Abstract
At 4:00 p.m. on March 12, 1979, the New Jewel Movement’s (NJM) Security and Defence Committee consisting of Bishop, Coard, Whiteman, and Hudson Austin secretly met to discuss “Operation Apple,” the contingency plan to topple Gairy that had been in preparation for four years.1 The vote was split, with Bishop and Whiteman against action at that time. Another NJM member, George Louison, was brought in to break the deadlock: he voted in favor of action.2 There was a certain sense of “now or never” about the choice; Bishop later explained that it was a case of “them or us … and we didn’t plan on it being us.”3 The main target was the army barracks at True Blue in the south. Apart from the advantage of surprise, the NJM was unsure of what the reaction would be; it had to trust that the populace would support it; that Gairy’s supporters would not fight; and, most importantly, that the police and army would not provide any significant resistance.4 Gairy’s absence meant one key target was removed.
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Notes
Brian Meeks, Caribbean Revolutions and Revolutionary Theory: An Assessment of Cuba, Nicaragua and Grenada (London: Macmillan, 1993), 155.
Manning Marable, African and Caribbean Politics: From Kwame Nkrumah to the Grenada Revolution (London: Verso, 1987), 221.
David Lewis, Reform and Revolution in Grenada: 1950 to 1981 (Habana: Casa De Las Americas, 1984), 151. As a UK report later concluded: “Special branch had been effectively infiltrated by the NJM. Promotion had long been decided by political favouritism rather than merit… The defence force was similarly inadequate. Poorly equipped and trained with part-time officers, it was a rival rather than an effective back-up for the police force with whom there was no effective liaison.” No author, Mexico and Caribbean Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, “Anglo-US-Canadian Talks on Security in the Caribbean, Brief No. 5, Assistance to Enhance Security, Including Police, Intelligence and Possibly Regional Coastguard,” April 30, 1979, 1.
Maurice Bishop, “A Bright New Dawn, March 13, 1979,” in Maurice Bishop Speaks: The Grenada Revolution and Its Overthrow 1979–83, ed. Bruce Marcus and Michael Taber (New York: Pathfinder, 1983), 25. Although the NJM referred to its victory as a “revolution,” it is often referred to as a coup. Marable suggests that the action was “not a genuine social revolution, but a political insurrection against a despotic and corrupt regime.” Marable, African and Caribbean Politics, 220. Meeks suggests that the NJM’s action was “a revolution from above, marginally distinguishable from a coup d’etat by its execution by armed irregulars and by the willingness of the leadership to mobilize popular support, though firmly under its command.” Meeks, Caribbean Revolutions and Revolutionary Theory, 156.
Robert Pastor, “Does the United States Push Revolutions to Cuba? The Case of Grenada,” Journal of Inter -American Studies and World Affairs 28, no. 1 (Spring 1986): 6.
John Goshko, “Caribbean Ministates are a New Source of Concern for U.S.,” Washington Post, July 6, 1979, A12.
Anthony Payne, Paul Sutton, and Tony Thorndike. Grenada: Revolution and Intervention (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 89.
Lawrence Rossin, United States-Grenada Relations since the Coup: A Background Paper (Bridgetown, Barbados: U.S. Embassy, 1983), 1.
Frank Ortiz, “Letters to the Editor,” Atlantic Monthly 253 (June 1984): 9.
Robert Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 143.
Brian Hudson, “The Changing Caribbean: Grenada’s New International Airport,” Caribbean Geography 1, no. 1 (May 1983): 52.
Hugh O’Shaughnessy, Grenada: Revolution, Invasion and Aftermath (London: Sphere Books, 1984), 88.
Jay Mandle, Big Revolution, Small Country (Lanham, MD: North-South, 1985), 23.
Larry Rohter, “Grenada: A Tiny Exporter Of Revolution?” Newsweek, March 31, 1980, 44.
John Lent, “Mass Media and Socialist Governments in the Commonwealth Caribbean,” Human Rights Quarterly (1982): 387.
Ricky Singh, “What Has Gone Wrong, Mr. Bishop?’” Caribbean Contact 7 (November 1979): 1.
Alister Hughes, “Straws in the Wind,” Caribbean Contact 7 (October 1979): 6.
Alister Hughes, “Strachan Explains Coca-Cola Take Over,” The Grenada Newsletter 7, no. 32 (October 27, 1979): 2.
Richard Hart, “Introduction,” in In Nobody’s Backyard: Maurice Bishop’s Speeches: 1979–1983 A Memorial Volume, ed. Chris Searle (London: Zed Books, 1984), xviii.
Cynthia Mahabir, “Heavy Manners and Making Freedom under the People’s Revolutionary Government in Grenada, 1979–1983,” International Journal of the Sociology of Law 21 (1993): 225.
Jenny Pearce, Under the Eagle: U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Caribbean (London: Latin America Bureau, 1982), 154.
Chris Searle, Grenada: The Struggle against Destabilization (London: Writers and Readers Publishing, 1983), 56.
H. Michael Erisman, “The CARICOM States and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Danger of Central Americanization,” Journal of Inter -American Studies and World Affairs$131, no. 3 (Fall 1989): 142.
Eudine Barriteau, “Regional Comments on Barbados-Grenada Relations,” Bulletin of Eastern Caribbean Affairs 6, no. 5 (November–December 1980): 23.
Anthony Maingot, “The United States in the Caribbean: Geopolitics and the Bargaining Capacity of Small States,” in Peace, Development and Security in the Caribbean, ed. Anthony Bryan, J. Edward Greene, and Timothy Shaw (London: Macmillan, 1990), 74.
Edward Herman and Frank Brodhead, Demonstration Elections: U.S.-Staged Elections in the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, and El Salvador (Boston: South End Press, 1986), 181.
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© 2007 Gary Williams
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Williams, G. (2007). Not in Anybody’s Backyard: The Carter Years. In: US-Grenada Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230609952_4
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