The Western Hemisphere's Pandora's box: How race, Communism, and the Roman Catholic Church influenced U.S. foreign diplomacy with Duvalier's Haiti, 1969--1971

U.S. relations with Haiti ranked low on the Nixon administration's foreign policy agenda behind opening talks with China and the Vietnam War. Nevertheless, it was a critical time as U.S. diplomatic relations with Haiti's president Francois Duvalier entered their final chapter. Coup attempts, mutinies, and Communist roundups marked the beginning of the leader's final three years of life and the end of his reign. The Nixon administration came into office determined to stop the spread of Communism in its own backyard, which gave Haiti bargaining power. However, Communism was not the main factor influencing U.S. policy with Haiti during Nixon's first term. As this thesis demonstrates, racism, the Cold War, relations with the Roman Catholic Church and memory of the earlier U.S. occupation in Haiti also drove U.S. foreign policy toward Haiti from 1969 to 1971. Drawing from evidence contained in declassified Department of State intelligence reports, this thesis explains the historical and contemporary ramifications of each factor as the U.S. shifted from an earlier policy of aggressive intervention to one of less aggressive non-intervention, at least militarily.;No single theoretical framework is sufficient to analyze and frame the events contained in these declassified intelligence reports and other sources. Thus, when appropriate, this study will use both Critical Race and Dependency theories to analyze some of the events that occurred between 1969 and 1971. Using Department of State documents, the Nixon presidential national security files and newspaper articles, this study finds that U.S. foreign policy analysts believed reform and democratization were unlikely to occur in Haiti due to inherent shortcomings tied to race and culture. These stereotypical ideas flourished in policy narratives developed from flawed data compiled during the U.S. occupation of Haiti.