The tiny (110 thousand) Caribbean island of Grenada had stuck in Washington's craw for four years, including close to three years of Ronald Reagan's first term. Here, within a few miles of US territory, was a socialist government that not only declined to participate in the "neo-liberal" free trade economy on US terms, but had friendly relations with Cuba. It was especially embarrassing to someone who had announced the "Reagan Doctrine" of "rolling back Communism."

The island had been one of the United Kingdom's several Caribbean possessions. But in 1967 Britain had granted it internal self-government and Grenada secured its full independence in 1974. Universal adult suffrage had been instituted in 1951 and a populist trade union leader, Eric Gairy, won five of seven general elections from then until 1979. Although seen as their champion by the large black majority, Gairy's rule was marked by fraud, brutality, mismanagement, and links to Duvalier's Haiti and Pinochet's Chile. Grenada's economic elite controlled an opposition party, the Grenada National Party (GNP). It won two elections and was in power twice (1957-61 and 1962-67).

It was especially galling to the elite that Gairy used the additional power granted by Britain in 1967 to institute a land reform program that expropriated his political opponents' estates and turned them into land grants to workers. His rule was marked by buffoonery, patronage and corruption. It was also true that the opposition was corrupt when it was in power. The corruption was of little interest to the US because both administrations gave uncritical support for American foreign policy in the Caribbean. That changed when the radical New Jewel Movement took power.

A revolution in March, 1979 was led by charismatic Maurice Bishop, a London educated lawyer, and his New Jewel Movement (NJM). His party, the People's Revolutionary Government (PRG), sought to pull Grenada out of its colonial legacy of dependency. During the four years it was in power, against great odds, it initiated low cost housing projects, free medical and dental treatment, and free primary and secondary education. It provided thousands of government jobs, a ministry of women's affairs (with paid maternity leave, day care etc.), and a substantial involvement of the people in decision-making through unions, zonal councils and the like--but no elections. Some of its programs received the help of Castro's Cuba, especially with educational and medical programs and with infrastructure development.

At first, Bishop's government was given high marks from several sources, the World Bank among them. But as time went on this "bad example" led to tensions between it and other Caribbean governments. For its part, the US immediately evidenced its fear of "another Cuba." When he had been in power for only three weeks the US ambassador wrote Bishop "...it would not be in Grenada's interests to seek assistance from a country such as Cuba to forestall [a counter-coup]." Bishop, of course, feared a CIA plot or a counter revolt from Gairy, who was residing in the US. And for four years the US aimed a wide variety of harassing methods at Grenada, including:

spreading false rumors to discourage tourism, lobbying the IMF to not make loans, developing plans to cause economic difficulties, charging that it was now part of a Cuban-Soviet terrorism network, claiming that a submarine base was being constructed, claiming that it had received 200 advanced model Soviet war planes, announcing that the airport runway was being lengthened to accommodate bombers that would threaten the US, and planting false but alarming stories in cooperating European newspapers that were then picked up by Grenada's papers (an old CIA trick).

Interestingly, although many of the false stories were dutifully reported by the US mainstream media, the IMF went ahead with its loans to Grenada. The Washington Post reported that the sea was too shallow to accommodate a sub base and no air armada was ever received by Grenada. Grenada said the runway was being lengthened only to accommodate passenger jets for tourists. As a matter of fact, at least five other Caribbean islands had runways as long, the World Bank encouraged the airport project, the European Common Market contributed money toward the construction, and following the invasion the US finished lengthening the runway--to accommodate passenger jets for tourist travel.

Washington immediately sought a way to replace Bishop's rule with a government acceptable to the US and to the several transnational corporations interested in opportunities for trade and investment that the island offered. Those purposes would become clear when the US invaded in late 1983. Personnel from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) arrived in Grenada at almost the same time as the troops. USAID administrator Peter McPherson acknowledged that the military and USAID "have been working closely together, really as a team." They would soon be joined by members of the Department of Commerce and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. USAID's arrival signaled the reentry of Grenada into the free-market economy.

