1962, June – 1963, March: (The End of the U.S.

1962, June – 1963, March: (The End of the U.S. Military Mission: Seventy Scholarships Canceled, the Marine Battalion’s Exercise March to Bizoton, and the Wanga à Mò for Kennedy): The terminal issues were long-standing: Duvalier’s attempts to infiltrate macoutes into American training courses and divert weapons to the milice. In June 1962, he abruptly canceled all seventy U.S. military scholarships previously accepted; on June 25, the mission chief halted all deliveries and terminated the program. On July 20, the Marine commander presented a stiff memorandum characterizing the milice as a militarily superfluous organization with explosive potential and recommending its disbandment — General Boucicaut refused to disavow the study, resigned, and took asylum in the Venezuelan embassy. During the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, Duvalier aligned Haiti with the United States but continued subsidizing Blanchet’s Moscow-line Panorama, which attacked the Americans and extolled Castro and Khrushchev — he also opened Haiti’s ports and airports to U.S. forces, an invitation the United States promptly accepted by landing a Marine battalion in full combat gear for an exercise march from the wharf to Bizoton with intentionally minimal prearrangement, Duvalier’s first notice being when the leading companies were ashore under the Foreign Minister’s windows. The president’s reaction was to load his limousine with bulky black suitcases and prepare for a dash to the Colombian embassy. His revenge was typical: early in 1963, after consulting spiritual advisers, he donned his Secte Rouge scarlet robe and, assisted by Dodo Nasar, chief boko of the Palais National, made two dire wanga à mò — one for the Marines’ commander, the other for John F. Kennedy. Missing no options, he then initiated diplomatic steps for the former’s recall, effected in March 1963. Within two months the Naval and Air Missions and the American ambassador were out. On November 22 — what other date, asked Haitians — John F. Kennedy died in Dallas, and when word reached Duvalier, champagne was served in the Palais National. In early 1964, a special emissary drove to Arlington Cemetery to secure earth from each corner of Kennedy’s grave, a withered flower, and a breath of gravesite air in a bottle brought from Port-au-Prince — Duvalier’s object was to capture the soul of Kennedy, render it subject to his will, and thus control future American policies toward Haiti.