Colonel Octave Cayard, Commandant of the Haitian Coast

At 9am Colonel Octave Cayard declared in a telephone call that he would capture the Coast Guard's largest vessels. By sixteen minutes to twelve a round was fired, but landed short of the Palace. Though a subsequent ten rounds were fired, Vaky reported that things were 'reasonably calm' and that there was no sign of additional forces joining the erstwhile rebellion as ground troops appeared patriotic to the government.

It was alleged that Cayard acted after a month-long pursuit and the capture of various other members of the coup-plotting committee. Vaky extemporizes, contrarily, that Cayard had political ambitions, but was a soldier by profession, acting with no political motivation, and divulged that, just the year before, the officer had plotted to de-seat the ailing Duvalier as he recovered from a heart-attack. While seeming confident that Cayard was acting on the impulse of fear and not making a coordinated attack, Vaky stressed that, given time, forces could come to his aid.

Colonel Octave Cayard, 47 at the time, had been at his post for almost exactly seven years that day. Vaky told Washington that he'd been 'friendly' towards the US, which probably gave reason for his advice that Washington not move to assist Duvalier so quickly, and that Cayard had been favored as a likely candidate should Duvalier be taken from his seat.

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