BBC ON THIS DAY | 25 | 1983: US troops invade Grenada About This Site | Text Only 1983: US troops invade Grenada United States marines and army rangers have invaded the Caribbean island of Grenada, seized the country's two airports and taken Cuban and Soviet prisoners. The action, which has shocked the world, was ordered by President Ronald Reagan following a bloody coup by Cuban-trained military who executed Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, and at least 13 of his associates. Backed by helicopter gunships, 1,900 US troops were airlifted to Pearls airport in the north of the island at dawn. They were followed a few hours later by 300 soldiers from six other Caribbean countries. The invasion of this former British colony has angered British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who spoke with President Reagan last night to try to dissuade him from military action. But the Pentagon has expressed a "sense of outrage" that she refused to participate in the invasion despite America's support during the Falklands conflict last year.

Reagan's reasons The US Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger, said three US soldiers were killed as they fought members of a Cuban work force building a runway at Point Salinas Airport. Other US officials said 30 Soviet advisers and 600 Cubans had been arrested. The Caribbean Broadcasting Corp owned by the Barbados government reported four Cubans dead. President Reagan announced the attack at a news conference in the White House four hours after his troops had landed. At his side was the prime minister of Dominica, Eugenia Charles, who is also chair of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). The president said the US had taken military action after an appeal by the OECS, Jamaica and Barbados who were worried about the security of the region following last week's coup. He also wanted to ensure the safety of a thousand Americans living in Grenada, including about 600 students and teachers at St George's University medical school. Grenada gained its independence in 1974 and five years later there was a popular revolution led by the New Jewel Movement which brought the charismatic Marxist leader, Maurice Bishop, to power.

The coup leaders - Hudson Austin and Bernard Coard, Mr Bishop's former deputy - objected to the prime minister's policy of developing closer ties with the United States. The Invasion of Grenada . Reagan . WGBH American Experience | PBS Other General Articles "A lovely little war" was what one correspondent called the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada. Most saw Operation Urgent Fury, its official name, as a guaranteed victory. The Caribbean island, the smallest independent country in the Western Hemisphere, was no match for American military might. Reagan championed the invasion as another step toward ridding the world of Communism, but the big victory over the little island also served as a major public relations coup for the recently battered administration. On October 13, 1983, Reagan was made aware of possible trouble in Grenada. Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard, a Communist hard-liner backed by the Grenadian Army, had deposed Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and established military rule. Six days later, Bishop was murdered. A socialist with ties to Cuba, Bishop had been taking his time making Grenada wholly socialist; he had encouraged private-sector development in an attempt to make the island a popular tourist destination.

With the Communist Coard in power, Reagan grew more concerned. Reagan was most concerned by the presence of Cuban construction workers and military personnel building a 10,000-foot airstrip on Grenada. Though Bishop had claimed the purpose of the airstrip was to allow commercial jets to land, Reagan believed its purpose was to allow military transport planes loaded with arms from Cuba to be transferred to Central American insurgents. Also weighing on Reagan was the security of the 800 American medical students enrolled at St. George's School of Medicine in the former British commonwealth. After the coup, there was violence and anarchy, and with martial law and a shoot-on-sight curfew in effect in Grenada, Reagan was joined by many of his advisers, as well as much of the American public, in believing that the rescue of the American students was justification for an invasion. Grenada had been something of a pet project for Reagan since his visit to Barbados in 1982, where Caribbean leaders echoed Reagan's own fear: that Grenada, with its socialist government and proximity to Cuba, could become a Communist beachhead in the Caribbean.

While Reagan had been focused on Grenada for some time, he was unfairly accused of using the invasion to distract attention from other world events. On October 23, a suicide bomber drove his truck into a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. According to the official report, "The force of the explosion ripped the building from its foundation.… Almost all the occupants were crushed or trapped inside the wreckage." Numbers told an even more devastating story. The bomb, which had produced the largest non-nuclear blast on record, exploded with the force of 12,000 pounds of TNT and killed 241 Marines. Reagan's placement of the Marines as peacekeepers of a tenuous cease-fire between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon had been divisive from the start. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger had repeatedly called for the withdrawal of forces, insisting that Lebanon was too unstable and of little strategic importance to the United States; Secretary of State George Shultz reflected Reagan's view that a U.S. presence was essential to maintaining peace. Although the final decision to invade Grenada was made shortly after the Beirut bombings, by the time of the massacre in October 1983, Reagan had all but officially approved the invasion of Grenada.

The accusation that the bombing in Lebanon motivated the invasion was, therefore, unfounded. If anything, one reporter argued, the destruction of the Marine barracks may have caused Reagan to hesitate. On October 25, U.S. Marines invaded Grenada, where they encountered unexpectedly heavy antiaircraft fire and ground resistance by the Cuban soldiers and laborers building the controversial airstrip. In two days they subdued the air and ground forces. Reagan's credibility was bolstered by what the 5,000-strong American invading force found on the island: a cache of weapons that could arm 10,000 men -- automatic rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, antiaircraft guns, howitzers, cannon, armored vehicles and coastal patrol boats. In all, out of 800 Cubans, 59 were killed, 25 were wounded, and the rest were returned to Havana upon surrender. Forty-five Grenadians died, and 337 were wounded. America also suffered casualties: 19 dead and 119 wounded. The medical students came home unharmed.

