Intervention in the Caribbean : the Dominican crisis of 1965 /

This is a strange book. Chapter 1 is devoted to a perfunctory history of the Dominican Republic up to the 1965 US invasion. The next seven chapters are an exhaustive investigation of the military (and to some extent diplomatic) events surrounding the US invasion. The last two chapters veer into an assessment of that 1965 invasion and then become a sort of manual for future US actions of this type. Finally, Palmer attempts to present a military point of view on "Caribbean Realities for the United States Today." This volume may have marginal utility for US government officials planning future invasions of Latin American nations (one wonders whether the Bush administration read it before the invasion of Panama), but aside from that rather esoteric use, the book provides no understanding of either the Dominican Republic or of Latin America. The volume is replete with half-truths and errors. The statement, "In the 1980s the {{OAS}} has had to reduce its budget..." ignores the reason for this action: the US simply refused to pay its share of the OAS budget. The statement that "Cuba is a major Soviet military base..." is not factual either. Sources are seriously lacking.-- -E. A. Duff, Randolph-Macon Woman's College