DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Who’s on Second?

In all the Era of Trujillo as Generalissimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo calls his 24-year tyranny over the Dominican Republic, no chum has been closer, no tool more useful than Secretary of State Without Portfolio Anselmo Paulino Alvarez. Whenever islanders talk of the terroristic carro de la muerte (death car) that disposed of the regime’s earlier enemies, or the later massacre of 15,000 immigrant Haitian sugar-cane cutters, Paulino’s name comes up. In payment for such chores Trujillo let Paulino wrap his blimplike belly in the uniform of an honorary major general and play the role of Despot No. 2. Inevitably, No. 2 got to thinking of himself as a likely successor. But that was not to be. Last week Anselmo Paulino was a broken man, stripped of his influential office and his beloved uniform, out of power and under arrest.

The brusque official decrees that cut Paulino down were shock enough for the readers of Trujillo’s house-organ daily, El Caribe, which always before had only lavish praise (Paulino had been the paper’s publisher). Going on from there in editorials El Caribe gave some details on just how the “truculent, ambitious and aggressive ex-functionary,” the “bad collaborator of the Chief,” had come to grief.

While the boss was in Spain on a recent state visit, it appeared, Paulino had undertaken to further his ambitions by “sowing discord” to “divide and conquer” the armed forces. Item: Paulino humiliated a Trujillo favorite, Rear Admiral Lajaro Burgos, “calling him by the name of Napoleon, and not by his own true name.” Explained El Caribe: “Assuming that Communism works by fomenting hate, stimulating the instincts of revenge and of conflict between individuals … it has to be said that the policies to which Señor Anselmo Paulino Alvarez has been so boldly and poisonously dedicating himself are policies of the Communist type.”

But Admiral Lajaro Burgos foiled Paulino by flying off to Spain and tattling to the dictator. On Trujillo’s return, El Caribe concluded lyrically, “the sword of the Biblical angel flashed over the stupid head [of Paulino], casting him out of paradise and into reproach.”

Trujillo has chastised Paulino before; in 1950 when the Organization of American States accused Paulino of plotting to assassinate Paul Magloire (now President of Haiti) on behalf of Trujillo, the boss was forced to send him to the doghouse for a while. But careful students of Trujillo’s methods think that charging Paulino with Communist policies means he is out for good.