June 1962 to March 1963 · Haitianspan
Duvalier cancels seventy scholarships and makes a charm for Kennedy
›Read the full entryClose
The American training programme foundered on the same issue every time, which was Duvalier's attempts to slip militiamen into the courses and divert the weapons to them. In June 1962 he cancelled all seventy American military scholarships he had already accepted, and the mission chief stopped deliveries and shut the programme down. In July the marine commander recommended in writing that the militia be disbanded; the Haitian chief of staff refused to disown the report, resigned, and took asylum in the Venezuelan embassy. During the missile crisis in October, Duvalier opened Haitian ports and airfields to American forces. The Americans took him at his word and landed a marine battalion in combat order at the wharf for an exercise march to Bizoton, giving almost no notice, so that his first news of it was the sight of the leading companies below the foreign ministry windows. Early in 1963, with the help of the palace boko, he made two death charms, one for the marine commander and one for John F Kennedy.
A code like HT-WIB-000044 is a bates number. It marks one page of our stamped scan of the book, so the same page can be found again by anyone working from the same copy. Open one to see every entry drawn from that page.