1966: (Thermidor and the Charm Period: Duvalier Proclaims the End of the Explosive Phase, Haile Selassie Visits for a Day, the .45 Paperweight Lifted Like a …

1966: (Thermidor and the Charm Period: Duvalier Proclaims the End of the Explosive Phase, Haile Selassie Visits for a Day, the .45 Paperweight Lifted Like a Dead Mouse, and Big Brother Masquerading as the Mad Hatter): On Ancestors’ Day 1966, Duvalier proclaimed Thermidor — the time had come to put an end to the explosive phase of the Duvalier revolution. He said every Haitian should come home, and that in every democracy there should be an opposition, otherwise it would be what you call a graveyard. Macoute customs agents at the airport no longer shook out briefcases; curfew was lifted; roadblocks disappeared; newsmen were even allowed to file uncensored reportage. On April 24, 1966, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia visited for a day — the Lion of Judah declined to stay overnight, but Duvalier rhapsodically described it as an enormous success in the domain of diplomacy; it was one of only two state visits during his fourteen-year reign. In June 1966, receiving American reporters, Duvalier, after denying press censorship that day while the incoming New York Times had been scissored, pronounced: in Haiti we have a democracy, Papa Doc is not a dictator, he is a democrat, I am a scientist. As he rambled on in halting English, his desk paperweight — a huge .45 revolver — fascinated the journalists. Asked about the pistol, the president looked down in professed amazement, gingerly lifted the weapon between thumb and finger as if it were a dead mouse, and giggling through gold teeth, ordered an aide: take it away. Milan Kubic of Newsweek summed up: Duvalier impressed me as Big Brother masquerading as the Mad Hatter.