Entry name: Invasion of Grenada
Entry number: 257
Entry writer: Dikes, Jason

In March of 1979, a group of leftist radicals known as the New Jewel Movement (NJM) led by Maurice Bishop took power on the Caribbean island nation of Grenada. To convince the rest of the world that their revolution was free of Communism, they established the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG), and promised free elections as soon as conditions on the island permitted. The United States stressed the importance of carrying through with the elections and warned Bishop to refrain from establishing close ties with Cuba or the Soviet Union.

The politics of Grenada's new leaders concerned the United States. In addition to the struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union for global superiority, sea-lanes to the Panama Canal ran through the Caribbean, and the area possessed large deposits of oil, natural gas, and refineries. In 1979, 1,032,900 barrels of oil entering the United States were refined in the Caribbean. Total U.S. direct investment in the Caribbean stood at $9.5 billion.

President Ronald Reagan's administration believed that Grenada was coming under the influence of Moscow through Cuba, a belief reinforced by Grenada’s vote against the United Nations resolution calling for the Soviets to leave Afghanistan. A fear existed that Grenada would become part of a “Red Triangle” consisting of Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua, and Grenada. Reagan’s policy to deal with Grenada included a denial of economic assistance when the administration curtailed an International Monetary Fund loan of $19 million and prevented a $4 million loan to the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) from being dispersed unless an amendment was written into it by which none of the money could be given to Grenada.
Evidence of ties with Cuba and the Soviet Union continued to mount. Grenada's Deputy Prime Minister, Bernard Coard, visited the Soviet Union in 1980 to gain economic aid from the Eastern Bloc. In 1982, Michael Barnes told the House Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs that Grenada was training leftist radicals from all over the Caribbean, that Cuban military advisers were on the island, that both Cuba and the Soviet Union were providing weapons, and that Cuba was helping in the construction of a military airstrip. A speech by the NJM Minister of National Mobilization to the Jamaican Communist Party stated that Cuba would use the new airport to re-supply troops in Africa and that the Soviet Union would also find it useful because of its location astride vital sea lanes and oil transport routes to Europe and the Middle East. President Reagan appeared on television on March 23, 1983 with aerial reconnaissance photographs of the Point Salines airstrip under construction and claimed that it was a military airstrip. Bishop countered that the airstrip was necessary to expand Grenada's tourist trade even though there were only 400 beds in Grenada to support tourism. For the Reagan administration, the ties with the Soviets and Cubans, the airport, and the training of guerrillas all indicated that Grenada represented a growing threat to American hegemony that must be dealt with.

The opportunity arose in 1983 when the NJM fell apart. On October 14, Bernard Coard deposed Bishop. On October 19, 10,000 people marched to Bishop’s house and secured his release, then stormed the armory at Fort Rupert to arm themselves. After a brief battle, Bishop and four colleagues surrendered and were executed. The Revolutionary Military Council (RMC) proclaimed a shoot on sight curfew, and announced that a new government would soon be formed.

The Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Great Britain, Cuba, and the United States took a keen interest in the situation. The Reagan administration’s concerns centered on American citizens in Grenada, especially the one thousand medical students attending St. George’s University Medical School. A telegram to Secretary of State George Schultz from the U.S. Ambassador to Barbados, Milan Bish, reported rioting, casualties, automatic weapons fire, Soviet-built armored personnel carriers in the streets and loss of water and electricity on Grenada and recommended that the United States prepare to conduct an emergency evacuation.

The RMC informed Ambassador Bish that the medical students were not in any danger, and that the evacuations could be arranged for those who wanted to leave. In votes among the medical students, seventy percent wished to leave the island. A representative of the RMC, Major Leon Cornwall, told Dr. Charles Modica, the Chancellor of the medical school, that the RMC would not allow a chartered American flight or ocean liner to come to the island. Once it became clear that that the RMC was frustrating evacuation efforts, then the White House chose to intervene to avoid a hostage situation and get its citizens out of Grenada.

The decision to militarily intervene was further enforced when the OECS asked the United States to participate in a joint venture with Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Barbados, and Jamaica to restore order and democracy. For its legal justification the OECS pointed to Article Eight of the OECS Treaty that allowed member states "…to combat the activities of mercenaries, operating with or without the support of internal or national elements, in the exercise of the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense....”

The invasion began early in the morning on October 25, 1983. The initial assault consisted of 1,200 troops, who met stiff resistance from the Grenadian and Cuban military units on the island. Fighting continued for days, but as the invasion force grew to more than 7,000, the defenders either surrendered or fled into the mountains and the island quickly fell under American control. By mid-December, American combat forces went home and a pro-American government took power. 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.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Burrowes, Reynold A. Revolution and Rescue in Grenada: An Account of the US-Caribbean Invasion. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988.
Sanford, Gregory and Richard Vigilante. Grenada: The Untold Story. New York: Madison Books, 1984.
Schoenhals, Kai P. and Richard A. Melanson. Revolution and Intervention in Grenada. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985.