Office of the Historian

839.00/12–1846: Telegram

The Ambassador in the Dominican Republic (Butler) to the Secretary of State

secret
Ciudad Trujillo, December 18, 1946—4 p.m.
[Received December 19—6 a.m.]

397. Foreign Minister asked me to call again last evening to tell me of reports from Dominican Embassy Washington, apparently not given to Department, to effect that Dominican political exiles with encouragement from Cuban Communist Party are planning labor disturbances in the Dominican Republic about December 24.54 …

. . . . . .

[Page 834]

Foreign Minister stated that Dominican Government would not tolerate Communist activities and would take necessary measures to prevent them. I expressed following views:

A.
I was sure that US shares the concern of many of the American Governments about illegal Communist activities and about the campaign against the democratic system of the Americas now being carried on by Communists;
B.
That I was sure opinion in the US would react unfavorably to any general repressive measures against the political opposition to the Trujillo Government, to which the Foreign Minister replied that he understood the US position regarding non-intervention;
C.
That I believed any measures against labor in general would play into Communist hands, to which Foreign Minister replied that no such measures are contemplated and that Dominican Government action would only be to control Communist leaders who seek to disturb public order through labor agitation.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sent Department as 397; repeated to Habana.

Butler
  1. The Dominican Ambassador (Garcia Godoy) called on the Director of the Office of American Republic Affairs (Briggs), December 24, to leave with the Department a memorandum concerning reports on this subject. According to the memorandum of conversation, December 24, Mr. Briggs stated again, what was already known by the Ambassador, i.e., that the policy of the United States was to allow no political movement involving force to be launched from the United States against the government of a friendly state. He added that beyond this well-known policy, there was also the law which forbade such activities. (839.00B/12–2446)↩