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Brazilian Foreign Policy and the Dominican Crisis: The Impact of History and Events*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
On May 24, 1965, nearly a month after the first U. S. Marines landed in Santo Domingo, an inter-American military force under the command of a Brazilian general took over peacekeeping activities in the Dominican Republic. Although the first Brazilian contingent to arrive comprised only 300 troops, it later reached a total of 1,250, the largest contribution by a single Latin American nation. While Brazil's participation in the Dominican crisis was a clear indication that the independent foreign policy of Quadros and Goulart had been discarded in favor of a realignment once again with the United States, it also signified an abrupt departure from one of the basic tenets of Brazilian foreign policy—nonintervention. The case study of Brazil's role in the Dominican Republic in 1965 which follows provides a unique opportunity to examine the impact of traditional forces and contemporary events on Brazilian foreign policy at a critical juncture in that nation's history.
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1972
Footnotes
*
I would like to express my appreciation to Dr. Alexander Marchant and Dr. Riordan Roett for their helpful comments and criticism on an earlier draft of this paper.
References
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31 Skidmore, op. cit., p. 329. It is interesting to note that these turning points all include successful confrontations with the Communists.
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46 The OAS has to a lesser degree performed this function as well. In reference to the Dominican crisis Slater notes that “other factors such as UN presence and skeptical reporting of major U. S. newspapers undoubtedly also helped modify Washington’s policies. … However, the author’s talks with United States officials have left him with the impression that the involvement of the OAS was probably the most important element over the entire duration of the crisis,” p. 61. fn. 42.
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