The Dominican Government, while agreeing with us in principle and recently stabilizing or even reducing its rate of expenditures for this purpose, feels that it must have adequate means to defend itself against possible further expeditions which may be organized against it abroad.

With respect to our second objective it is obvious that no observable progress has been made towards the democratization of the Dominican Republic. There is no evidence so far of the Dominican Republics’ turning from dictatorship while Trujillo maintains control, and he is firmly in the saddle with apparently excellent health. On the other hand, democracy is the Dominican ideal, and even Trujillo portrays himself as a democratic leader and his country as one where full civil and political rights prevail. We are under constant attack by liberals in this and other countries and by Dominican political exiles for maintaining normal diplomatic relations with Trujillo. However, unless we are prepared forcibly to remove Trujillo—and such a step would be clearly contrary to our non-intervention commitments—a policy of other than normal relations would merely antagonize him, as has been the case in past efforts to apply such a policy, without removing him or advancing the cause of democracy in the Dominican Republic. In certain cases where a policy of discrimination against Trujillo would involve a withholding of concrete benefits to the Dominican Republic, such discrimination would injure the Dominican people in equal if not greater degree.

With respect to our third objective, the Dominican Government regards our policy towards its desire for a larger share of the US sugar market as the basic yardstick for measuring our willingness to take positive steps to cooperate with it in economic matters. Regardless of how much technical assistance we may be willing to make available to the Dominican Republic under Point IV, the Dominican Government will undoubtedly feel in increasing degree that unless we make a more substantial gesture in this direction than we have to date, we are discriminating against it in a matter of prime economic importance to it, and its general attitude towards us will be affected accordingly.

Despite the progress made by the Dominican Republic in economic development, health, and education in the past 20 years, there remains much to be done to bring it up to the economic levels of the more developed of the other American republics. A principal factor in achieving this objective will continue to be the investment of private foreign (i.e., mainly US) capital in worthwhile lines of endeavor. In connection with our objective of promoting and protecting legitimate US business and investments in the Dominican Republic we have been successful in the main in preventing discrimination against American interests; there is, in fact, a tendency for the Dominican Government to accord American interests better treatment than that accorded Dominican or other foreign nationals, precisely because we have been zealous in guarding our citizens’ interests. Threats to the security of foreign investment in the Dominican Republic arise primarily not from discriminatory treatment against foreigners but from abuses which are suffered by the entire populace—Dominicans and foreigners alike—with the exception of the privileged few. The basic fact is that economic activity in the Dominican Republic must adjust itself to the existence of an officially sponsored system of tribute and favoritism, which is used to further the business interests of those having official blessing and to injure those not having such blessing.

With reference to our fourth objective it is difficult to judge the extent to which mutual understanding and friendship between the US and Dominican peoples has been achieved. In particular it is difficult to know to what extent the masses of the population are aware of and friendly to the US. One reason for this is that in the absence of a free press, free expression of opinion, and free elections, there is no way of measuring their attitude. Nevertheless, it seems likely that among Dominican intellectual, business, and professional leaders, many of whom have visited the US or have come into frequent contact with US citizens in the Dominican Republic, the sentiment towards the US is predominantly friendly. However, inasmuch as certain Dominicans have been subjected to segregation practices in the US because of their color, they and other Dominicans of the same color have become unfriendly towards us. Anti-Trujillo Dominicans, including individuals within the country who are willing to speak freely with Embassy representatives and other trusted US citizens, as well as exiles outside the country, usually exhibit varying degrees of impatience with, or even hostility to, the US because they think we are remiss in not ridding the Dominican Republic of Trujillo or at least in not instituting a partial or thorough boycott of his regime.

The achievement of our fifth objective must be measured in both short and long run terms. With respect to efforts to ameliorate the international tension of the past five years in the Caribbean and to improve relations between the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean and Central American republics, real progress has been made in that this tension has abated and there is no real evidence of a renewal of government assistance to or toleration of military activities directed towards the overthrow of other governments in the area. Not only has such positive governmental support of anti-Trujillo elements apparently ceased, but Dominican Government officials do not appear to be sponsoring plots or conspiracies against other governments. On the other hand, mutual antipathies continue to exist as between the Dominican Government and the governments of Cuba and Guatemala, and it does not appear that there can be friendship between their respective regimes in view of the severe ideological differences between them (i.e., “dictatorship” versus “democracy”) and the sympathy of the Cuban and Guatemalan regimes for Trujillo’s enemies.

With specific reference to Dominican-Haitian relations, any basic improvement is a long run matter, although from time to time relations may improve temporarily. The Dominican Government and people have a tendency to feel that they should have our support in what they regard as their defense of Christian civilization against engulfment by the African barbarism and paganism of Haiti. They view our efforts to maintain an objective and unbiased attitude towards Dominican-Haitian relations as favoritism towards Haiti.

