Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 3, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2018 | Page 18

A Psychological and Political Analysis of a Twentieth Century “Doctator”
During Duvalier’s early years, Haiti would go through a particularly turbulent
political period.
When he (Duvalier) he was one-year old Gen. Antoine Simon
overthrew Alexis. He was four when a revolution ousted President
Simon, and five years old when an explosion reduced the old wooden
Palais National and President Cincinnatus Leconte along with
it to splinters. Duvalier was six when President Tancrède Auguste
was poisoned; his funeral was interrupted when two generals began
fighting over his succession .... One Michel Oreste got the job, but
he was overthrown the following year by a man named Zamor, who
in turn fell a year later to Davilmar Théodore. (Diederich and Burt
1969, 30)
The American occupation of Haiti began when Duvalier was eight years
old. During this period, he witnessed American repression and assault on the
Haitian religious culture and practice of Voodoo. By the time his mother died
in 1921 when he was 14, Duvalier had lived under nine Haitian presidents and
experienced an American occupation with violent nationalistic attempts to oust
the unwelcomed force. There would be 12 additional Haitian presidents between
1922 and October 1957, eight of whom held the position for less than one year.
The swiftness with how quickly political tables can turn is something that Duvalier
would come to internalize and later account for during his own presidency. His
mistrust of others would force him to consolidate power and surround himself
with family and individuals he believed he could control.
Duvalier was reportedly inspired to become a physician around the age of
12, when he watched a Haitian mother treat her child for a tropical bacterial skin
infection; following this event, Duvalier decided that he wanted to heal those afflicted
by diseases (Abbott 1988). After completing his secondary education, Duvalier
came to pursue his interest in medicine and enrolled in the University of
Haiti School of Medicine, without being required to take an entrance exam (Diederich
and Burt 1969). During his time in medical school, he became politically active
and participated in student strikes, initially protesting against education policies,
and eventually expanding to an overall protest against the U.S. occupation
(Abbott 1988; Johnson 2006). A description of Duvalier during his medical school
years mirrors his time in primary school, where the general sentiment was that he
was underwhelming and nonthreatening. In her book Haiti: An Insider’s History
of the Rise and Fall of the Duvaliers, Elizabeth Abbott (1988) describes Duvalier
as a “mediocre” medical student who was distracted by his other ethnological interests
and who “studied only enough to pass” (8). This description is reinforced
in reports that his colleagues referred to him behind his back as “the dummy”
or “the dumb one” (Marquis 2007, 106). In addition to his political and academ-
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