President Leonel Fernández Launches “Ideas en Conflicto. Diálogo póstumo entre Juan Bosch y John Bartlow Martin” at the OAS in Washington, DC

Washington, DC – On April 24th, Former President of the Dominican Republic and President of GFDD/Funglode, Dr. Leonel Fernández, presented his latest publication, “Ideas en Conflicto. Diálogo póstumo entre Juan Bosch y John Bartlow Martin“, at the Hall of the Americas of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, DC.

The presentation included comments by two Dominican historians, Frank Moya Pons and Juan Daniel Balcácer, who noted the relevance of this book in analyzing not only the relationship between Bosch and Martin, but international relations in the hemisphere as a whole. “This is not a common book. This is not the typical history book”, noted Moya Pons.

Special guests included Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro; José Tomás Pérez, Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to the United States of America; Gedeón Santos, Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to the OAS; and Inés Bustillo, Director of ECLAC-Washington, DC. Natasha Despotovic, GFDD’s Executive Director, regional diplomats, representatives of prominent think tanks and international organizations based in Washington, DC, historians, academics, and the Dominican diaspora, were also present.

According to Fernández, this book can become key in understanding the relations between Dominican Republic and the United States in a period of particularly important political transition. He wrote this “posthumous dialogue” between Juan Bosch (former Dominican President overthrown in 1963) and John Bartlow Martin, former Ambassador of the United States in the Dominican Republic, with the intention of letting people know what really happened that caused Bosch to feel betrayed by the diplomat.