Dominican Republic: Nobody's Yes Man

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Hearing that the visitor to her sunbaked village was the top man in the Dominican Republic, an old woman instinctively shouted, "Viva el generalisimo!" Donald Reid Cabral, 41, chief of the country's governing junta, turned and smiled wryly. "Madam," he replied, "I am not even a private."

On Donny Reid's troubled Caribbean island, that is saying something. Soldiers with machine guns ruled the Dominican Republic for 31 years under Dictator Rafael Trujillo. Even after his assassination in 1961, the military held the real power—partly out of habit, partly because there was no civilian strong enough to run the country. In 1963 the generals ousted President Juan Bosch in favor of a civilian triumvirate that was expected to serve as a front. To all intents and purposes, the civilian leadership has now been reduced to Donny Reid, and in the past 15 months he has proved to be nobody's yes man.

From Dealer to Driver. The son of a Scottish immigrant, Reid was a Santo Domingo auto dealer with no political following—which may explain why he got the job. Once in office, he decided that the time had come "to act, not talk," if anyone was going to save the country from economic ruin and another dictatorship. To get room to operate, he accepted resignations from the other members of the triumvirate, filled one vacancy with a friend, left the other unfilled. To keep any one general from assuming too much power for too long, he set up a rotating system for the top commands. Announced Reid: "I'm in the driver's seat."

Next, Reid put a crimp in a favorite military pastime: smuggling in goods for resale at a fat profit. Quietly and firmly, he saw to it that all returning planes and navy vessels were searched for contraband.

Many of the generals complained bitterly. But Reid had one tough soldier on his side—Brigadier General Elias Wessin y Wessin, 40, the army's tank commander, who holds the unorthodox notion that military men should stick to military pursuits. With Wessin y Wessin's backing, Reid pushed some officers into plush retirement, shipped others to overseas posts or out to the boondocks. Reid himself took over as secretary of the armed forces and sprinkled the army staff with U.S.-trained officers.

Member in Good Standing. Donny Reid has also faced up to the economic problems. The Trujillos left the treasury badly depleted and the sugar-cane-based agriculture in chaos. Reid is carrying out an agrarian reform that, among other things, gives former Trujillo acreage to landless peasants, and is pushing a program to teach modern farming methods. He cut military spending, started a forest-conservation program, tax reform and a plan to build more schools, hospitals, low-cost houses and roads. Most important, he launched an austerity program to bring the nation's foreign spending into line with its income. The U.S. now considers the Dominican Republic a member in good standing of the Alianza, disbursed $26 million last year to help finance Reid's recovery schemes.