US warned Duvalier that several hundred men plotted his death
By Desmond Okafor ·
US officials struggled over saving a reactionary regime from several hundred assassins, while one critical telegram sent to Port-au-Prince remains missing from the official record.
Washington sent the order at 0640Z on April 22, 1976. Telegram 95858, marked "Exdis" for Ambassador Hurwitch, was a repetition of an earlier message from the Secretary of State. The subject was "Anti- GOH Plotting," a sterile bureaucratic shorthand for the imminent threat of a violent overthrow of the Haitian government.
According to the text of the telegram, preserved in the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) archives, the Department of State had intelligence that a coup was not merely a possibility, but a plan in motion. The instructions to Ambassador Hurwitch were precise: he was to alert President Jean-Claude Duvalier to the danger, but he was to do so with careful omission. To protect the intelligence source, Hurwitch was told he could "pass the gist of the report" to the President, but he was strictly forbidden from providing "any details of names or locations."
"The gist of the report"
The specific details Hurwitch was permitted to share with Duvalier were stark. The President was to be told that a plot "previously described to him is still under way," that it might happen "fairly soon," and that the conspiracy involved "several hundred men" operating within Haiti. Most critically, the telegram warned that an assassination attempt was being planned at one of the "several sites habitually frequented by the President."
For a regime like the Duvaliers', where survival depended on a pervasive network of informants and the brutal suppression of dissent, this kind of tip-off from the United States was more than a diplomatic courtesy; it was a lifeline. The public record of the era describes the Duvalier dynasty as one characterized by the use of the Tonton Macoute, a paramilitary force that terrorized the population to maintain the family's grip on power. By providing this warning, the U.S. government was effectively acting as a security consultant for a dictatorship.
Robinson's Dilemma
Internal friction, however, is evident in the wording of the telegram. The author, identified as Robinson, expresses a deep anxiety about the moral and political position of the United States. Robinson writes that the Department is "deeply concerned about continued USG involvement in this matter," noting a fear that the U.S. might inadvertently become a "party to coup attempt by failing to warn Duvalier."
But the concern was not merely about the legality of the intervention. Robinson explicitly questions the ethics of the exercise, asking whether the United States "should act to save what is in many ways still among the most reactionary regimes in the hemisphere."
This phrasing captures the central tension of American foreign policy in the Caribbean during the Cold War: the tendency to prioritize stability and the exclusion of perceived leftist influence over the support of democratic norms. The hesitation Robinson expresses—the worry that U.S. information could "incriminate innocent parties if it proved less than fully accurate"—suggests a recognition that the intelligence was imperfect, yet the instinct to protect the status quo remained the dominant impulse. Robinson concludes the message by asking for Hurwitch's "evaluation, comments and recommendations."
Alphonse Lahens and the Exiles
While Telegram 95858 focuses on the immediate warning, the archival notes provide a wider view of the conspiracy. The record references an earlier communication, telegram 47701 dated February 27, which detailed a plot being formulated by "anti-Duvalier figure Alphonse Lahens and other Haitian exiles."
This suggests a pincer movement: an external effort led by exiles like Lahens, coordinated with internal elements. This is corroborated by telegram 95859, sent on April 20, which reported that a "group of commandos within Haiti" was prepared to carry out the assassination. The plot was not a vague aspiration of the diaspora but a tactical operation with boots on the ground in Port-au-Prince.
Despite these warnings, the archive contains a significant gap. The FRUS record explicitly notes that "The April 20 telegram of the same number from the Department to Port-au-Prince was not found." The specific instructions or intelligence sent on that day remain missing from the official history.
The record leaves the immediate aftermath of the April 22 warning unresolved. It does not say if Hurwitch delivered the message, how Duvalier reacted, or if the "several hundred men" were identified and purged by the regime's security apparatus. It only documents the American struggle to justify the preservation of a regime they themselves described as among the most reactionary in the hemisphere.