# What the U.S. Is Doing in Santo Domingo, a USIA relief poster from 1965

Que hacen los Estados Unidos en Santo Domingo is a Spanish-language U.S. Information Agency photo poster for Mexico City, catalog date 19 May 1965. It explains the landing of American troops in the Dominican Republic as a mission to save lives and shows only relief work: food, water, medicine and a transfusion (NAID 6949366).

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      Que hacen los Estados Unidos en Santo Domingo (What the U.S. Is Doing in Santo Domingo; Spanish poster distributed in Mexico City)

      What the U.S. Is Doing in Santo Domingo, a USIA relief poster from 1965
      A May 1965 USIA poster in Spanish explained the U.S. troop landing in the Dominican Republic with captioned photos of relief work and no fighting. NAID

## Techniques named on the archive record

Card stackingName-calling
      DateMay 19, 1965Made byU.S. Information Agency (predecessor: State Department International Information and Educational Exchange Program), Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East seriesMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeJohnson AdministrationNARANAID 6949366; Record Group 306SourceUnidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosureSourceU.S. National Archives (NARA), Record Group 306, Posters in Asia, Latin America, Middle East , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work; NARA RG 306) U.S. Information Agency / Department of State, May 19, 1965. National Archives, Record Group 306 (NAID 6949366, 306-PPB-424).
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  Que hacen los Estados Unidos en Santo Domingo is a Spanish-language U.S. Information Agency photo poster for Mexico City, catalog date 19 May 1965. It explains the landing of American troops in the Dominican Republic as a mission to save lives and shows only relief work: food, water, medicine and a transfusion (NAID 6949366).

## What it says

A headline sits above a column of text and a set of captioned photographs. In the pictures, U.S. troops hand out food and water, Marines guard a medical center, a Marine medic gives an injured boy a blood transfusion, and Peace Corps volunteer nurses tend the wounded. The text says why the troops came and when they will go.

QUE HACEN LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS EN SANTO DOMINGO

Cuando la anarquía hizo presa de la República Dominicana el 28 de abril, las autoridades dominicanas informaron que no podía garantizarse la seguridad de los ciudadanos extranjeros. Por consiguiente, fueron enviadas al país tropas norteamericanas para salvar vidas y ayudar a restablecer la paz. [...] Lo que parecía haber comenzado como una revolución popular democrática cayó rápidamente bajo el dominio de los partidarios del terror.

[...]

Cuando se hayan creado las condiciones necesarias para el establecimiento de la paz y el orden público bajo normas democráticas, se retirarán estas tropas.

Excerpts from the FRAME transcription, read from the image and not independently checked. The archive's English rendering, a machine translation not verified by a fluent reader: "When anarchy gripped the Dominican Republic on 28 April, the Dominican authorities reported that the safety of foreign citizens could not be guaranteed. Consequently, North American troops were sent to the country to save lives and help restore peace. [...] What seemed to have begun as a democratic popular revolution fell quickly under the domination of the partisans of terror. [...] When the conditions necessary for establishing peace and public order under democratic norms have been created, these troops will be withdrawn." Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 6949366, item 306-PPB-424.

## Issuer and audience

The archive files the sheet with the U.S. Information Agency's overseas posters, under the event "Dominican Intervention 1965." It was distributed in Mexico City, to a foreign public. FRAME notes that no imprint or credit line is printed on the sheet, and it codes the source as "Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure." A reader in Mexico City saw an American military action explained with no American agency named as the author.

## How to read it

FRAME tags card stacking and name-calling: only relief is pictured, and the other side is labeled "los partidarios del terror," the partisans of terror. The relief may well have happened as captioned. The selection is what makes it propaganda. No photograph shows a patrol or a firefight, though one caption mentions bullets in the streets.

The text also makes a political judgment in one sentence: a movement that "seemed" to begin as a democratic popular revolution is said to have fallen under the control of terror. No evidence is offered. Whether a foreign landing was justified is a question citizens should argue with the facts in front of them. This unsigned sheet settles it for them.

The archive dates Communist Subversion in Latin America five days later. That sheet makes the hemisphere-wide case. The series continues on the USIA overseas posters hub.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, Que hacen los Estados Unidos en Santo Domingo (What the U.S. Is Doing in Santo Domingo; Spanish poster distributed in Mexico City), 19 May 1965. U.S. Information Agency. English translation in the record is a machine translation, not verified by a fluent reader.

- U.S. National Archives, Record Group 306, NAID 6949366 (306-PPB-424), retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/que-hacen-los-estados-unidos-en-santo-domingo-spanish-1965/