EI Benefactor

Before 2,000 delegates of his obedient Dominican Party, Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina announced last week that he would not seek a fifth term in next year's presidential election. But, he added, "my presence shall not be lacking in the solution of any fundamental problem." Dominicans knew what that meant: Generalissimo Trujillo, self-styled Benefactor of the Fatherland, would still be watching.

For Trujillo, giving up the presidency does not necessarily mean giving up power. His countrymen learned that much in 1938. The year before, Trujillo's soldiers butchered thousands of Haitians who had settled on Dominican land near the Haitian border. The massacre made the regime so unpopular with other American governments that Trujillo decided to "retire" for a while, installed a puppet President for the 1938-42 term. * But the Benefactor's dictatorial grip remained as tight as ever.

His motives for last week's announcement are not clear. Hemisphere pressure against him has relaxed. Possibly Trujillo was testing his ability to pass on his power to his family. Perhaps he merely wanted a rest; at 59, he is tired, and maybe ill. Whatever the reason, his "retirement" was a milestone on as brutal and bloody a road as any dictator in the Americas has trod in this generation.

Whispers & Whips. The records of Rafael Trujillo's early years have disappeared--the dictator has seen to that. But tales are whispered. Dominicans say that young Rafael was a cattle rustler and a pimp, that at one time or another he was arrested for theft, forgery, rape. Intelligent and ambitious, he joined the constabulary set up by the occupying U.S. Marines, quickly rose to major. After the Marines departed (1924), he became head of the army. In 1930, he proclaimed himself a presidential candidate, used his soldiers to break up the opposition. He won handily.

So began what in official Dominican chronology is called Year One of the Era of Trujillo. Today, in Year 21, the Dominican Republic probably has more policemen and stool pigeons per capita than the Soviet Union. Trujillo shows no more mercy for his countrymen than he showed for the Haitians in 1937. There is no record of the number of Dominicans his bullyboys have shot and beaten to death, but exiles charge that the toll runs into thousands. Political prisoners who come back alive tell of Gestapo-model cells so constructed that the inmate can neither stand up nor lie down, of beatings with steel-wire whips.

Behind Closed Doors. The only party is Trujillo's Partido Dominicano, to which all Dominicans who want to get anywhere must belong; government employees pay 10% of their salaries into the party treasury. Behind closed doors, Dominicans curse the Era of Trujillo. But no one dares murmur in public: Dominicans have gone to jail for complaining about the weather.

In cowing his countrymen, Trujillo has not escaped the occupational disease of dictators--morbid insecurity. He carries a pistol, frequently wears a bulletproof vest, is usually surrounded by bodyguards, employs a food taster. When he wants a drink, he calls for expensive Spanish brandy (Carlos I), has it sampled by others before he takes a sip.

Trujillo maintains upwards of 20 residences, provides with a lavish hand for his relatives, his children, legitimate and illegitimate, his many mistresses. He gets most of his income from his business enterprises at home and abroad, taking advantage of the monopolies he grants himself. A lover of farms and cattle, he is the nation's No. 1 landowner. Dominicans explain how Trujillo got his lands: "If the farmer did not sell, his widow did." His holdings cannot even be guessed at, since there is no clear-cut line between what belongs to Trujillo and what belongs to the state.

In some ways, the Benefactor has taken good care of his personal estate, a country of 2,212,000 people. He has boosted farm production, introduced some industry (e.g., cement, textiles), built roads, piers, hotels. The results, however, are by no means as splendid as the Dominican Information Service's full-page ads in U.S. newspapers and magazines make them out to be. The average Dominican farmer remains wretchedly poor.

Monument Builder. Trujillo has put up hospitals and schools, but above all he has put up monuments to himself. Every hamlet has a statue, or at least a bust, of El Benefactor, every public building an inscription proclaiming his beneficence. "Only Trujillo cures you," says the inscription on a hospital. Hundreds of towns, streets, buildings have been renamed after Trujillo, his father, his mother, and his patron saint, Rafael. In an unequalled burst of impudence, he renamed the oldest city in the New World (founded by Bartholomeo Columbus, brother of Christopher, in 1496): Ciudad Santo Domingo became Ciudad Trujillo.

Even with such stuff to soothe him, Trujillo has found the job of a dictator wearing. Despite nonsmoking, temperance in drink and lots of expensive medical attention, he is tired. In March, he handed over the "executive power" to General Heector (El Negro) Trujillo, 42, youngest of the six Trujillo brothers. * Last week, shortly after Rafael's no-fifth-term announcement, the Dominican Party dutifully nominated Hector for President. Unless Rafael changes his mind, Hector will inevitably be elected. But Big Brother will be watching him. Sooner or later, Rafael Trujillo will probably try to put his pampered oldest son "Ramfis," now 22, in the presidency. Dominicans do not even have the consolation of knowing that the Benefactor's death will end the Era of Trujillo.

* In 1939, Trujillo visited the U.S., was received, though coolly, by Franklin Roosevelt. During the visit, Trujillo's publicitymen explained that he had refused a third term out of respect for the U.S. tradition.

* A seventh brother committed suicide in 1948.

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