Nonetheless, despite the difficulties which prevent full achievement of our objectives vis-á-vis the Dominican Republic, and make impossible perfect US-Dominican harmony, there is no doubt that under its present government the Dominican Republic will be found on our side in most important international issues and in any basic world controversy.

1. For text of the Mutual Defense Assistance Act (Public Law 329), approved October 6, 1949, see 63 Stat. 714.
2. For documentation concerning United States technical assistance policy toward the American Republics as a group, see pp. 1038 ff.
3. The Institute of Inter-American Affairs (IIAA) was established in 1942 and became a United States Government corporation in 1947. Its purpose was to aid governments in the Western Hemisphere by promoting technical programs and projects for health, sanitation, and food supply; as of mid-1950 the IIAA operated in conjunction with the Technical Cooperation Administration (TCA) in Latin America. For background information on the IIAA, see the statement made by Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Willard L. Thorp before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on June 10, 1949, printed in the Department of State Bulletin, June 19, 1949, pp. 795–797. For information on the activities of the IIAA and its relationship with TCA in 1950, see the editorial note in Foreign Relations, 1950, vol. ii, p. 679.
4. By an exchange of notes dated February 20, 1951, at Ciudad Trujillo, the United States and the Dominican Republic had concluded a Point IV General Agreement for Technical Cooperation, which entered into force on the same date. The notes were transmitted to the Department of State under cover of despatch 532, from Ciudad Trujillo, February 21, 1951, not printed (839.00–TA/2–2151). For text, see TIAS No. 2226, or 2 UST 709.
5. For text of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), concluded at Geneva on October 30, 1947, and entered into force for the United States, January 1, 1948, see TIAS No. 1700, or 61 Stat. (pts. 5 and 6).
6. For documentation on trade negotiations under the GATT at Annecy, see Foreign Relations, 1949, vol. i, pp. 651 ff.
7. For documentation on trade negotiations under the GATT at Torquay, England, see ibid., 1950, vol. i, pp. 791 ff.
8. Reference is to Public Law 213, approved May 9, 1934, which amended the Agricultural Adjustment Act of May 12, 1933 (Public Law 10) to include sugar beets and sugar cane as basic agricultural commodities and to establish import quotas for these products. For text of P.L. 213, see 48 Stat. 670; for text of P.L. 10, see 48 Stat. 31.
9. For text of the Sugar Act (Public Law 414), approved September 1, 1937, see 50 Stat. 903.
10. For text of the Sugar Act (Public Law 388), approved August 8, 1947, see 61 Stat. 922.
11. For documentation on the negotiations in 1951 between the United States and Cuba concerning sugar, see pp. 1329 ff.
12. Reference is to Public Law 140, approved September 1, 1951, which amended and extended the Sugar Act of 1948; for text of P.L. 140, see 65 Stat. 318.

13. Documents pertaining to Dominican interest in an increased sugar quota are contained in Department of State decimal file 839.235.

    There is considerable unpublished documentation on the Cuban sugar preference question and its ramifications in United States trade relations in decimal file 560 AL, and in International Trade Files, Lot 57 D 284, boxes 108–109, and 128–132 (the 1949 GATT meetings at Annecy, France).

14. For documentation on the tender of good offices by the United States, Cuba, and Mexico to conciliate differences between the Dominican Republic and Haití arising from this incident, see Foreign Relations, 1937, vol. v, pp. 133–141.
15. For documentation concerning United States support of inter-American collective action for peaceful settlement of disputes, with particular reference to the Caribbean area, see ibid., 1950, vol. ii, pp. 641 ff.
16. Dumarsais Estimé, President of Haiti, 1946–1950.
17. For documentation on this subject and the recognition of the new government in Haiti, see Foreign Relations, 1950, vol. ii, pp. 932 ff.
18. Paul E. Magloire, President of Haiti.
19. Anastasio Somoza García.
20. Rómulo Betancourt.
21. Francisco Franco Bahamonde, Spain’s Chief of State.
22. Reference is to Resolution No. 39 (I) of the General Assembly of the United Nations, dated December 12, 1946. For text, see United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly, First Session, Resolutions Adopted by the General Assembly During the Second Part of its First Session From 23 October to 15 December 1946, pp. 63–64.
23. Reference is to Resolution No. 386 (V), dated November 4, 1950. For text, see United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifth Session, Resolutions adopted by the General Assembly during the period 19 September to 15 December 1950, Supplement No. 20 (A/1775), pp. 16–17.