Piecing together the official and unofficial reports, it becomes possible to get a pretty good look at the Administration’s handling of the Dominican crisis. The White House first smelled trouble when a high-ranking State Department official rubbed his hands in glee at the thought of a pro-Bosch rebellion. President Johnson thereupon studied the disjointed CIA report that spoke of the presence of known Communists in key positions in the rebel movement. Johnson turned to the FBI for its opinion. Within 48 hours the FBI supplied him with independent corroboration of almost every detail in the CIA report. Johnson summoned Dean Rusk and told him he’d refuse to be the patsy for another Castroite coup. Johnson immediately took a hand in designing the U.S. counterinsurgency plan, which was to hurl a wedge of U.S. troops at the rebel-held territory, split the rebel forces, and pin them down in isolated pockets where the Junta could pick them off one by one. Rusk objected vehemently. Johnson told him that the plan was set and it was his job to make it look good. The key man in the energetic policy was U.S. Ambassador W. Tapley (“Tap”) Bennett, who buttressed Johnson’s determination at more than one critical moment. (Bennett, for his services, lost points with Rusk, but was firmly supported by Thomas Mann—whom the Left, wrong for once, had identified as the villain in the piece.) Bennett established extremely effective communications with the Junta. But the beginning of the end of the hard phase was signaled when solid contact with the rebels was made through the good offices of a well-known expert on Latin America who writes regularly for a major U.S. newspaper. The expert was soon replaced by an official representative of the State Department’s soft wing, former Ambassador (to Santo Domingo) John Bartlow Martin. The shift to a soft policy was the work of Washington attorney Abe Fortas, Johnson’s crony.
♦ To some extent Johnson was persuaded to swing into action on the repeal of 14(b) because of the unexpectedly staunch opposition to repeal put up by House GOP leader Jerry Ford. Stung by the bitter criticism of his me-too management in recent months, Ford decided to take a stand on the repeal question. Most House Republicans fear he has taken the wrong stand at the wrong time (politically speaking). Ford announced his eternal opposition to repeal at just about the moment when supporters of repeal had enough votes to carry the day. Ford didn’t attempt to get the prior support of Mel Laird and Charles Goodell (his lieutenants in charge of GOP Right and Left). And Ford has not yet coordinated GOP policy and tactics with Robert Griffin (Mich.), co-author of the Landrum-Griffin bill and the key Republican on Frank Thompson’s (D., N.J.) special subcommittee on labor, which will shape the legislation. Griffin, tough and realistic, would relax his opposition to repeal if the bill included strict regulation of union contributions to political campaigns. (Griffin harasses the opposition, also, by calling for a strong antidiscrimination clause, but Thompson and Adam Clayton Powell have dealt civil rights out of the repeal game; that problem will be handled in an amendment to last year’s Civil Rights Act.) Unfortunately the GOP campaign on right-to-work looks very much like the fiascos that tumbled some good men out of office—William Knowland, William Jenner, John Bricker. Will Jerry Ford be repealed in turn?
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