839.415/126
The Ambassador in Haiti (White) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 15.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the telegraphic instruction No. 34 [42] of February 11th [10th], 8:00 a.m. [p.m.], in which the Department directs me to use my good offices to secure the acceptance by President Lescot of a proposal for a frontier meeting with the Dominican President.
Until about 1:00 o’clock this afternoon it seemed to me, in view of the information transmitted in my telegram of February 10, 3:00 p.m., to Ciudad Trujillo and repeated to the Department, that no reply to the same would be necessary.
[Page 176]At the hour mentioned, however, a presidential aide-de-camp called to deliver an urgent note, of which copy and translation are enclosed.19
Upon receipt of this I telegraphed to Ciudad Trujillo as per the copy sent to the Department:20
“Urgent eleventh please take no action on yesterday’s (i.e. February 10, 3:00 p.m.) telegram and cancel any action taken”.
Having been apprised by Ambassador Warren of the forwarding of the invitation to a frontier meeting from President Trujillo to President Lescot, of which he also sent me a translation of the text, I thought it would be well to visit President Lescot and endeavor to supply such bracing thoughts as might be required to secure his acceptance.
When he received me the President had recently received the message of invitation and had read it. He seemed troubled and as though lacking in his usual power of thought or will.
He intimated that his principal concern was how to break the news of the meeting to the Haitian public, as he felt that the repercussion would be unfortunate, in view of the unfavorable Dominican publicity towards Haiti, the most recent instance of which was described in my despatch No. 2535 of February 4, 1944.19 I replied that I thought the simplest way would be just to publish the letter. This the President agreed to and requested that I ask Ambassador Warren to obtain permission for this from Trujillo.
He warned me of the utter futility of the whole meeting. President Trujillo, he said, might speak fair words, but would afterwards do precisely what he pleased, which would probably mean that he would continue his previous line of conduct towards Haiti. I suggested to the President that he might make a memorandum of the conversation and send it to Trujillo for confirmation and subsequent publication. The President evidently thought nothing at all of this notion. I then suggested that, the idea had only occurred to me that very minute, he possibly might like to have Mr. Warren and myself present at the meeting. This appealed to him more; he definitely thought it would be useful. I myself thought it would be useful too, because it was my hope that, as long as a meeting was to be held, some favorable agreement might be made to close any organ of publicity which indulged in utterances irritating to the neighboring country; and that Mr. Warren and myself being witnesses to such an agreement would serve to strengthen it.
President Lescot asked me where the meeting would take place and he said it must be on the frontier; he would not go into Dominican territory. The frontier at Malpasse-Jimaní is the nearest such point [Page 177] on a decent road from Port-au-Prince. I, therefore, suggested that place, which, moreover, in my own mind would have the advantage of compelling President Trujillo to drive over the Dominican portion of the new road on which hardly any work has been done and this, in turn, might conceivably lead to the finishing of that useful artery of traffic.
Before leaving I spoke to President Lescot in the following sense:—“It is my understanding that you authorize me to telegraph Ambassador Warren to ascertain whether President Trujillo would agree to have his letter given to the public; also, that I am to communicate the request that Ambassador Warren and myself should attend the meeting.” The President said, “Yes”,—that he did so authorize me.
With this I supposed that the matter had been settled and I proceeded to send the telegrams of February 10, 3:00 p.m., to the Embassy in Trujillo and repeated to the Department.
In the evening I mentioned the matter to an American of long standing here and he seemed very positive that, if President Lescot accepted such an invitation, in view of recent publicity, he would hurt himself with his own people.
Nothing more occurred until the receipt of the letter attached hereto in copy and translation. This reveals that the President had felt called upon to broach the matter to his Cabinet. I rather think that he told me that he would take that action, but I supposed that the Cabinet meeting would limit its discussion to the text of the reply to Trujillo. I am not disposed to take President Lescot’s plea of a threatened Cabinet crisis seriously. It is not usual for Haitian Cabinet Ministers to resign on questions of principle: indeed it is not usual for them to resign at all except under orders. M. Lacroix21 every so often threatens this action, when dissatisfied, but it no longer occurs to anyone that he seriously intends to implement his words. I am quite willing to believe that the Cabinet did not like the idea of Lescot’s meeting Trujillo, and particularly would this probably apply to Gérard Lescot:22 and I can, therefore, imagine threats of resignation made in the comfortable conviction that these would confirm a wavering president in the course of his own predilection and thus strengthen the tenure of the incumbent who threatened to resign. The fear of foul play, expressed in the enclosure,23 also fails to inspire me with the appropriate detective novel thrill.
Apart from these considerations, which perhaps may be unduly severe, the position of President Lescot, that he should not be swallowing [Page 178] insults one moment and dashing off the next for a palaver with the ultimate author of those insults, seems to me to be sound and dignified. It is possible, even, that Trujillo realized this and hoped to weaken Lescot’s domestic prestige—his presumable objective—by making such a proposal.
The project outlined in the Department’s No. 34 of February 4, 8:00 p.m.,24 to erect a frontier monument, has as a possible precedent the erection of the Christ of the Andes on the Argentine-Chilean frontier in the Uspallata Pass west of Mendoza. It is my impression, however, that this Monument was erected after prolonged negotiations had smoothed out the vexatious problems that had seriously threatened Argentine-Chilean relations. Between Haiti and Santo Domingo the case is different. The fundamental problem is the pressure of a dense Haitian population against a sparser Dominican, which resents that pressure, but nevertheless needs Haitian labor, especially for harvesting its sugar. There have been no patient negotiations to solve this problem, but rather the application of a series of irritants, some of them very recent. To make matters worse, there is acute enmity between the two Chiefs of State. Now in temperate climates when two people are quarrelling, if they can be made to sit around a table and talk quietly, very often this leads to a reconciliation. Haitian-Dominican natures are, however, very much more sensitive to hard words than are ours. They lack the frankness which would facilitate such a reconciliation, and very often also the sustained resolve to carry out its conditions. Both Trujillo and Lescot are skillful at sidestepping disagreeable situations. They are both thoroughly familiar with each other’s past and this familiarity appears to have engendered profound suspicion and dislike. Trujillo is the stronger man, both in the ruthlessness of his ability and in the far firmer hold which he has upon his richer country. To try to bring Lescot to confer confidentially with Trujillo, is as welcome to the former as it would be to a rabbit to meet a boa constrictor at close quarters. I had hoped that the presence at this meeting of the two American representatives might serve to keep the conversations on useful lines and bolster up Lescot’s weaker position, but his aversion to the idea seems to be not only mental but even physical.
If Trujillo wishes to avoid provocation, it is not wholly excluded that such a meeting might be accomplished at a later date.
President Lescot’s tergiversations in the matter of acceptance or refusal are awkward and unfortunate and will do him no good either with Washington or against Trujillo. But it is well to realize his limitations.
[Page 179]For the time being I am doing nothing further in the matter other than to acknowledge the President’s note. If the Department wishes me to take any additional action, it will no doubt be so good as to issue the necessary instructions.
Respectfully yours,
- Not printed.↩
- Telegram 35, February 11.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Abel Lacroix, Secretary of State for Finance, Commerce and National Economy.↩
- Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cults; son of President Lescot.↩
- Letter of February 11 from President Lescot to Ambassador White, not printed. In this letter, President Lescot mentioned a possible accident to his person at the proposed border meeting.↩
- Not printed.↩