Photograph taken on the occasion of one of the two 1933 border meetings (at Ouanaminthe, Haiti, and Dajabon, Dominican Republic) between presidents Sténio Vincent (center) and Rafael Trujillo (right, holding hat) to iron out points that had not been settled by the Vasquez-Borno border treaty of 1929. A final treaty was signed in March 1936 but it did not prevent Parsley Massacre in 1937. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

NEW YORK—Franklin D. Roosevelt, during his 12-year presidency, prided himself on the United States being a good neighbor to fellow nations in the Americas.

He met with Latin and Caribbean leaders, invited them to dinner and gave rides around Washington, D.C., like a good neighbor should. He traded with them and mediated their conflicts, again like a good neighbor should. Where Roosevelt failed as a good neighbor, however, was in allowing his political pet Rafael Trujillo, 30-year dictator of the Dominican Republic and fan of Adolf Hitler, to kill and maim another neighbor.

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