For Reagan, Grenada was an unmitigated success: a defeat of Communism and Castro, and a warning to the Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Fortunately for Reagan, by the time of the 1984 election, the Grenada success replaced the bitter memory of the massacre at Lebanon. The History Guy: The Invasion of Grenada The Invasion of Grenada The Invasion of Grenada (1983) The invasion of Grenada in late 1983 can be seen as a small part of the rivalry between the U.S. and Cuba during the Reagan years. A bloody coup in Grenada, along with a perceived threat to American students on the island provided the U.S. with an excellent excuse to eliminate a Marxist regime allied to Fidel Castro's Cuba. President Reagan's Speach on the Invasion of Grenada and the Beirut Bombing Page Menu : Click on the menu bar below to navigate this page. NAME OF CONFLICT: The U.S. Invasion of Grenada ALTERNATE NAMES: Operation Urgent Fury (US) United States and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States vs. TYPE(S) OF CONFLICT: Inter-State (between nations) CONCURRENT: The Cold War, U.S.

Intervention in Lebanon (1982-1984), Nicaraguan "Contra" War (1982-1990) SUCCESSOR: To Page Menu CAUSES OF CONFLICT: The U.S. invasion of Grenada and the toppling of its Marxist government can be seen as part of a greater regional conflict. This conflict involved the U.S. and its Central American and Caribbean allies on one side and Fidel Castro's Cuba, the Sandinista government of Nicaragua and various Marxist guerrilla armies on the other. President Reagan and his administration were concerned that the Marxist government of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was allowing Cuba to gain undue influence in Grenada, specifically by constructing a military-grade airport with Cuban military engineers. On October 13, 1983, the Grenadian Army, controlled by former Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard, seized power in a bloody coup. The severity of the violence, coupled with Coard's hard-line Marxism, caused deep concern among neighboring Caribbean nations, as well as in Washington, D.C. Also, the presence of nearly 1,000 American medical students in Grenada caused added concern. However, along with concern, came opportunity.

With President Reagan's worldwide efforts to confront what he viewed as the threat by the Soviet Union and other Communist countries (such as Cuba), the turmoil in the Caribbean provided a timely excuse to eliminate a Marxist government and give Fidel Castro a black eye. It should also be noted that on October 23, 1983, American foreign policy and pride suffered a terrible shock when a Muslim suicide bomber destroyed the Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 240 U.S. Marines. A successful campaign in Grenada would prove helpful in alleviating the pain of that setback. To Page Menu DESCRIPTION OF CONFLICT: In the early morning of October 25, 1983, the United States invaded the island of Grenada. The initial assault consisted of some 1,200 troops, and they were met by stiff resistance from the Grenadian army and Cuban military units on the island. Heavy fighting continued for several days, but as the invasion force grew to more than 7,000, the defenders either surrendered or fled into the mountains. Scattered fighting continued as U.S. troops hunted down stragglers, but for the most part, the island quickly fell under American control.

By mid-December, U.S. combat forces went home and a pro-American government took power. CONSEQUENCES OF CONFLICT: 1. The Marxist, pro-Cuban governments of Bishop and Coard were eliminated and a regime friendly to American interests took over. 2. The Reagan Administration proved willing to use force to combat what it considered hostile governments in the area. 3. America's European allies expressed disapproval of the unilateral invasion of Grenada. 4. The invasion sent a message to Cuba and Nicaragua that they could only go so far in exporting revolution in Central America and the Caribbean without provoking an American military response. 5. As a result of the Cuban defeat in Grenada, Colonel Pedro Tortolo, who was the commander of Cuban military personnel on Grenada when the U.S. forces invaded, was court-martialed and sent to Angola as a private, along with most of his Grenada command. CASUALTY FIGURES: Grenada-- 49 dead and several hundred wounded. Cuba-- 29 dead and over a hundred wounded. To Page Menu UNIQUE FACTS OR TRENDS: This section is formed from the opinion of the History Guy regarding this conflict. 1.

This was the first "war" between the U.S. and Cuba. Though some would say that the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961 could fall into that category, we do not count the Bay of Pigs in the category of an "official" shooting war or conflict. 2. Grenada was America's first military victory since well before the Vietnam War. 3. This was the first time since before World War Two that an avowed Communist/Marxist government had been replaced with a pro-Western one. It should be noted though, that some governments which the United States and her allies claimed were communist (like the Arbenz government of Guatemala and the Mossadegh regime in Iran) did fall due to covert American (CIA) action. Again, weI do not count them since they did not officially proclaim allegiance to the communist ideology or become overt allies of other communist nations. Something new and historical: Want to learn how to drive a tank? Check out these tank driving experiences .

SOURCES: Grenada from the book The CIAs Greatest Hits by Mark Zepezauer by Mark Zepezauer Here's what the US public was told: President Reagan woke up one day to discover that a horrible Marxist coup had taken over the Caribbean island of Grenada. Because there were Cuban troops on the island, the president had to send the US military to rescue US citizens trapped there and held as virtual hostages. There was no way to get a more accurate picture, since the US military kept reporters from setting foot on Grenada during the invasion; a boatload of US journalists was turned away at gun point and all flights in and out were canceled. Much later, long after everyone had stopped paying attention to Grenada, it became clear that the official story was built on a mountain of lies. The CIA began destabilizing Grenada in 1979, when a man named Maurice Bishop ousted the eccentric thug who ruled the island. Bishop set to work developing a better life for Grenada's citizens and earned much popular support for doing so. He ran afoul of the US fairly quickly, though, when he failed to join in the quarantine of Cuba.

