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Although Europe and Asia remained critical to America's pursuit of its containment policy, U.S. interest in the Caribbean increased sharply after Cuba embraced communism. As a result, in April 1965, when a military counterrevolution followed a military revolt to oust a civilian junta in the Dominican Republic, the United States kept close tabs on the situation.
When the country's capital city, Santo Domingo, became a bloody battleground and diplomacy failed to restore peace, Kennedy's succes- sor, President Lyndon B. Johnson, decided to send in first the marines and then portions of the Army's 82d Airborne Division. He justified the operation as an effort to restore order while protecting the lives of American nationals, but he also wanted to ensure that Communists would have no chance to gain another foothold in the region. By the end of the first week in May all nine battalions of the airborne divi- sion and four battalions of marines were in country, with Army Special Forces units spread throughout the countryside. Including supporting forces, the total number of Americans soon reached 23,000.