By 1928 American rule in Haiti amounted, in Cooper's reckoning, to a joint dictatorship weighted heavily toward Washington. High Commissioner John H. Russell held effective power, President Louis Borno legislated with his consent through a hand-picked Council of State, and the legislature closed by the Marines in 1918 had not met since. Educated Haitians shut out of office attacked it in the press, their only remaining outlet.

The unravelling began with a student strike at the Damien agricultural school in late 1929, which spread into wider protest and ended in bloodshed at Les Cayes. Hoover sent the Forbes Commission, negotiations followed, Stenio Vincent took the presidency, and the last Marines sailed in 1934.

Cooper canvasses the reasons for leaving: defence needs that no longer required the island, finances judged repaired, deeper change conceded unattainable, isolationist opinion at home, and Haitian insistence. His own judgment is that the occupation left little behind and cost the United States standing across Latin America.