Bosch Gavino, Juan

▪ 2002

      Dominican writer and politician (b. June 30, 1909, La Vega, Dom.Rep.—d. Nov. 1, 2001, Santo Domingo, Dom.Rep.), was the country's first democratically elected president. Serving only seven months in 1963 before being deposed, he nonetheless remained a power in Dominican politics. He left secondary school at the end of his third year. A foe of dictator Rafael Trujillo, he went into exile in the late 1930s. In 1939 he founded the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD), the country first political party. After Trujillo's assassination in 1961, Bosch returned and ran for president in the election of Dec. 20, 1962. With the support of the poor, the middle class, and intellectuals, he won almost two-thirds of the votes. Bosch took office on Feb. 27, 1963, with a program of land reform, nationalization of certain businesses, and curbs on the power of the military; a new constitution was adopted in April. Although he was a cautious reformer, he earned the enmity of landowners, businessmen, and the military, as well as of the Roman Catholic Church and of the U.S., which saw him as a leftist. On Sept. 25, 1963, he was overthrown in a military coup, which was followed by civil war and, in April 1965, an invasion by U.S. troops. He returned from exile to run in the election of 1966 but lost. In 1973 he split with the PRD to form the Dominican Liberation Party. Although he ran for president another five times, he never regained power. A charismatic orator, he also was a prolific writer and published essays, novels and short stories, biographies of Pablo Duarte and Simón Bolívar, and historical works that included a history of the Caribbean.

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