44. Telephone Conversation Between Abe Fortas and President Johnson1
[Omitted here is discussion during which Fortas reported that he had just spoken to Jaime Benitez who had in turn spoken to Bosch. Bosch himself had been talking to Caamaño, the rebel leader. Benitez told Fortas that Caamaño had just captured Fort Ozama and 21 tanks. Abe said Bosch had told Caamaño that he would announce “a military victory” from San Juan and also call for a cease-fire. At this point in the conversation, President Johnson excused himself for a moment to try to get McNamara on the line, but McNamara had just left his office.]
President: I had tried to explain to [McNamara] that I hoped for some prospect of internationalizing this thing: a. To get the OAS to meet again today. They just adjourned until tomorrow and said they decided to sleep today. And try to get some of the sympathetic liberal forces in the hemisphere to send an observer or send a military contingent. Weʼve been doing all this for a week; they donʼt do it. Theyʼre killing our people and as you say they have captured tanks now; theyʼre taking over the police marching them down the street and they got a hundred of them as hostages. Our CIA says this is a completely led, operated, dominated—theyʼve got men on the inside of it; itʼs a Castro operation. It started out as a Bosch operation but heʼs been moved completely out of the picture. They shoved them out and completely took over.
Fortas: Mr. President this may very well be true. I donʼt doubt it. I have a very simple point which is that our first objective is to make it clear that Bosch is calling for a cease fire.
President: Well if we can do that before they take everything theyʼve got and set up their government.
Fortas: It [the cease-fire] should be happening right now.
President: Thatʼs good. I want you to tell [McNamara] this.
[At this point Fortas tells President Johnson that Benitez had told him that Bosch had contacted Caamaño and wanted him to accept a cease-fire.]
[Page 104]President: The difficulty, though, is if Bosch is their [the rebelsʼ] captive. Where are the American interests, what do we do?
Fortas: I think the first thing we should do, Mr. President, is to show that this is a Castro-Communist operation. The most dramatic way of doing this is to have Bosch call for a cease-fire and let those damn guys continue fighting.
President: Not going to be anything to fight though, Abe, because they [rebels] will have it [the Dominican Republic.]
Fortas: This is right now.
President: Yes, as I say, if they got the tanks and if the people are capitulating, and if they got all the police, will there be anybody left to fight? It looks like they will have it.
Fortas: Mr. President, if Bosch calls for a cease-fire and Wessin agrees to it, theyʼll continue fighting, the Communists [will] continue fighting.
President: They wonʼt; theyʼll just take charge and start running the government, I think.
Fortas: I donʼt see how they could do that [inaudible].
President: Weʼre not stopping them from running the government. Since last Saturday,2 Bosch lasted for a few hours, then Castro started operating; they got 45 more in there last night—trained, Castro-trained, Castro-operated people. Weʼre doing nothing to them. They started firing, they came in here last night and said to me at 7 oʼclock that weʼve got 900 men, the most elite force in Santo Domingo holed up here in prison.3 Now, what do we do about it? I said letʼs protect them. “No, we canʼt do that,” because that would be partiality. I said, well letʼs get them out and evacuate them and get them to another part of the island. Oh, we canʼt do that because that would be sending our Navy in and the Ambassador says that would be showing partiality. And then I said, letʼs get the Dominican Navy to evacuate them from the Communists. They said all right, weʼll do that. [At] 2:30 they called me and said they couldnʼt get the Dominican Navy because it was in machine gun fire and the Dominican Navy didnʼt want anything to do with it.4 So, I get up this morning and they take 900 of the people who are not Communists, the best police we have got on the island, and the Communists [Page 105] have taken them. So they had added 900 to their strength of 1900 and marched them down the streets of Santo Domingo with guns to their backs and theyʼre taking a hundred of them and saying “weʼre going to kill you” unless these people quit and give up. They havenʼt eaten in three days and are about ready to give up. The question is what does the United States do? Weʼve done this now for a week—nothing; weʼve done nothing because we donʼt want to be partial. But they are firing consistently every hour on our Embassy and when we can locate a sniper we shoot at them and we kill four or five. But the OAS spent all night denouncing us. We finally got a cease fire out of them.
Hereʼs what I think we ought to do: I think we ought to get the CIA to give US name, address, chapter and verse—I donʼt mean to surface all that, but I mean to show that we got proof so that a lawyer like you [could] say that this is a case of Cuba doing this job; thatʼs number one. Number two, we ought to have our military forces in sufficient quantity, an adequate number appropriate ready to take that island. If we can get any other forces to join US well and good. Before we act weʼll try that, but to take that island so that Castro doesnʼt take it. Next thing, we ought to try to get a cease-fire. Next, we ought to try to get the OAS to send a team in today instead of sleeping through the day. Next, I think we ought to invite the OAS, any of their countries, or anybody else for that matter who wants to prevent bloodshed and to preserve peace to go in and join with US to be sure itʼs not just a United States operation. But if all this fails Iʼm not going to sit here and say I think down the road I can work it out after a Communist government sets up and starts issuing orders.
[Omitted here is discussion between McNamara and Fortas who recounted to McNamara what he had earlier told the President regarding Bosch and his agreement to call for a cease-fire. They also discussed who would contact Latin American Ambassadors such as Venezuelaʼs Leoni to garner their support.]
- Source: Johnson Library, Recordings and Transcripts, Recording of telephone conversation between President Johnson and Abe Fortas, Tape F65.12, Side B, PNO 2 and 3. No classification marking. This transcript was prepared in the Office of the Historian specifically for this volume. Abe Fortas placed the telephone call to President Johnson; they talked for approximately 15 minutes. This conversation occurred immediately after a meeting on the Dominican Republic in the White House Cabinet Room; see Documents 42 and 43.↩
- April 24.↩
- Presumably President Johnson is referring to an April 29 meeting on the Dominican Republic held in the White House Cabinet Room from 7:30 to 9:10 p.m. In addition to the President, Rusk, Raborn, Mann, General Wheeler, Helms, Vaughn, Bundy, and Moyers attended the meeting. (Johnson Library, Presidentʼs Daily Diary) No other record of this meeting has been found.↩
- Not further identified.↩