The Galindez Case

The FBI, CIA, Justice Department, State Department and Executive Branches of the United States Government are inextricably entwined in the story of the kidnapped and still missing, Jesus de Galindez, in 1956. Galindez, a Basque Spaniard and Columbia University professor disappeared on the night of 12 March, 1956, 11 days after a faculty committee had approved his scathing dissertation, an expose on the first twenty years of the ruthless and murderous dictatorship of the Dominican Republic's, Raphael Trujillo. The person orchestrating the kidnapping was an ex-FBI and CIA agent on Trujillo's payroll. Captured in a treacherous cabal, Professor Galindez was the Basque Government-in-exile observer at the United Nations and a highly prized, though politically expendable, confidential informant for the FBI. His fate was sealed when his political advantage was deemed discomfiting to US interests and he was discarded. Outrage at what happened to Galindez and the accusations hurled against Trujillo as mastermind proved the crack in the foundation of his dictatorship and augured his assassination in 1961.