Hispaniola: Worst of Neighbors

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Over the Horizon. Through it all, the U.S., which has long since cut off all aid to Haiti to show its displeasure, sought to maintain a hands-off attitude and refused even to participate in the OAS fact-finding mission. But the U.S. finds it harder and harder to ignore Duvalier. A noise bomb exploded in front of the U.S. embassy; the wife of a U.S. Marine sergeant was hauled into a police station for 2½ hours of questioning; Robert Hill, embassy first secretary, was stopped and searched at gunpoint by Duvalier's Tonton Macoute, a kind of disorderly people's thuggery. Three times during the week, U.S. Ambassador Raymond L. Thurston protested to the Haitian government. Just over the horizon stood a U.S. Navy task force, and marines aboard the aircraft carrier Boxer were prepared to land, if necessary, to save the lives of 1,000 U.S. citizens in Haiti. The situation, said Washington, is "delicate and dark."

To an obedient crowd of 10,000, mostly ragged peasants trucked into the capital to hear the man who calls himself "Papa Doc," Duvalier declared: "I am the personification of the Haitian nation. I will keep power. God is the only one who can take it from me."