Bishop's mildly socialist program (private enterprise left unmolested, but free health care, school lunches, etc.) was the final straw. Before long, a CIA propaganda campaign was portraying Grenada as a terrorist state allied to the Soviet Union, its 100,000 inhabitants armed to the teeth and poised to attack the pitifully vulnerable US. The US invasion was planned at least two years before it happened, and CIA acts of sabotage proliferated. Money was given to opposition politicians and neighboring armies. Finally, in late 1983, Bishop was overthrown by extremists in his own party and executed, and the US invasion began. CIA agents among the "hostages" helped coordinate the three-day war over shortwave radio. As for the Cuban troops we invaded to protect our citizens from, there were 43 of them; the other Cubans on Grenada were mostly middle-aged construction workers. The Cubans let it be known that they would not interfere with the US "rescue," but the US troops fired on them and they defended themselves. That night, the US assured Cuba that its citizens in Grenada were "not a target"; the next day, we attacked them with helicopter gunships.

When it was all over, 81 Cubans, 296 Grenadines and 131 Americans had been killed or wounded. Today Grenada is back where it was before Bishop, mired in poverty and hopelessness. But, hey, it's no longer a threat to our very survival. CIAs Greatest Hits The US Invasion of Grenada: The US Invasion of Grenada: Foreign Policy In Focus October 2003 It has been exactly twenty years since the U.S. forces invaded Grenada, ending that Caribbean island nation's four-year socialist experiment. An island nation no bigger than Martha's Vineyard, with a population that could barely fill the Rose Bowl, was defeated with relatively few American casualties. President Ronald Reagan's decision to occupy the country and replace the government with one more to his liking proved to be quite popular in the United States, with polls indicating that 63% of the public supported the invasion. On this anniversary, it would be worth looking back at the Grenadan revolution, the U.S. invasion and its aftermath, and the important precedent it set for "regime change" through U.S. military intervention.

Grenada's Revolution One of the tiny island nations that grew out of the British colonies in the eastern Caribbean, Grenada--like its neighbors--was populated by descendents of black African slaves. The original inhabitants, the Carib Indians, were wiped out during the early stages of colonialism. Receiving independence in 1974, the island was ruled initially by the despotic and eccentric Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy, whose murderous secret police--known as the Mongoose Squad--and his passion for flying saucers, the occult, and extra-terrestrial communication had brought him notoriety throughout the hemisphere. On March 13, 1979, in an almost bloodless coup, a young attorney named Maurice Bishop seized power with the backing of the New Jewel Movement. They proceeded to impose an ambitious socialist program on the island inspired at least as much by Bob Marley as Karl Marx. In the next four years, while most Caribbean nations suffered terribly from worldwide recession, Grenada achieved a 9% cumulative growth rate. Unemployment dropped from 49% to 14%.

The government diversified agriculture, developed cooperatives, and created an agri-industrial base that led to a reduction of the percentage of food and total imports from over 40% to 28% at a time when market prices for agricultural products were collapsing worldwide. The literary rate, already at a respectable 85%, grew to about 98%, comparable to or higher than most industrialized countries. A free health care and secondary education system were established, the number of secondary schools tripled, and scores of Grenadans received scholarships for studies abroad. There were ambitious programs in the development of the fishing industry, handicrafts, housing, tourism, the expansion of roads and transport systems, and the upgrading of public utilities. What excited many in the American progressive community was the government's openness to decentralization and appropriate technology, which allowed small-scale American entrepreneurs access to development planning alongside those preferring a more traditional, centralized, capital-intensive model. It was an accessible revolution, close by and carried out by English-speaking people influenced more by Black Power and New Left politics than by Soviet-style communism. Though he would have likely won any popular vote, Bishop never held free elections as promised.

The opposition newspaper was repressed and there were some political prisoners, though the overall human rights record was not bad compared to most governments in the hemisphere during this period. On the international scene, Grenada largely supported Soviet policy, including the invasion of Afghanistan, though not to the degree of subservience as Eastern European countries. Relations were closest with Cuba, which brought in hundreds of skilled laborers, medical personnel, military advisers, and development workers, though there were also good relations with Western European nations, Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela. Ultimate control remained in the hands of the party and the popularity of the regime was centered on the charismatic personality of Prime Minister Bishop. At the same time, the development of parish and zonal councils along with "mass organizations" insured a degree of grassroots democracy and a reflection of the government's desire to create a "popular socialism." However, the New Jewel Movement also included a minority of hard core Marxist-Leninists like Bernard Coard, who led a military coup on October 19, 1983 and placed Bishop and other leading moderates under arrest. In response, there was a nationwide general strike and other protests.

