Preventing Another Castro in Latin America

Closer to home, Johnson faced persistent problems in Latin America. Thirteen times during the 1960s, military coups toppled Latin American governments, and local insurgencies grew apace. The administration’s response varied from case to case but centered on the determination to prevent any more Castro-type revolutions.

In 1964, riots erupted in the Panama Canal Zone, instigated by Panamanians who viewed the United States as a colonial power because it had held the territory since early in the century (see “The Big Stick” in chapter 21). Johnson sent troops to quell the disturbance, but he also initiated negotiations that eventually returned the canal to Panamanian authority in 2000.

Elsewhere, Johnson’s Latin American policy generated new cries of “Yankee imperialism.” In 1961, voters in the Dominican Republic ousted a longtime dictator and elected a constitutional government headed by reformist Juan Bosch, who was overthrown by a military coup two years later. In 1965, when Bosch supporters launched an uprising against the military government, Johnson sent more than 20,000 soldiers to suppress what he perceived to be a leftist revolt and to take control of the island.

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U.S. Troops in the Dominican Republic These U.S. paratroopers were among the 20,000 troops sent to the Dominican Republic in April and May 1965. The invasion restored peace but kept the popularly elected government of Juan Bosch from regaining office. Dominicans greeted the U.S. troops with anti-American slogans throughout the capital, Santo Domingo. Bosch himself said, “This was a democratic revolution smashed by the leading democracy in the world.” © Bettmann/Corbis.

This first outright show of Yankee force in Latin America in four decades damaged the administration. Although Johnson had justified intervention as necessary to prevent “another Cuba,” no Communists were found among the rebels, and U.S. intervention kept the reform-oriented Boschists from returning to power. Moreover, the president had not consulted the Dominicans or the Organization of American States (OAS), to which the United States had promised it would respect national sovereignty in Latin America.