Editor’s Note: I believe that the email versions posts are still not displaying correctly. Please click on the post’s title in the email and you’ll be directed to the web version of the post which appears to be in order. Thank you.
Welcome back to part two of the story of the 1983 invasion of Grenada. To refresh my memory (and yours), let’s start with a quick overview of what we covered in part one. (If you missed reading part one the first time around I recommend you start there.)
In the previous post, I posited the “double onion” thesis to understand the events leading to the invasion. (Think of it as a lacrimonious version of the more famous double helix.) There’s a Grenadian side of the story (one half of the double onion), and a US side (the other half).
As if the odd shape of the double onion’s exterior weren’t enough, each half has its own set of layers. In part one, we peeled the Grenadian side; in this post we’ll dissect the US side, and draw lessons and conclusions.
The salient Grenadian layers covered in part one are:
- The seed of a family vendetta was planted in 1974 when the paramilitary enforcers of the first Prime Minister Eric Gairy shot the father of the to-be second Prime Minister Maurice Bishop.
- In 1979 Maurice Bishop and supporters stage a nearly bloodless coup when Eric Gairy is out of the country.
- The new Prime Minister (Bishop) looks to Cuba for assistance—and, by association, the Soviet Union.
- In September and October 1983 a coup within a coup erupts and the Deputy Prime Minister places Prime Minister Bisop under house arrest.
- On October 19, 1983 Bishop is initially freed by the people but then recaptured by the Deputy Prime Minister’s faction and executed.
Ironically, although Fort George had been built in the early-1700s, a shot had never been fired there…until Maurice Bishop’s 1983 execution.
A couple side notes of interest: The fort was originally built by the French and named Fort Royal, the British captured the fort in 1762. The surrounding town of St. George’s is named for both St. George (the patron saint of England) King George III.
Now let’s shift to the other side of the story and peel the other half of the onion. Let’s first begin with the end in mind and consider that the US invasion of Grenada was initiated on October 25, 1983—just six days after the execution of Maurice Bishop. Although Grenada is not halfway around the world like the Middle East or East Asia, it is 500 miles from the closest US territory (Puerto Rico) and 1,500 miles from the US mainland. Although world-class, the US can’t deploy a force of 7,600 troops from the Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard in less than a week—the invasion was clearly anticipated. In fact, starting in 1981 the US military had been conducting mock invasions (codenamed Operation Amber) on an outlying Puerto Rican island. “Amber” was considered to be an Eastern Caribbean island engaged in anti-democratic and revolutionary activities.
While the stated rationale and tactics of the US invasion are interesting, I think more interesting is the global situation in 1983 which elicited such a rapid and heavy-handed US response:
1) Although it had been simmering for 36 years (and would continue for antother eight), in the early-80s the Cold War was very real. As evidence, just one month prior to the US invasion of Grenada, the Soviet nuclear false alarm incident occurred. In a nutshell, the USSR’s early warning system reported the launch of multiple intercontinental ballistic missiles from the US. Stanislav Petrov, an engineer of the Soviet Air Defense Forces, sensed that something was “off” in the reports and decided to wait for additional evidence, prior to notifying his superiors. The corroboration never came and his decision likely prevented a Soviet preemptive retaliatory attack which would have quickly escalated to global thermo nuclear war and hundreds of millions of deaths. (I nominate Petrov as one of the greatest unsung heroes of the modern era.)
2) In 1979 (the same year that Maurice Bishop’s NJM party had overthrown Sir Eric Gairy’s government), construction of the new Grenadian airport began with Cuban assistance (both technical and financial). To dig a little on the “Cuban assistance” comment: At the time, that phrase was synonymous with “Soviet/Cuban assistance.” Also to be fair, Maurice Bishop first had travelled to the US and asked for help and was given a paltry $50,000 (a diplomatic slap in the face).
In early-1983, Republican US President Ronald Regan (first elected in 1980 and inaugurated in 1981) began warning that the Grenadian airstrip, when completed, could be used as a base for long-range Soviet bombers. Regan’s view was not universally accepted in Washington DC, with many arguing that the airstrip was intended solely for economic development on the island.
An interesting note here on sources: My $50,000-slap-in-the-face comment is based on discussions with Grenadian history buffs and not on anything that I’ve found on my online research. Perhaps that’s a “detail” that the US establishment would rather gloss over.
3) Another recent event in the US conciseness was the Iran hostage crisis. It had dogged Regan’s predecessor Jimmy Carter, and ended less than three years previous. The nerves of the US administration and population at-large were attuned to any similar risk on the horizon.