When a crowd of Bishop supporters liberated the ousted prime minister and his allies from prison, army troops massacred dozens of protesters and executed Bishop and two other cabinet members. President Reagan immediately implied that the Cubans were behind the coup and the killings. In reality, Cuban President Fidel Castro had condemned the coup and declared an official day of mourning for the late Prime Minister. Strongly worded cables from Havana underscored the Cuban government's concern, threatening a cessation of Cuban assistance and a declaration that Cuban forces on the island would fire only in self-defense. On the morning of October 25, U.S. troops invaded the island, ousting the government and taking full control of the country within three days. U.S. Hostility toward Grenada The United States had long sought to overthrow the New Jewel Movement. Immediately following the revolution in 1979, the Carter administration granted asylum to the exiled Prime Minister Gairy, who used the U.S. as a base for anti-government radio broadcasts. After the U.S. refused to provide aid for military defense and offered only limited economic assistance, Bishop turned to Cuba for help. The Carter administration then launched a campaign to discourage U.S.

tourism, forbid emergency relief aid, and refused recognition of Grenada's ambassador. When the Reagan administration assumed office, American hostility increased. Economic assistance through the World Bank and the Caribbean Development Bank was blocked, aid from the International Monetary Fund was restricted, and participation in the Caribbean Basin Initiative was not even considered. When Prime Minister Bishop visited the United States in June 1983, President Reagan refused to see him and offered to send only a secondary official. The Prime Minister eventually received an audience with National Security Adviser William Clark, who reportedly did not know where Grenada was located. Reagan administration officials later argued that such peace overtures by Bishop were a major factor in his overthrow. More likely, it was the lack of a favorable American response that led coup leaders to conclude that such moderation did not pay off and that Bishop must therefore by removed. Reports from the Washington Post indicated that since 1981 the CIA had engaged in efforts to destabilize the Grenadan government politically and economically. In August 1981, U.S. armed forces staged a mock invasion of Grenada on the island of Vieques off the coast of Puerto Rico.

As in the real invasion that would come later, paratroopers secured key points on the Grenada-sized island followed by a marine amphibious assault with air and naval support, totaling almost 10, 000 troops. Striking similarities in the geographic code names during the exercise to actual locations on Grenada were hardly coincidental. It is not unreasonable to assume that a U.S. invasion of Grenada was planned at least two years prior to the revolution's self-destruction, which gave the United States the excuse it had been waiting for. The Rationalizations for the Invasion The U.S. invasion of Grenada was the first major U.S. military operation since the end of the Vietnam War. Indeed, it may have in part been a test of the so-called "Vietnam syndrome," the purported "affliction" that makes it difficult for the American public to support U.S. military intervention without a just cause. As with Iraq, the initial justifications for the invasion proved to be either highly debatable or demonstrably false, yet it still received bipartisan support in Congress and the approval of nearly two-thirds of the American public. The major justification for the invasion was the protection of American lives.

Reagan administration officials falsely claimed that the island's only operating airport was closed, offering the students no escape. In reality, scores of people left the island on charter flights the day before the U.S. invasion, noting that there was not even a visible military presence at the airport and that customs procedures were normal. Regularly scheduled flights as well as sea links from neighboring Caribbean islands had ceased as of October 21, however, though this came as a direct result of pressure placed on these governments to do so by U.S. officials. Apparently, by limiting the ability of Americans who wished to depart from leaving, the Reagan administration could then use their continued presence on the troubled island as an excuse to invade. The Reagan administration admitted that no significant non-military means of evacuating Americans was actively considered. Particular concern was expressed over the fate of 800 American students at the U.S.-run St. George's University School of Medicine. The safe arrival in the United States of the initial group of happy and relieved students evacuated from Grenada resulted in excellent photo opportunities for the administration. It appears, however, that the students' lives were never actually in any danger prior to the invasion itself.

Grenadan and Cuban officials had met only days earlier with administrators of the American medical school and guaranteed the students' safety. Urgent requests by the State Department's Milan Bish to medical school officials that they publicly request U.S. military intervention to protect the students were refused. Five hundred parents of the medical students cabled President Reagan to insist he not take any "precipitous action." Staff members from the U.S. embassy in Barbados visited Grenada and saw no need to evacuate the students. The medical school's chancellor, Charles Modica, polled students and found that 90% did not want to be evacuated. Despite repeated inquiries as to whether Washington was considering military action, he was told nothing of the sort was being considered. As the invasion commenced, Dr. Modica angrily denounced the invasion as totally unnecessary and a far greater risk to the students' safety than Grenada's domestic crisis. Vice-chancellor Geoffrey Bourne and Bursar Gary Solin also declared their steadfast opposition. The U.S. media focused great attention on the students who were first evacuated and "debriefed" by U.S. officials who generally supported the invasion.

However, virtually no attention was given to those who stayed behind, who tended to be more familiar with the island and who largely opposed U.S. intervention. There were no confirmed reports of any American civilians harmed or threatened before or during the invasion. It was three days after U.S. troops initially landed before they decided to take control of the second medical school campus, raising questions as to whether the safety of Americans was really the foremost priority. A second major justification for the invasion was the reported Cuban military buildup on the island. President Reagan claimed that U.S. troops found six warehouses "stacked to the ceiling" with weapons that were earmarked for Cuban military intervention in Central America and Africa. In reality, there were only three warehouses that were only one-quarter full of antiquated small arms that had been confiscated a few days earlier by the coup leaders from the popular militias.

Furthermore, Grenada was a most unlikely place for the Cubans to have stockpiled arms: Grenada is three times further from the Central American isthmus than is Cuba itself and only marginally closer to Cuban bases then in Angola, more than 12,000 miles away Despite administration claims to the contrary, less than 100 of the 750 Cubans on the island were military personnel. Furthermore, despite initial press accounts that the U.S. assault was resisted almost exclusively be Cuban forces, it appears that the bulk of the resistance to the invasion was done by Grenadans. Many observers speculate that this was the primary reason for the refusal by the Reagan administration to allow media access to the island during the initial phases of the invasion when most of the fighting took place. The U.S. estimates that only about 35 Cubans died, but has never released Grenadan casualty figures. A major concern for the Reagan administration was an airport under construction on the southern tip of the island at Port Salines, near the capital of St. George's. President Reagan repeatedly charged that it was to be a Soviet/Cuban air base.

