Specters in Perspective

The hour-long CBS special news report was offered as an analysis in depth of the Dominican revolution. And from the start there was no question about the depth of the reporters' feelings. "In an era in which the U.S. would like to be in the position of clasping hands with Latin Americans," intoned Moderator Charles Kuralt, "we are in the position of frisking them instead. After signing with ceremony solemn covenants in which we promised not to intervene in other nations of this hemi sphere, we are today intervening in the very kitchens and sitting rooms of one of them."

Reassured by Robes. Film clips gave U.S. officials--both civilian and mili tary--a chance to state their side of the story. But loaded questions and slanted comment managed to convey the impression that the U.S. had not only bungled badly, but was operating according to some Machiavellian plan uncovered by intrepid reporting. Had the revolution been in danger of being taken over by Communists as President Johnson claimed? One CBS man had his doubts because he had seen "dozens of lawyers" among the rebels, "marching in their robes of office." Were U.S. troops neutral, as U.S. policy ordered? Film clips showed U.S. officials professing neutrality and U.S. troops apparently favoring junta forces at checkpoints. The marines, said Kuralt, "never got the word." To prove it, he showed a CBS reporter interviewing a marine. "Who are the enemy here?" "It's the rebels and civilians who have got ammunition and guns."

In a discussion at the end of the program, three CBS newsmen appeared on camera to sum up. Was the U.S. justified in breaking "the rules of international conduct?" asked Kuralt. Johnson's decision, answered Reporter Bert Quint, brought back "the whole specter of Yankee imperialism in Latin America. It was a decision that is making a lot of Latin Americans hate us." Then Kuralt and Quint turned for guidance to Eric Sevareid, CBS National Correspondent. And like a fatherly professor reproving wayward journalism students, Sevareid offered some corrections: "The specter of American gunboat diplomacy, I would suggest, is a much more outworn specter than the very present one of Communism in this hemisphere. I don't see frankly how any President of the United States in 1965 can sit in the White House and send Americans to die against Communists across the world in Viet Nam and take any serious risk of another Communist state on your doorstep."

Agony of Power. But didn't contradictory policies "damage" the U.S. in Latin America, pleaded Kuralt. Of course they did, said Sevareid. But "I would only suggest that crises are not laid out in advance, and you're not given a form book to go by. I don't think it's possible to throw in a great force in a tiny place and handle it with exactitude, with regard to all the niceties. It is part of what's called the agony of being a great power with great responsibility. If we had not acted, you would have had either a protracted civil war with thousands killed and starvation and epidemic everywhere, or a Communist result. Then you can think how popular we'd be in Latin America, where nobody really fears the American knock on their doors at night, but they do fear Castro's men."

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