If you recall from part-one of this post, about 600 US students were studying at St. George’s University. One could look at this and say the US administration was deeply concerned about their safety during the coup-within-a-coup revolution—enough so to commit over 7,000 US troops to “rescue” 600 citizens. One could also say that the students provided a perfect air-cover and supporting rationale for the invasion.
The majority were students who weren’t accepted into US medical schools but determined to get a medical education. In my research I found it interesting that when first airlifted out, many students commented that they didn’t think they were in any danger. Days later, when promised by the US government that they could continue their studies in US medical schools, their general tune about the potential danger seems to have escalated—at least in the students’ comments to the press. To be fair though, some students did report that before the invasion they had to take shelter low in their dorm rooms, below the windows, because of stray bullets.
…layers upon layers in this onion…
4) In my time in Grenada, I’ve heard several times from Grenadian friends and tour guides that while the US CIA and administration could begrudgingly accept Spanish-speaking communist countries in the Western Hemisphere, allowing a majority-black and English-speaking Western Hemisphere country was a red-line that could not be crossed. (Regardless of how small the landmass and population of the country.)
When I first heard this, I thought it hyperbolic. However after a bit of online research, there’s an overwhelming amount of evidence to support the claim. From the (albeit left-leaning) Jacobin: “A state department report from the time summarised the Americans’ concerns. The revolution in Grenada, it said, was in some ways even worse than the Cuban Revolution that had rocked the region a quarter of a century earlier: the vast majority of Grenadians were black, and therefore their struggle could resonate with thirty million black Americans; and the Grenadian revolutionary leaders spoke English, and so could communicate their message with ease to an American audience.”
If that’s not enough, and if you tend to not believe left-leaners, try the Iron Lady on the other side. From the book Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Volume Two by Charles Moore: “On 20 October, the [US] administration’s Crisis Preplanning Group met and discussed a rescue plan for the students, but also the possibility of overthrowing the hostile Grenadian regime. According to Lawrence Eagleburger the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs at the State Department, ‘The prime motivation was to get rid of that son of a bitch [Grenadian General Austin] before the Cubans got any further embedded … The students were the pretext … but we would not have done it simply because of the students.’”
5) The final layer of the US invasion, and zooming way out, is the Beirut barracks bombings. This tragedy occurred half a world away and, on the surface, had nothing to do with Grenada. However, politically it had everything to do with Grenada. On October 23, 1983 (just two days before the invasion of Grenada) two truck bombs were detonated in Beirut outside barracks housing US and French servicemen. 307 people were killed, including 241 US military personnel. It was the deadliest single-day for the US Marine Corps since World War II.
While an absolutely horrific event, it seems that Regan and advisors knew that if they attempted to extract immediate revenge in Lebanon, the US would be mired in a large-scale conflict for years. The revolution in Grenada presented an opportunity for an in-and-out feel-good story in the US news to cleanse the media-palates of US voters. After all, Regan’s 1984 reelection campaign was right around the corner.
To bridge the 1983 history of Regan and Grenada with the 2026 current events of Trump and Venezuela, I found this article in The Nation fascinating: Regan’s Lesson for Obama: Invade Grenada. The 2011 article contends that Obama’s best way out of the seemingly endless Afghan war, is to do something creative and seemingly unrelated to change the headlines. The author (Jon Wiener) expounds, “Reagan could have sent 130,000 US troops to invade Lebanon. But he didn’t. Instead, he did something completely different: two days after the Beirut barracks bombing, Reagan sent 7,000 troops to invade Grenada, the smallest independent country in the Western Hemisphere. He claimed to be fighting communism there, and to be ‘rescuing’ 800 American medical students studying there (because they couldn’t get into American medical schools). The Americans killed fifty-nine Cubans and forty-five Grenadans, suffered nineteen casualties and declared victory after two days.”
If you happen to be a military buff you can read about the details of each day of the invasion and the order of battle here. To me however, it’s the events leading up to, and the aftermath that are much more interesting. If you pit the strongest military in the world at the time against the military of an island nation with a population of slightly north of 100,000 (the capacity of a large US college football stadium), it’s a fait accompli.
A driver that Rhett, Sunny, and I have been using on the island has become a good friend of ours. In our discussions while bumping along narrow dusty drive-on-the-left roads, he shared that he served in the Grenadian military when the invasion happened. We asked him what he did when he heard the news that the “Americans” were invading. With a distant look in his eye and a chuckle, he replied, “I hid.” Now that’s a smart man.