However, it has since been acknowledged that its sole purpose was for civilian airliners. Like other Caribbean islands, the tourist industry is an important source of income. The existing airport at that time was too small for jet aircraft and did not have facilities for instrument landings, resulting in the occasional stranding of tourists for days at a time during bad weather. Nighttime landings were also impossible. To make matters worse, the airport was on the opposite side of the island over a range of mountains from the capital and most tourist facilities. While many of the new airport's construction workers were Cuban, the contractor was Plessey, a British firm underwritten by Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government. Canadians, Finns, and Grenadans were also involved. As was pointed out by Plessey officials at the time, none of the necessary components for a military airfield were being built, such as bomb-resistant underground fuel tanks, sheltering bays for parked aircraft, or fortified control towers. Nor was the length of the runway excessive, as the Reagan administration charged. Three neighboring islands had even longer airstrips.

Originally the United States had been asked to help build the airport, which had been in the planning stages of more than 25 years, but had refused. After the invasion, however, the U.S. assisted in finishing the almost-completed project. A third major pretext cited for the U.S. invasion was a request for intervention by the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), the charter of which allows for "arrangements for collective security against external aggression." However, since Grenada was a member of the OECS, there was no external aggression. The article stipulates that decisions for such actions must be unanimous among member states, which was not the case, since Grenada, St. Kitts-Nevis, and Montserrat did not support it. In addition, the United States is not even a party to the agreement. Finally, the treaty specifically states that the rights and obligations of OECS members under other treaties--such as the charters of the United Nations and the Organization of American States, that specifically prohibit such armed intervention--are not affected. Only a token force of 300 troops from these islands was involved, and only in policing functions in areas already secured by American forces.

It was later revealed that the "urgent request for assistance" by these Caribbean states actually came after the U.S. asked for it and U.S. officials drafted the formal invitation letter, which they gave to selected conservative Caribbean leaders to sign. Reasons for the Invasion Why, then, did the United States invade? Many believe that Grenada was seen as a bad example for other poor Caribbean states. Its foreign policy was not subservient to the American government and it was not open to having its economy dominated by U.S. corporate interests. A show of force would cause states with similar leftist nationalist ideals to think twice. If a country as small and poor as Grenada could have continued its rapid rate of development under a socialist model, it would set a bad precedent for other Third World countries. In short, Grenada under the New Jewel Movement was reaching a dangerous level of health care, literacy, housing, participatory democracy, and economic independence. Of particular concern was the influence Bishop and his supporters--who were greatly inspired by the Black Power movement in the United States--could have on African-Americans. A successful socialist experiment by English-speaking Blacks just a few hours by plane from the United States was seen as a threat.

This invasion was also an easy victory for the United States eight years after its defeat in the Vietnam War and just two days after the deadly attack against U.S. forces in Lebanon. It established the precedent for "regime change" by U.S. military intervention and served as an ominous warning to the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua that the Reagan administration could go beyond simply arming a proxy army like the Contras and actually invade their country outright. It also led to a sudden rise in President Reagan's popularity, according to public opinion polls. Despite the fact that the invasion was a clear violation of international law, there was widespread bipartisan support for the invasion, including such Democratic Party leaders as Walter Mondale, who would be Reagan's Democratic challenger for the presidency the following year. (In his successful challenge of incumbent Connecticut Senator Lowell Weiker that year, Democratic Senate nominee and future vice-presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman attacked his moderate Republican opponent for having raised Constitutional objections to the invasion of Grenada.) The Invasion's Aftermath World reaction to the invasion was overwhelmingly negative. A United Nations Security Council vote to condemn the invasion was vetoed by the United States, which cast the sole negative vote. The General Assembly also voted against the invasion by a wide margin.

President Reagan dismissed such criticisms as simply reactive anti-American sentiment, though most of the states in the majority of the UN General Assembly vote also condemned the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan four years earlier. There was strong criticism from America's allies, particularly Canada, which had a sizable contingent of foreign aid advisers in Grenada. The invasion could not have been better timed. The Grenadan people were so embittered and divided by the coup and subsequent killings that resistance was only a fraction of what it could have been had the invasion come two weeks earlier. Similarly, opposition in the United States, which could have pointed to a progressive and popular Grenadan government under Bishop, had to acknowledge that the successor regime was brutal, unpopular, and illegitimate. Public attention was focused on the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon a few days earlier that had killed 242 servicemen, so popular sympathy and support for the armed forces was unusually high. In Grenada during the ensuing months, the mass organizations were dismantled, the labor unions were re-organized, over half of all medical personnel were expelled, investment and tax codes were revised to favor foreign investment, and cooperatives and states enterprises were sold to private interests.

