Yanqui Corruption

Trujillo: The Last Caesar, by General Arturo Espaillat. Regnery, $4.95 In this fascinating, explosive and profoundly shocking volume of political memoirs, General Arturo Espaillat, former chief of intelligence of the Dominican Republic, levels charges of murder and bribe-taking against high American officials. If these accusations are even half-true, they reveal unprecedented corruption and bare one of the worst political scandals in American history.

Specifically, Espaillat charges that, in his last five years in power, Trujillo showered at least $5,000,000 on thieving American politicians. A “prominent Southern Senator” was supplied with a mistress who was later sent to Washington for his use. A “powerful Atlantic seaboard Senator” was paid $225,000. In return, he was supposed to launch a Senate investigation of Communism in the Caribbean and, using Trujillo intelligence data, to prove in 1957 that Fidel Castro was a Communist. The Senator allegedly pocketed the cash, fluffed the investigation and proved too stupid or too greedy to use the data given him. According to Espaillat, Trujillo bought ordinary congressmen for $5,000 or less; paid three times as much for committee chairmen, a bit more for Senators and as much as $50,000 to $75,000 for chairmen of key Senate committees.

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Nathaniel Weyl

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Trujillo: The Last Caesar, by General Arturo Espaillat. Regnery, $4.95 In this fascinating, explosive and profoundly shocking volume of political memoirs, General Arturo Espaillat, former chief of intelligence of the Dominican Republic, levels charges of murder and bribe-taking against high American officials. If these accusations are even half-true, they reveal unprecedented corruption and bare one of the worst political scandals in American history.

Specifically, Espaillat charges that, in his last five years in power, Trujillo showered at least $5,000,000 on thieving American politicians. A “prominent Southern Senator” was supplied with a mistress who was later sent to Washington for his use. A “powerful Atlantic seaboard Senator” was paid $225,000. In return, he was supposed to launch a Senate investigation of Communism in the Caribbean and, using Trujillo intelligence data, to prove in 1957 that Fidel Castro was a Communist. The Senator allegedly pocketed the cash, fluffed the investigation and proved too stupid or too greedy to use the data given him. According to Espaillat, Trujillo bought ordinary congressmen for $5,000 or less; paid three times as much for committee chairmen, a bit more for Senators and as much as $50,000 to $75,000 for chairmen of key Senate committees.