The couple things about the invasion itself that stand out to me are: First, the initial plan of assault was to land C-130 aircraft at the nearly completed airstrip (ironic, since the US had been squawking about how the airstrip could be used for Soviet/Cuban military purposes). Second, prior to the invasion, US reconnaissance and coordination between military branches was either weak or botched. For instance, the aforementioned C-130s took off from Hunter Army Airfield near Savanah, Georgia with the intention of landing at the new airstrip. However, in-flight the Army Rangers aboard had to switch abruptly to an air assault (parachute landing) when they discovered that the runway was obstructed. This despite US Special Operations Forces attempted reconnaissance.
Like the story itself, the aftermath of the story is complex and multi-faceted.
Politically in the US, it was a rousing success. A year after the invasion Reagan was reelected in a landslide. He won 49 out of 50 states giving him 525 electoral votes and almost 60% of the popular vote. (One of the largest margins in US history.)
From the international stage, the UN Security Council drafted a resolution “deeply deploring” the invasion. The vote on passing the resolution was 11 to one. The “one” being the United States’ veto. Nonetheless, by a vote of 108 to 9, the broader UN General Assembly condemned the invasion as a, “…flagrant violation of international law.”
I’ve asked a lot of Grenadians about their perspectives on the invasion. The best that I can say is that it’s nuanced and—like their general outlook on life—they look at both sides of the equation. On one hand, they’re glad that they’re not living under an overtly oppressive regime (which the leaders of the coup-within-a-coup seemed to have been headed for). On the other, they still deeply resent being invaded by fellow American nation that they consider a friend.
I was thinking of the symbolism of it all, and birds, and hawks-and-doves came to mind. While, the US has the fierce and scowling bald eagle (although Benjamin Franklin described it as a, “…bird of bad moral character….”), Grenadians have their Grenada dove as their national bird.
Still, October 25th (the day of the US invasion) is celebrated as Grenadian Thanksgiving Day (a national holiday). Funny, it echoes my feelings about US Thanksgiving Day: A wonderful holiday and we have so much to be grateful to our ancestors for. However, it’s also recognizes a past (and a present) of indigenous subjugation and imported enslavement.
From our sailing perspective, it’s fascinating for me to compare and contrast Grenadian, Caribbean, and American history with the history of the Mediterranean. In the Med the ancient history has calcified and is literally set in stone. Here in the “New World” so much is being created as we speak. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that history is where you look for it.
Fast-forwarding to current events I’ll add that, by sheer luck, my timing on arriving to Grenada was impeccable. I landed in Grenada on Tuesday, January 6th. The US invasion of Venezuela happened on the previous weekend. If I’d have booked my tickets for just a couple days earlier, I would have gotten to the Miami airport only to find that all civilian flights were cancelled. I later talked to our yacht agent Rennie about it and he said that when the news broke (which was at the beginning of their high sailing and tourist season) he wasn’t sure if the season was effectively over because people from away wouldn’t come. Fortunately, for his business and the island-nation, the events in Venezuela don’t seem to have materially affected the season.
Finally, when it comes to Grenada and Venezuela and the history of invasions, it’s important to remember that it’s not all parallels. There are also stark differences. Grenada’s landmass is one-eighth that of the US’s smallest state of Rhode Island, whereas Venezuela’s is one-third larger than Texas (and 2.3 times larger than California). Venezuela’s population of 28 million people is also similar to Texas’ population (and 280 times larger than Grenada’s population of 100,000). Boiling it down to the numbers, Regan and Trump picked entirely different targets.
From a cruising perspective, all’s well but we’ve had some twists and turns. After looking at all angles, we’ve concluded that it’s too difficult to get Sunny into some of the other Caribbean island-nations that we want to visit. Therefore, Rhett and Sunny flew home a couple days ago. Rhett is taking the opportunity to visit family and friends at home and will return in a couple weeks. Sunny will be staying with our adopted Greek family who coincidentally are staying at our house in Florida for a time. Dan will soon be working his way north in Grenadian islands and to the independent country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (where Rhett will fly into when she returns).
As a capstone to this post, last Sunday we were at Le Phare Bleu Marina and the three of us enjoyed a Super Bowl watch party at the Island Fever Tropical Tavern. “The three of us” being Rhett, Sunny, and me—although the tavern was dog friendly, Hazel had to wait on the dock.
While a good football game, the most exciting part of the night was at the end of the halftime show when Bad Bunny’s performance featured flags from the Americas. If you were watching closely, the Grenadian flag (along with its nutmeg emblem) made a showing. When it did, “the crowd went wild.”
His closing message: “Together, We Are America.”
Fair winds and following seas!