Billboards that had inspired the population to work for justice, equality, development, and national sovereignty were quickly replaced by those designed to inspire them to buy American consumer products. The quality of life for most islanders deteriorated in the period following the invasion despite infusions of American aid. This was most apparent in the health care field, where not a single pediatrician remained in this country where 60% of the population was under 25, nor was there a single psychiatrist to care for 180 mental patients. (Seventeen patients and one staff member were killed when the U.S. bombed the mental hospital during the invasion.) The U.S. invasion of Grenada prompted witch-hunts throughout the Caribbean for those with leftist sympathies. Countries that thought they had the right as sovereign nations to receive economic and military assistance from whomever they pleased realized they had to reconsider. The day after the invasion, for example, Suriname closed down the Cuban embassy in its capital and expelled its diplomats. Upon taking over the island, most foreign doctors, teachers, and other civilians were summarily arrested and expelled by U.S. officials. Shortly after the invasion, U.S.

forces raided and ransacked the Pope Paul Ecumenical Center due to its supposedly "subversive activities" of aiding the poor. Hundreds of Grenadans were held for months without charge. Some suspects were shackled and blindfolded in violation of Hague Convention standards on the treatment of prisoners of war. The island's only radio station was taken over by the U.S. Navy. The right of free assembly was seriously curtailed, the press was censored, and writ of habeus corpus was abolished. Over the next several years, U.S. forces loosened their grip and allowed for popular elections. Grenada has joined other small Caribbean islands under the leadership of a conservative and corrupt elite. The current center-right government, for example, has engaged in some major irregularities in awarding contracts for public works projects to foreign investors with criminal ties and has set up offshore banking operations with little oversight. Although Grenada's economy has been expanding, poverty is widespread, and it appears that the country has little choice but to follow the neoliberal orthodoxy dictated by Washington and its allied international financial institutions. About the Author: Stephen Zunes < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots.

You need JavaScript enabled to view it > is an associate professor of politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, and serves as the Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project (online at He is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage, 2002). Remembering Reagan's Invasion of Grenada | Democracy Now! Remembering Reagan's Invasion of Grenada StoryJune 10, 2004 Donate We take a look at the 1983 U.S.-invasion of Grenada that led to the installation of a pro-American government to replace the former rule of the leftist President Maurice Bishop. We speak with Bishop’s former Press Secretary Don Rojas, who was deported from Grenada by the U.S. military. [Includes transcript] In the early morning hours of October 25, 1983, the United States invaded the small Caribbean nation of Grenada. The fiery leftist President Maurice Bishop had been assassinated days earlier. The initial invasion consisted of some 1,200 US troops.

At the time of the invasion, a delegation of 500 Cubans were in the country. They included doctors, engineers, teachers and construction workers, who were there to help build an international civilian airport for Grenada. When the US forces moved in they landed at the airport, they killed more than a dozen Cubans and more than 40 Grenadian soldiers. The U.S. quickly consolidated its occupation of the island and expanded its force to more than 7,000. By December a pro-American government was established. Don Rojas, the former Press Secretary for President Maurice Bishop of Grenada from 1981-1983. Before that he was the Editor in Chief of Grenada’s national newspaper "The Free West Indian." When US Marines invaded Grenada in 1983, he was deported by the US military to Barbados. He is currently the General Manager of Pacifica station WBAI in New York. TRANSCRIPT This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: Welcome to democracy now!. DON ROJAS: Thank you for having me. AMY GOODMAN: Nice to see you. DON ROJAS: Good to be with you and Juan.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us with that morning, October, 25, 1983. Where were you? DON ROJAS: I was actually in hiding. I was underground, so to speak, this coming a few days after the coup d’état that had assassinated Prime Minister Maurice bishop, and several of his close colleagues. I was in hiding at the time. The invasion, of course, brought tremendous fury, death and destruction in the first 24 hours, and continuing for another week or so, active fighting throughout the country, resulting in the deaths of many Grenadians, and international workers, including Cubans who were there to help us construct the civilian international airport. JUAN GONZALEZ: An invasion of a country doesn’t occur overnight. To what degree, in retrospect as you have been able to see the facts, was the invasion coordinated with the coup? Or was it done with knowledge that the coup was about to occur? DON ROJAS: No, no. The coup provided a pretext for the invasion to take place at that particular moment. In other words, taking advantage of an opportunity of internal destabilization as a result of the coup and confusion within the Grenadian society.

The invasion however had been planned by the Reagan administration as far back as 1981. In fact, there were mock invasion, military exercises on the island of Viequas off of the island of Puerto Rico. Viequas happens to be similar in topography to Grenada. This had been in the works, so to speak, for at least two years before October of 1983. AMY GOODMAN: So explain the chronology even before those morning hours of October 25. I think it was a great surprise to many people in this country that the US was invading Grenada. DON ROJAS: Yes. AMY GOODMAN: In fact, I believe the press was kept off the island? DON ROJAS: Yes. That’s correct. The press was actually quarantined in Barbados for several days after the initial invading force came into Grenada. Of course, this created a tremendous uproar within the international media community. But prior to that, of course, the Reagan administration had been conducting a very organized and concerted campaign of political, economic, diplomatic destabilization of the Bishop government, the revolutionary government of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, from the time Reagan came into office.

