The Griot | Stories Roots Legacy

Dominican Republic, 1961: The Assassination of Rafael Trujillo

The Griot | Stories Roots Legacy

Show Notes

On the night of May 30, 1961, Rafael Trujillo, the dictator who had ruled the Dominican Republic for three decades, was killed in an ambush on a highway outside Santo Domingo. Declassified records and a U.S. Senate committee later showed that the CIA supplied weapons to the plotters. This episode tells what the record shows: the ambush, the conspirators, the American role, and what happened to the men who carried it out. Sources: CIA reading room documents, the findings of the U.S. Senate's Church Committee as summarized, Dominican historical accounts, and reference histories. Where accounts differ, the episode says so.

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