My first memory of being aware of the DR was reading about Trujillo's assasination in the Boston newspapers when I was thirteen. I remember thinking "Who's this guy Trujillo? Somebody doesn't like him."
In May of 1965 I travelled to Washington D.C. with my brother and two of his classmates. One of his classmate's father was a friend of Lyndon Johnson so we got a private tour of the oval office and the cabinet room by George Reedy the president's press secretary.
Reedy let us attend a press conference he conducted in his office. He was in the middle of a firestorm caused by a remark from Robert McCloskey, the state department spokesman, which was causing the press to pressure the White House to define more clearly the American role in Vietnam. Well Reedy was dancing all over the place and at one point the door to the cabinet room opened and Reedy went over and leaned in. John Chancellor announced in a stage whisper "That's the president telling him what to say."
We didn't meet Landslide Lyndon because he was a bit preoccupied with the McCloskey business and his intervention in the Dominican Republic was drawing increasing criticism.
The other friend was from Honduras and was forcefully opposed to the intervention and I can remember listening to his arguments and realizing that he was not a whack job and that just maybe Lyndon was way out of line.
I realized that there was a lot in play in the DR situation that I was not aware of just from reading newspapers.
In recent years I had a number of Puerto Rican friends and acquaintances in Boston. One absolutely hated Dominicans, calling them "Dominici's."
In 1970 I met a couple in their 70's at Akaka Falls in Hilo, Hawaii. They were retired and travelled extensively and told me their central philosphy of travelling was if someone said about a place "Don't go there, there's nothing there" they would go there.
That stuck with me and I decided to take a vacation in the DR. If my acquaintance hated the place and the people so much I had to check it out for myself.
I first came on vacation in 1999. In 2002 I chucked the rat race (the rats won) and moved here on July 1.
Moral of the story
don't elect a psychotic president
don't believe something just because somebody said so
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