The justification for the invasion, as articulated by President Reagan, I would say, was full of lies and distortions and falsifications. Reagan attempted to confuse the American people and the world by claiming that the Grenadian government was in fact building that the Soviet and Cuban military base in the Caribbean region. That was totally false. Also by using the fact that there were American medical students on the island, claiming that their lives were threatened by the Grenadian authorities. That was totally false. AMY GOODMAN: Because there was a US medical school in Grenada. DON ROJAS: There was and there is. A US-run and owned medical school in Grenada. AMY GOODMAN: The famous scene of the students coming off the plane in the United States and one dropping to his knees and kissing the ground–was he a medical student? DON ROJAS: I’m not sure about that, however, I can tell you that in the period before the invasion during the time of the internal coup d’état that had killed Maurice Bishop, when the entire country was under a lockdown curfew, and no one could have left their homes in Grenada, the only persons freely walking about the beaches of the country and the streets of the city were the American medical students.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And how did the United States troops, once they occupied the country, deal with those who had perpetrated the coup against Maurice Bishop? DON ROJAS: Well, they were arrested, several of them, and they were held in detention for many months. Then there was subsequently a trial, and they were sentenced to life in prison. They are still there, actually, in prison in Grenada, after, what, 21 years. AMY GOODMAN: What was Maurice Bishop trying to accomplish? When was he elected? What were you doing in Grenada? DON ROJAS: I was serving the Maurice Bishop government at the time as the press secretary to the prime minister. Prior to that, I had served in the capacity of editor of the national newspaper, editor-in-chief, as you pointed out in your introduction. Maurice Bishop was attempting to empower the Grenadian people, a people who had a long history of slavery followed which British colonialism, followed by independence in 1974. Five years after formal independence from Britain, Maurice bishop attempted to begin a social experiment to empower the Grenadian people, to involve them in the decision-making that would affect their daily lives.

To bring a popular form of democracy to a country that had for, as I said for centuries, had been under the thumb of foreign rulers, in this particular case, the British. Maurice Bishop’s vision for Grenada was of a small country standing tall and proud in the Caribbean region, and in the world community. He was able to bring his message very successfully of a new way for Grenada and the Caribbean to the world, to the United Nations, to the non-aligned movement, et cetera, and received tremendous acclaim around the world at a time. At the time of his death, he had an international stature that was — you might say, it was far out of proportion to the size of the country. AMY GOODMAN: How did he die? DON ROJAS: He was killed. He was assassinated on the morning of October 19 in a bloody coup d’état. Several of the members of his cabinet and others — AMY GOODMAN: Do you think that the US had anything to do with it? DON ROJAS: Not anything directly to do with it. We don’t have evidence of that as of yet.

There are range of theories and speculations as to exactly how the US was involved in the events of October 19. But I can say for certain that the US was very much involved inside of Grenada in terms of the ongoing campaign to destabilize the country from 1979 all the way up to 1983. AMY GOODMAN: Last year, Phillys Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies compared the invasion of Iraq with the invasion of Grenada, saying "I what we’re dealing with now is Grenada on steroids. This is Reagan on steroids. This is a doctrine out of something that was viewed as shocking. There was international outrage, and now there’s international outrage but it’s muted by fear." She said "The invasion of Grenada was in some ways a symbolic act, to everyone but the people of Grenada. It was designed to show that the US was going to be the biggest and toughest kid on the block." DON ROJAS: I think Phillys is correct in that. Unfortunately, one of the smallest countries in the world was chosen to demonstrate this new toughness on the part of the most powerful nation in the world. It’s a bitter irony. AMY GOODMAN: The reaction of the Caribbean community?

DON ROJAS: The reaction of the Caribbean community was mixed, Amy. Among the people of the Caribbean, I would say that the vast majority of them opposed the US invasion. There were some governments in the region that did support it, the government of Barbados and the government of Dominique. The government of Jamaica was led by Prime Minister Seaga, who was a close friend and ally of President Reagan at the time. AMY GOODMAN: He was dubbed by some as President CIA-ga. DON ROJAS: Exactly. In fact, he holds the distinction of being the first foreign leader to be invited to dinner at the White House after Reagan was elected in 1981. AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much for being with us, Don Rojas, now General Manager of WBAI, at the time in hiding and ultimately sent off to Barbados. DON ROJAS: Thank you very much, Amy. AMY GOODMAN: Thanks for being with us. We’re going to take a brief break. DON ROJAS: Thanks for remembering Grenada. The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License .

Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us. Next story from this daily show 30 years on: The legacy of Reagan's invasion of Grenada | Al Jazeera America 30 years on: The legacy of Reagan's invasion of Grenada Commentary: Reagan's invasion of tiny Caribbean island boosted US military and paved way for future interventions October 25, 2013 6:15AM ET U.S. troops guarding suspected members of the People's Revolutionary Army of Grenada during the Urgent Fury invasion of the island after a Marxist coup. Matthew Naythons/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images American troops who hit the beaches on the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada exactly 30 years ago were bit players in a geopolitical comic opera. The invaders used photocopies of tourist maps, since the U.S. military had no maps of its own for the country. Communication was so confused that one officer had to call his base in North Carolina from a pay phone to request air cover.

