Abstract
It is no exaggeration to say that without Eric Gairy there would have been no “revolution” in 1979. The 1970s saw the political awakening and subsequent enfranchisement of Grenada’s youth, particularly influenced by the Black Power movement. Out of this emerged the New Jewel Movement (NJM) whose ability to forge a cross-class coalition of support made it a serious threat to Gairy; as Brizan concludes, “He [Gairy] never, in fact, understood the type of opposition he was up against.”1 The result was the traditional response of violence and intimidation: the events of “Bloody Sunday” in November 1973 alienated many people, especially the younger generation, and the fraudulent election victory in 1976 reinforced the NJM’s belief that Gairy would never willingly relinquish the reigns of power.
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Notes
George Brizan, Grenada: Island of Conflict (London: Macmillan, 1998), 378.
Kai Schoenhals and Richard Melanson, Revolution and Intervention in Grenada: The New Jewel Movement, the United States and the Caribbean (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985), 34.
Robert Pastor, National Security Council, secret memorandum, “Subject: Mini-SCC Meeting on Grenada,” March 14, 1979, no. 1629, 1.
Frank Ortiz, Confidential telegram to US Department of State, Washington D.C., “Subject: Grenada: Prime Minister Bishop Accuses U.S. of Destabilization Program,” 101256Z, May 10, 1979.
H. W. Brands, Jr., “Decisions on American Armed Intervention: Lebanon, Dominican Republic, and Grenada,” Political Science Quarterly 102 (1987): 620. In November 1979, 53 US embassy staff in Tehran were taken hostage by Iranian militants. After diplomatic efforts and economic sanctions were unsuccessful, President Carter approved a military operation to rescue the hostages. The mission ended prematurely in the Iranian desert when two helicopters suffered mechanical malfunctions and a third one crashed killing eight Americans. The crisis effectively destroyed Carter’s reelection chances; the hostages were eventually released the day Carter left office after 444 days in captivity. See David Houghton, US Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
Christopher Hemmer, “Historical Analogies and the Definition of Interests: The Iranian Hostage Crisis and Ronald Reagan’s Policy toward the Hostages in Lebanon,” Political Psychology 20, no. 2 (1999): 271.
Milan Bish, confidential telegram to secretary of state, “Subject: Current Situation,” undated [c. October 15, 1983], 1.
Langhorne Motley, “The Decision to Assist Grenada,” Department of State Bulletin 84 (March 1984), 71.
Milan Bish, secret telegram to secretary of state, “Subject: Grenada: Ambassador’s Assessment of the Situation on Grenada,” 200749Z, October 1983, Bridgetown 06393, 2.
Mark Adkin, Urgent Fury: The Battle for Grenada (London: Leo Cooper, 1989), 108.
Gregory Sandford and Richard Vigilante, Grenada: The Untold Story (New York: Madison Books, 1984), 8.
Richard Halloran, “Joint Chiefs Supported U.S. Action as Feasible,” New York Times, October 27, 1983, 23.
See John McQuiston, “School’s Chancellor Says Invasion Was Not Necessary to Save Lives,” New York Times, October 26, 1983;
Robert Pastor, “Outrage Follows Outrage,” Washington Post, October 26, 1983;
and John Quigley, “The United States Invasion of Grenada: Stranger Than Fiction,” University of Miami Inter-American Law Review 18, no. 4 (Winter 1986–1987): 271–305.
See Bernard Gwertzman, “Fear of ‘Another Iran’ Haunted the White House,” New York Times, October 26, 1983;
and Robert Toth, “U.S. Feared 2nd Hostage Crisis: Shultz,” Los Angeles Times, October 26, 1983.
Robert Beck, The Grenada Invasion: Politics, Law, and Foreign Policy Decisionmaking (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), 202.
See Abraham Lowenthal, Exporting Democracy: The United States and Latin America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991);
Mark Peceny, Democracy at the Point of Bayonets (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1999);
and Tony Smith, America’s Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
Tom Adams, “Speech by the Prime Minister of Barbados to Barbadian Parliament, 15/11/83,” in UK Parliament, House of Commons, Foreign Affairs Committee, Second Report, Grenada, Session 1983–84 (London: HMSO, 1984), lv.
Leslie Manigat, “Revolutionary Shockwave, Crisis and Intervention,” in The Caribbean and World Politics: Cross Currents and Cleavages, ed. Jorge Heine and Leslie Manigat (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1988), 187.
Holly Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua (Boston: South End Press, 1985), 174.
Richard Haass, Intervention: Use of American Military Force in the Post-Cold War World (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1999), 154.
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© 2007 Gary Williams
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Williams, G. (2007). Conclusion. In: US-Grenada Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230609952_9
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