 Rafael Trujillo , known also as The Goat , The Chief , and The <unk> , is a fictionalized character based on the real dictator of the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961 and the official President of the Republic from 1930 to 1938 and 1943 to 1952 . In The Feast of the Goat , Vargas Llosa imagines the innermost thoughts of the dictator , and retells The Goat 's last hours from his own perspective . Trujillo 's character struggles with aging and the physical problems of <unk> and impotence . Through fictional events and first person narrative , the reader is given insight into the man who , during his " thirty @-@ one years of <unk> political crimes " , modernized the country 's infrastructure and military , but whose regime 's attacks against its enemies overseas ( particularly the attempted assassination of <unk> <unk> , president of Venezuela ) led to the imposition of economic sanctions on the Dominican Republic by the Organization of American States in the 1950s . The resultant economic downturn , in conjunction with other factors , leads to the CIA supported assassination plot that ends Trujillo 's life on May 30 , 1961 . 