After an American bomb was mistakenly dropped on a mental hospital, dazed patients wandered aimlessly as heavily armed fighters emerged from surrounding cinnamon and allspice plantations, lending a surreal quality to the operation. Grenada is a lovely dot of real estate. Natives like to say it is "just south of paradise, just north of frustration." Its population at the time of the invasion was 90,000, equivalent to that of Fargo, N.D. In 1983 one of the oddest battles of the Cold War was fought there. Timing was the reason President Ronald Reagan launched the invasion. Americans were still demoralized from their defeat in Vietnam and the humiliating hostage crisis in Iran. Marxist-led insurgents had seized power in Nicaragua and were ascendant in El Salvador and Guatemala. A senior British officer who watched the Grenada invasion from nearby Barbados, Maj. Mark Adkin, wrote afterward that it was launched because of "the intense desire of the president and his advisers to raise U.S.

prestige, particularly at home and in the armed forces, where morale and self-respect had fallen substantially since Vietnam." In 1979, a handful of leftists calling themselves the New Jewel Movement seized power in Grenada. Their charismatic leader, the British-educated Maurice Bishop, turned out to be an admirer of Fidel Castro. Some of his comrades, however, considered him insufficiently radical. In October 1983, they deposed and executed him. That gave Reagan his chance. Reagan had come into office pledging to restore American glory and was looking for a place to flex the country's military muscle. He had sent Marines to intervene in Lebanon's civil war, but that had not provided the quick victory he wanted. He was spending a weekend at Augusta National Golf Club when, at 2:27 on the morning of Oct. 23, he was awakened and given one of the worst pieces of news he would hear as president. The Marine barracks in Beirut had been destroyed in a suicide-bomb attack, killing 241 servicemen. There was no easy way to repair this damage, and Reagan quickly ordered U.S. troops to abandon Lebanon.

But by felicitous coincidence, the attack happened at the same time that Bishop's executioners in Grenada were trying to consolidate their new regime. Reagan had ordered preparations for an invasion before leaving Washington for his golfing weekend. He gave the final go-ahead after the Beirut attack. As the Grenada operation was being hurriedly planned at the Pentagon, service rivalries reared their head. All branches of the armed forces insisted on participating. The result was a cobbled-together force that led to everything from shouting matches between officers to the discovery that each service used different radio frequencies and could not reach the others. The invasion of Grenada was code-named Operation Urgent Fury, but it was neither urgent nor furious. At first, Reagan seemed uncertain about whether to call for the invasion. His first order was to send only a warship, in case American students on the island requested evacuation. "There are not going to be any landings or anything like that," a Navy spokesman assured the press on Oct. 21. Four days later — two days after the Beirut bombing — the first of what became more than 7,000 U.S. troops stormed ashore. On the morning of Oct.

25, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain, which considered itself the ultimate legal authority in Grenada because the island is part of the Commonwealth, warned Reagan that an invasion "will be seen as intervention by a Western country in the internal affairs of a small independent nation, however unattractive its regime." "She was very adamant and continued to insist that we cancel our landings on Grenada," Reagan later wrote in his autobiography. "I couldn't tell her that it had already begun." The invading force met light resistance, including from a small cadre of Cubans. Nineteen Americans were killed. Within days, New Jewel leaders had been rounded up, and Grenada was quiet again. U.S. troops departed a couple of months later. In public, Reagan and his aides justified their invasion with three arguments. First, they depicted Grenada's regime as murderous, anti-American and supported by Cuba. This was true, but it did not make Grenada a threat to the United States. Second, they said they needed to protect the lives of American students, although the students did not appear to be in danger. Third, they produced a letter signed by the governor general of Grenada, Paul Scoon, asking for intervention.

It later turned out that the letter had been written in Washington, backdated and delivered to Scoon to sign after the invasion began. The real reason for the operation was Reagan's belief that the U.S. needed a victory — any victory, anywhere. After the United Nations passed a resolution condemning the invasion as a "flagrant violation of international law," he brushed it off by saying that the resolution "didn't upset my breakfast at all." Several members of Congress visited Grenada to bask in the glory, among them Rep. Dick Cheney of Wyoming, who said the invasion proved that the United States was once again "steady and reliable." An orgy of self-congratulation followed the triumph. A total of 8,612 medals were awarded to participants — most of them to desk officers who never came within a thousand miles of the island. "Our days of weakness are over!" Reagan exulted in a speech to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society in New York. "Our military forces are back on their feet and standing tall." The invasion of Grenada was code-named Operation Urgent Fury, but it was neither urgent nor furious. It was carried out mainly to serve perceived political needs inside the United States. Geostrategic reasons were secondary.

The United States subdued a nation whose entire population could have fit inside the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. That this thrilled so many Americans suggests the enduring appeal of military victory, no matter how small or insignificant. The Reagan administration never made any attempt to negotiate with Grenada's leaders or to evacuate American students peacefully. Its goal was not to resolve a tense situation but to destroy a regime that Reagan said was planning to "export terror and undermine democracy." The same approach would be used six years later in Panama, where the United States rejected a plan by the National Guard to depose the strongman, Manuel Antonio Noriega, because it wished not only to remove a leadership group but also to wipe out an entire governing system that it considered hostile. Operation Urgent Fury was also an extreme example of asymmetric warfare. It was meant above all as a show of force, and it stunned the Central American and Caribbean left. Inside the Reagan administration, it was seen as a triumph. It gave senior officials a sense of momentum, which propelled them to intensify U.S. support for pro-U.S. regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala and for Contra rebels fighting the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. One final legacy of this invasion is what did not happen afterward.

It would have been cheap and simple for the United States to turn Grenada into a model of Caribbean prosperity and thereby to suggest that being conquered by Americans is a good thing. Instead, the U.S. quickly moved on. In 2007 Grenada co-hosted the Cricket World Cup in a brand-new $40 million stadium. It was paid for by the People's Republic of China. Opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Al Jazeera America. Share This:

Question: What was the name of the President of Granada who was executed during the 1983 coup?
Answer: Maurice Bishop