Trujillo: The Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator

Crassweller, Robert D., Trujillo: The Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966.

Reviewed in The Review of Politics / Volume 30 / Issue 03, pp 394 - 396.
Reviewed in The American Historical Review © 1967.
Cited by Manuel Ortega in Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs © 1971.

Excerpt from the Preface:

The reader, who is only superficially familiar with Caribbean affairs may find the materials of this volume strange. The extent to which violence, both open and covert, is a constant factor in the life of the region may cause surprise. The incongruous and rather unreal quality of many events, whether fanciful or farcical in appearance, may also prove unexpected. If the reader is inclined to doubt the authenticity of certain events, viewing them as too implausible o be true, he may be assured that many things even more strange, which are possibly and even probably true, have been omitted because their accuracy could not be satisfactorily established. Nothing is included here that does not come from sources considered sound. Nothing is included that has not been subjected to every possible verification.

Excerpt from author's Obituary:

As a young attorney, Mr. Crassweller engaged in the private practice of law in Duluth and then moved to Washington, D.C. in 1943 to work for the State Department's Division of World Trade Intelligence. Following the war, he returned to Duluth to resume the private practice of law. From 1951 to 1953, he participated in a mining venture in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. In 1954, he became counsel for Pam American World Airways in New York City; he remained at Pan Am until 1966. From 1967 to 1969 he served as a Visiting Fellow on the Council of Foreign Relations in New York City, and he testified as an expert witness before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, United States House of Representatives, in Washington D.C. In 1970-1971, he was a Visiting Professor at both Sarah Lawrence College and Brooklyn College. During the latter part of his career, he worked for International Telephone and Telegraph, where he rose to become General Counsel for ITT Latin America. Over a 16 year period, Mr. Crassweller reviewed some 700 books for Foreign Affairs, the magazine of the Council on Foreign Relations; he was also a reviewer for the New York Times book section. As a noted scholarly author and expert on Latin America, he wrote three books...