One of the remarkable aspects of the US invasion was that it followed the overthrow of the man the White House wanted gone: Maurice Bishop, confidant and friend of Castro's. The invasion was announced as a way "to restore order." The revolt against Bishop merely provided the sought-for pretext for the US to take charge.

The various accusations about a) the purpose of the runway (to launch attacks on the US), b) the arrival of the Soviet war planes, and c) the building of a submarine base, played especially well with Americans with a limited knowledge of geography. (Why bother with Grenada, when nearby Cuba would make a better base for such operations?) But the most effective ploy was to stress that the US takeover was needed "to safeguard American lives," principally students at a medical school. When Bishop was overthrown, the Cuban government, knowing of the US's concern for the students, had offered to help in their safe evacuation. The offer was not only ignored but with one exception (near the end of a long article in the Boston Globe) was not reported by the US mainstream news media.

The US would later acknowledge that two days before the invasion Grenada had also offered to help evacuate American citizens, but that the Reagan administration "distrusted the offer." The Grenadian government directed its army to treat the students with utmost consideration. Vehicles and escorts were provided for students to shuttle between the school's two campuses. As the invasion threatened, most students were unwilling to leave but some decided to go. The Reagan administration indicated that they were trapped and that the airport was closed. Actually, four chartered flights, with some of their passengers medical students, left the day before the invasion, as the White House would later admit. Few of the retractions of the false reasons for invading ever found their way into the mainstream news media.

A further justification: the US said it had been asked to intervene militarily by an urgent plea from the OECS (Organization of Eastern Caribbean States). Not only was it not true but it would have broken new ground in international law: state A asking state B to invade state C. The Reagan administration's experts in international law worked overtime to put together some justification for invading. They cited the charters of the OECS, the OAS, and the UN. Those charters not only do not permit such action; they prohibit it.

All reasons to the contrary notwithstanding, on Tuesday, October 25, 1983, a force of 6,000 troops invaded Grenada to face 600 Cuban construction workers and a militia of 250. Despite the overwhelming odds there were many miscalculations and it took several days to subdue "the enemy." Many details of the invasion were kept out of the news: reporters and photographers were barred from the island for three days "to safeguard the lives and security of US troops." The media raised a big fuss about this--for several days--but backed off when the government PR experts convinced the public that the media were a threat. If American reporters had endangered any lives by their reporting it would have been the first time in history, despite all claims to the contrary.

After the island was secured, additional justification for invading was announced. A shed was found to contain many rifles, some of them made in the 1890s, and miscellaneous other defensive weaponry intended for the militia. But Reagan waxed eloquent in describing what had been found: "a complete base of weapons... which makes it clear a Cuban occupation of the island had been planned." "...weapons to supply thousands of terrorists." Grenada was "a Soviet-Cuban colony being readied as a major military bastion to export terror and undermine democracy, but we got there just in time." It would be revealed years later that a secret US intelligence report on October 30 (five days after the invasion) had concluded that the discovered weapons were "not sufficient or intended to be used in overthrowing the governments in the neighboring islands."

The invasion was almost universally condemned by other countries. The only Latin American supporters were Chile, Guatemala, and Uruguay. Governments of the Caribbean states would, in the end, indicate support for the invasion, not so much, apparently, because they agreed with it, as for various political reasons. When the UN overwhelmingly voted disapproval, Reagan shrugged it off: "...it didn't upset my breakfast at all." Remarkably, most Grenadians expressed support for the invasion. This was especially the case when citizens were interviewed by the media as US soldiers stood by with assault rifles. The elite, of course, who hated Bishop, strongly supported the US action. The apparent reason that most people supported the action was that they saw it as just deserts for the murderers of their beloved Maurice Bishop.

After the invasion big plans were announced for Grenada by the US. It was to become a showcase for US-fostered democracy. In August, 1984 the New National Party (NNP), was formed, primarily to keep Gairy from returning to power. With US assistance it won the December elections and put Herbert Blaize back in power. He would die in December, 1989 and with him the NNP. Five parties then participated in the next election. A coalition, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), won but by 1990 the government and the economy were in disarray and the plans the US had announced for Grenada's future seem to have gone glimmering.  

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