Country: Dominican Republic

The U.S. Embassy went on red alert and urged all Americans, including me, to stay home to avoid being targets of violent attack. The Middle East today? No, the Dominican Republic, in May, 1969. The cause of the alert was a visit by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, sent by President Nixon on a fact-finding tour of Latin America. I was in the Dominican Republic as a Peace Corps volunteer, and long before Rockefeller landed, …

I remember clearly the thirty seconds when I grew up. As we crossed the bridge over the river on the way from the airport, I looked down onto a multitude of shacks climbing crazily up the steep slopes of the sludgy riverbank. An awful truth was suddenly clear: in two years’ time, when I made the reverse trip on my way to the airport and home, I would look down on those same shacks climbing up the riverbank. Nothing I would …