Dominican Republic, 1961 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
On the night of 30 May 1961 the Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, who had ruled the country with an iron grip since 1930, was ambushed and shot dead on a coastal highway outside the capital as he traveled by car to visit his mistress. The assassination was carried out by a group of conspirators including General Antonio Imbert Barrera, Antonio de la Maza, and other regime insiders who had turned against him, aided by weapons the CIA had supplied to the opposition after Trujillo's international isolation over the 1960 car bomb attack on Venezuela's President Betancourt and the murder of the Mirabal sisters. Though the killing succeeded, the planned seizure of power failed when a key conspirator faltered, and Trujillo's son Ramfis returned to launch a brutal manhunt that executed most of the plotters, only Imbert and Amiama Tio surviving.
The Trujillo family was pressured into exile by November 1961, ending the 31 year dictatorship.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
04205301961
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo was killed in the ambush; his family was driven from power by November 1961.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; killed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →