D-Day in Grenada

By Ed Magnuson

The U.S. and friends take over a troubled Caribbean isle

The government is building a full-size jet airport so that visitors will be able to reach the island directly from North America and Europe. Enjoy the magnificent view where the Atlantic joins the Caribbean. On one side you will see a sparkling slate-black beach of volcanic sand and on the other, of brilliantly white coral sand.

--Grenada tourist brochure

At first, the North American visitors ignored the uncompleted airstrip, but they certainly took advantage of one of Grenada's many scenic beaches. A group of U.S. Navy Seals, trained in special seaborne operations, slipped silently ashore under the cover of darkness. Weapons in hand, they crept up the hill overlooking the quaint 18th century city of St. George's. They rushed toward Government House, where Sir Paul Scoon, the island's British-appointed Governor-General, had been held under virtual house arrest by Grenada's revolutionary Marxist military leaders. Driven back at first by gunfire from house guards, the Seals attacked again and took charge of the mansion.

The next visitors arrived in the pre-dawn light with all the thunder of rapid-fire U.S. Cobra and AC-130 helicopter gunships, Air Force C-5A and C-130 troop transports, and the supersonic boom of jet fighters. Two airports, one operational and the other being built, were much on their minds.

The assault began in two main strikes. At 5:36 a.m. on Tuesday, some 400 Marines aboard troop helicopters from the amphibious assault ship Guam roared into Pearls airport, the island's only functioning airstrip. Thirty-six minutes later, hundreds of U.S. Rangers, the Army's elite special forces, parachuted onto the barricaded, uncompleted 10,000-ft. strip at Point Salines on Grenada's southeastern tip. They had been dispatched from a staging airfield in Barbados, just 160 miles, or 45 minutes, away. Grenada, the once sleepy tourist haven, barely 80 miles off Venezuela in the Caribbean's Windward Islands, was now fully awake--and frightened.

For the first time since the end of the Viet Nam War, the U.S. had committed its troops to a combat attack. The abrupt use of force immediately drew a worldwide chorus of protest. U.S. allies, including British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, deplored the violation of Grenada's sovereignty. Many Latin American nations saw the invasion as a revival of the type of gunboat diplomacy that has haunted them for more than a century. At home, members of Congress and ordinary citizens alike wondered what had prompted President Reagan to take such drastic action against a tiny island. Coming only two days after the death of at least 229 Marines in Beirut, the move was sure to trigger a new debate on whether the Administration is increasingly relying on force as a complement to, if not a substitute for, diplomacy.

The invasion was conducted with the declared purpose of protecting the lives of 1,000 Americans who were trapped on the island after a bloody, left-wing military coup. Although six of Grenada's worried Caribbean neighbors had requested the U.S. action and supplied a token force of 400 men to the operation, many nations accused the U.S. of violating international law. Still, as the surprisingly difficult military operation continued, the Administration was able to produce evidence that Grenada was becoming a Soviet-Cuban base that threatened U.S. strategic interests in the Caribbean.

At first, the Marines met little resistance. They had chosen to assault the island's east coast by helicopter, rather than with landing craft, because advance intelligence probes found too many shoals and other obstacles on the island's northeastern shore. Within two hours, the Marines declared Pearls airport secure.

The Rangers, however, ran into unexpectedly heavy antiaircraft fire as their choppers approached Point Salines. Much of the flak came from the barracks area where Cuban workers building the airstrip were housed. The Pentagon had expected to find about 500 Cubans on the island, including 350 workers and a small military advisory group. Instead, they were facing more than 600 wellarmed, professionally trained soldiers.

As the Rangers drifted toward the airstrip in their chutes, the Cubans met them with AK-47 automatic-rifle fire. Armored personnel carriers, filled with either Cuban troops or ammunition, suddenly appeared within 400 yds. of the Ranger landing sites. They aimed mortars at the invaders' positions. The Rangers took cover and returned small-arms fire. U.S. gunships protectively sprayed the resisting forces. "They were waiting for us," recalled First Lieut. Michael Menu, who was wounded in the initial attack. "We could hear the shooting and the bombs, but we could not see anything," said Sergeant Terry Guinn, who lay wounded while hearing Cubans all around him.

Awakened by the explosions, the American students at the True Blue campus of St. George's University School of Medicine did not know who was shooting at whom. "There was antiaircraft fire coming from the Cubans around the airport," said Harold Harvey, 22, of Beckley, W. Va. "Then I saw the paratroopers jumping. It was really thrilling to see, kind of like an old John Wayne movie, but I knew people were going to get killed." Student Stephen Renae of Point Pleasant, N.J., saw "planes diving and strafing at ground targets we couldn't see. The worst thing was not knowing where the planes were from."

Some students rolled under their beds. Some jumped into bathtubs. Bullets crashed into their rooms, one piercing a pillow. John Kopycinski, an assistant to the school chancellor, banged on the doors of students' rooms and told them to block their windows with mattresses against the possibility of shattering glass. He ordered them to draw their shades and not leave their rooms. Student Mark Barettella of Ridgefield, N.J., flipped on a ham radio transceiver in his room and aired the first personal account of what was happening. "Right now we can't move," he said. "I'm on the floor. The microphone is on the floor."

At the Point Salines airstrip, the Rangers managed to clear the runway of pipes, boulders and vehicles, which had been placed there by Grenadians and Cubans. The Rangers could now fly onto the field in C-130s. By 7:15 a.m. the airstrip was secure. Hundreds of Cubans had thrown down their weapons and surrendered to the superior U.S. firepower.

But the fighting was far from over. An additional 400 Cubans, it turned out, plus an unknown number of Grenadian soldiers and militiamen, continued to rattle the Rangers with sniper and mortar fire. They had isolated the medical school's Grand Anse campus from its True Blue buildings. They roamed the back streets of St. George's, pounding on doors, and melted up into the hills, seeking either hiding or sniper sites. They continued to control the capital's small harbor.

Moving from Point Salines, the Rangers pushed toward the nearby True Blue campus. At 8:30 a.m., students heard and saw soldiers near the men's dorm. One Ranger ran across the runway and shouted, "We're Americans. You are all right." The soldiers warned the students to stay away from windows, but to collect a few belongings and gather in the adjacent lecture hall. There an officer told them, "We are the U.S. armed forces and we are here to get you out if you want to go." Students applauded with joy and relief.

The medical students set up makeshift treatment centers in the lecture hall and in a library. They helped a score of wounded Grenadians and Cubans. The U.S. wounded were also given first aid. But morphine to relieve pain was running low. An outdoor basketball court was turned into a helicopter pad to lift the wounded to the Guam or to hospital facilities elsewhere. Recalled Student Paula Prezioso of Great Neck, N.Y.: "One minute we'd be under a desk, the next up looking for a Coke, the next treating some Cuban sniper. Then back under a desk."

With some 1,900 U.S. troops now on Grenada, the Pentagon ordered two battalions of reinforcements from the 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg, N.C. That brought the invasion force to 3,000. Conceded Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman John Vessey: "We got a lot more resistance than we expected."

On Tuesday afternoon, the Guam moved to the west coast of the island. The enemy troops had grouped in a significant force north of St. George's. They held Fort Frederick and were assumed to be holding hostages at Richmond Hill prison, on high ground east of the capital. From the Guam, 250 Marines boarded 13 amphibious vehicles, carrying five tanks, and stormed ashore at Grand Mai Bay north of the city. They began moving south, while the paratroopers headed north toward the capital in a pincer movement.

While the medical school staff tried frantically to locate the 200 students living off campus, John Doyle of Lindenhurst, N.J., heard banging in the back of the house he shared with four roommates between the two campuses. Grenadian soldiers were battering the kitchen door with gun butts. The students fled to a bathroom, then feared that if they surprised the intruders by being there, they might be shot. Doyle took off his U.S.A.-emblazoned T shirt, walked into the kitchen and found himself facing 30 soldiers carrying AK-47 rifles and dressed in battle fatigues. The soldiers set up portable radios and turned the house into a small battle center. After three hours of captivity, the students were released without harm. Said Doyle about the soldiers: "I asked them to please lock up when they left." (He later found the house abandoned, locked, the AK-47s left behind.)

By nightfall on the invasion's first day, the U.S. force was far from firmly in control of Grenada. It was not until 7:12 a.m. on Wednesday that the Marines were able to overcome troops besieging the Governor General's mansion and join the Seals who were inside it. Scoon and 32 civilians with him asked to be taken out of Grenada for their own protection. They were carried by helicopter to the Guam.

Students at the Grand Anse campus still had seen no Marines. Barettella's amateur radio station, virtually the sole source of specific action reports for more than 30 hours, reached the school's chancellor, Charles Modica, in New York. Modica had been highly critical of the invasion, contending that his students had not been in danger before it began. He had urged students to remain in school, saying they could not expect a refund of their $6,000 annual tuition if they left. Now his assistant, Kopycinski, took the microphone in Grenada and pleaded, "Our water supply has been cut off and food supply is scarce, and we'd all feel a hell of a lot better if we could see some American faces around the campus."

It was not until 4 p.m. on Wednesday that airborne units assaulted the troops surrounding the campus. Some of the students feared they would be taken hostage, although the Grenadians and Cubans had never made a move to harm them. They apparently ringed the school in a defensive stance, knowing the U.S. forces could not use heavy firepower with the students so close. Finally, Marines and Rangers in six choppers broke through. Faces blackened, weapons at the ready, they kicked a dormitory door down and one declared, "We're friendly forces. We are American Marines." Students soon began running for the evacuation helicopters in a wild scramble while shots whizzed about them. Some hit the dirt and crawled to the waiting choppers.

At roughly the same time on Wednesday, U.S. forces rushed into a now deserted Fort Frederick and found only abandoned inmates at Richmond Hill prison. The invading forces carefully avoided endangering the Soviet embassy in St. George's, where 49 diplomats, scornfully described by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger as "embassy people, spies, KGB people and others," were in seclusion. Ten East Germans, three Bulgarians and 24 North Koreans were also at the Soviet embassy.

By late Thursday, Atlantic Fleet Commander Admiral Wesley McDonald later reported, "all major military objectives in the island were secured." But on Friday, he said, "scattered pockets of resistance" remained "and fighting is still in progress." By then 5,000 paratroopers, 500 Marines and 500 Rangers were on Grenada. Captured Cuban documents, McDonaid said, showed that as many as 1,100 Cubans had been there. Only 638 were in the custody of the invading forces. Many of the others, he suggested, may have fled to the interior mountains.

Administration officials were eager to detail the surprisingly large Cuban presence. According to McDonald, captured Cuban records showed that Fidel Castro planned to send 341 officers and 4,000 soldiers to the island, increasing the total of armed Cubans there to a force of 6,800. Six warehouses north of the Point Salines airstrip had been found with Soviet and Cuban arms. A Pentagon spokesman said this was "far above what any island this size would need for self-defense." However, TIME Correspondent William McWhirter, who visited the warehouses, found the supplies "more of a hodgepodge of wholesale weaponry than a sophisticated armory." Also overrun by the Americans was what McDonald described as a "command and control position" with all the radios, counterintelligence gear and cryptography equipment needed to run a clandestine government.

While not excessive for such an operation, the human cost was high. At week's end the count of dead U.S. servicemen stood at eleven. An additional seven were missing. At least 67 were wounded, some seriously. One of the secrets in the heavily censored little war was the extent of casualties inflicted on the enemy. U.S. officials refused to provide even the roughest estimate of Cuban and Grenadian deaths.

The decision to strike the tiny Caribbean island had been made swiftly; the haste worried some top U.S. military planners. But the concern in Washington over the Marxist ideology of the former British colony's erratic leaders and their growing chumminess with Cuba and the Soviet Union had been festering for years. Relations with the U.S. had been good after Britain granted Grenada independence in 1974. The leader, Prime Minister Eric Gairy, wielded his constitutional power with repressive and corrupt tactics, but demonstrated strong anti-Communist fervor. He was overthrown in a bloodless coup on March 13, 1979, by Maurice Bishop, then 34, a charismatic leader of the leftist New Jewel Movement. Within three days, a Cuban ship carrying Soviet weapons and ammunition arrived in Grenada.

Grenada remained a member of the British Commonwealth. Scoon, a Grenadian knighted by Britain, represented the Queen in the post of Governor-General. But Cuba's influence grew steadily. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter warned Bishop that his government could expect no more economic aid from the U.S. if it aligned itself with Cuba. Bishop protested this U.S. "interference." Carter and his security aides considered covert action to dislodge Bishop, but decided instead to treat him with hands-off hostility.

Relations worsened when Bishop announced in November 1979 that Fidel Castro would help Grenada build a new "international airport," ostensibly to aid the island's tourist business. A Cuban construction brigade, using 85 pieces of Soviet heavy construction equipment, arrived in December to start the work. The airport's 10,000-ft. runway would be compatible with both tourist-laden jumbo jets and long-range military aircraft.

Shortly after taking office in 1981, the Reagan Administration told Bishop that his ties to Cuba posed a threat to the peace of the region. As relations with the U.S. worsened, Grenada's links with the Kremlin grew more open. Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard visited Moscow in May 1980, where he signed a treaty giving the Soviets permission to land their long-range reconnaissance planes, the TU-95, on Grenada when the new airport was completed.

On a visit to Barbados in April 1982, Reagan complained to Prime Minister Tom Adams and Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga about the "spread of the virus" of Communism from Grenada. The two Caribbean leaders shared the President's concern. Recalled a presidential aide who was there: "They really beat up on us about Grenada."

Reagan's concern apparently grew when Bishop visited Moscow in July 1982 and said there that the Soviet Union had granted Grenada long-term financial credits to construct a land station linked to a Soviet communications satellite.

By March of this year, Reagan had become exasperated with critics who belittled his worries about a scenic tourist island whose main activity is producing about one-third of the world's supply of nutmeg. Declared the President: "It isn't nutmeg that's at stake in the Caribbean and Central America. It is the U.S. national security." In a TV speech 13 days later, he showed a classified photo of the Cuban barracks on Grenada and the growing airstrip. "Grenada doesn't even have an air force," Reagan said. "Who is this intended for?" He answered his own question: "The Soviet-Cuban militarization of Grenada can only be seen as power projection into the region."

Then came a potential turning point. In June, Bishop traveled to Washington without any official invitation, apparently in an attempt to improve relations. After a week of hesitation, William Clark, who was then National Security Adviser, and Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth Dam met Bishop for 40 minutes. They gave him another anti-Communist lecture and a warning: if he wanted to become friendlier with Washington, he had to ease his repressive rule and hold free elections.

Back in Grenada, Bishop told colleagues in his New Jewel Movement that he wanted to test Washington's intentions. He talked of opening a dialogue with the U.S. and toned down his anti-American rhetoric. In response, according to officials both in Washington and in some of Grenada's neighboring islands, Cuba encouraged the harder-line deputy, Coard, to push Bishop out. But this effort spun wildly out of control.

Coard and other extreme leftists ordered Bishop placed under house arrest on Oct. 13. With Bishop was his longtime friend, Education Minister Jacqueline Creft. The plotters underestimated Bishop's popularity. His supporters, several thousand strong, rushed the gates of his residence on Oct. 19, freed him and Creft, and carried them to a rally on Market Square in St. George's. Bishop spoke briefly before the crowd moved on to Fort Rupert, where the Grenadian army had its headquarters. There, according to eyewitnesses, troops opened fire on the crowd, killing a dozen people. Bishop, Creft, two other top officials and two union leaders were promptly executed.

General Hudson Austin, 45, a tough former prison guard, announced on Grenada's radio that he was the new leader of a 16-man military government. He ordered a 24-hour curfew,'warning that any violators would be shot on sight. Castro, a friend of Bishop's, publicly deplored the "savage" killings.

Late the next day, Reagan asked Vice President George Bush to convene a Special Situation Group meeting in the White House.''The first concern, according to Secretary of State George Shultz, was the safety of the 1,000 Americans in Grenada, including some 700 medical students. The group quickly decided to divert a naval task force, headed by the carrier Independence, that was on its way to Lebanon with 1,900 Marines scheduled for routine rotation with those there. The ships headed for Grenada as "a precautionary measure," Shultz said. According to Barbados Prime Minister Tom Adams, the U.S. had even thought of trying to rescue Bishop while he was under house arrest.

On the Friday after Bishop's murder, leaders of the six nations in the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (O.E.C.S.) met in Barbados. All are former or present British colonies: Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Kitts-Nevis, Montserrat and St. Vincent. Each leader expressed the fear that the bloody leftist military takeover on Grenada could embolden Havana-leaning revolutionaries in their own nations. They voted unanimously to ask the U.S. to provide the muscle to do something about Grenada. Barbados and Jamaica, not members of the group, joined in the plea for U.S. help. The organization's chairman, Prime Minister Eugenia Charles of Dominica, said later that Governor General Scoon had managed to get word out to O.E.C.S. that it should act "to bring normalcy back" to Grenada. The plea for U.S. help, she insisted, originated with "our request to the Americans."

Also on Friday, the U.S. embassy in Bridgetown, Barbados, asked Grenadian authorities to permit two consular officers to check on the welfare of the American students. Their plane was first waved away and, when it was finally permitted to land, it was met by teen-age youths toting machine guns. The two did get to see the students, but were alarmed at the lack of governmental authority in the country. The diplomats, said one U.S. official, "were terrified. They wanted to get out themselves."

Then began the most extraordinary weekend of Ronald Reagan's presidency. He had flown to Georgia's Augusta National Golf Club late Friday for two days of relaxation with Shultz and Treasury Secretary Donald Regan. At 2:45 a.m. on Saturday, Shultz was awakened in the Eisenhower cottage at Augusta with an urgent cable from Barbados, which told him that the eastern Caribbean states wanted the U.S. to invade Grenada. Shultz and the new National Security Adviser, Robert ("Bud") McFarlane, reported the request to Vice President Bush on a secure telephone line to Washington at about 3:30 a.m. Bush, in turn, roused other NSC officials to discuss the plea. He told Shultz and McFarlane that the advisers were eager, at the least, to speed the planning for an invasion. At 5:15 a.m. Reagan listened to Shultz and McFarlane explain the invasion request. He wanted to get the views of Bush and Defense Secretary Weinberger firsthand and telephoned them.

Back in Washington, Bush assembled top security officials, including Weinberger, General Vessey and key White House aides for a meeting that began at 9 a.m. and lasted almost two hours. Summed up one participant: "Everyone was gung-ho." The President joined the conversation via speakerphone for five minutes. One White House staffer warned that there would be "a lot of harsh political reaction" to a U.S. strike at the small island nation. Replied the President: "I know that. I accept that." Still, Weinberger and Vessey wanted to learn more about the weapons and willingness to fight of the Cubans on Grenada. Recalled an aide: "I had a real fear that it could be a very bad situation: Desert One all over again."

Reagan and Shultz deliberately continued to play golf on Saturday, knowing that a sudden return to Washington would fuel speculation. Suddenly, in the afternoon, Reagan took a break for a bizarre reason: a drunken gunman wanting to see him had crashed his pickup truck through a golf course gate and held hostages in the club's pro shop. After trying in vain to talk to the man by telephone, Reagan was whisked back from the 16th hole to the Eisenhower cabin by heavily armed Secret Service agents.

Then came another shocker, one of far greater significance. At 2:27 a.m. on Sunday, Reagan was awakened with the tragic news of the bombing of American and French military quarters in Beirut. The casualties jolted him. He knew he had to get back to Washington.

Now the Grenada operation became subtly intertwined with the atrocities in Lebanon. With so many American lives just lost, could Reagan risk more so soon in a military action he had the power to abort? Momentarily, he considered abandoning the invasion. Never, recalled an aide, had Reagan felt the burdens of the presidency so heavily. Could we permit "more blood on our hands?" one adviser asked somberly.

Reagan left Augusta at 7:17 a.m. and arrived back in Washington for a round of NSC meetings that began at 9 a.m. Much of the talks centered on the Marines in Lebanon. That tragedy provided a cover of secrecy for talks about the invasion. Reagan decided that the Beirut bombings made it even more imperative that the U.S. act decisively in the Caribbean, especially since the island nations would know if their request for action had been turned down. Declared Reagan: "We cannot let an act of terrorism determine whether we aid or assist our allies in the region. If we do that, who will ever trust us again?"

On Monday, the U.S. embassy in Barbados received a note from the "Revolutionary Military Council" in Grenada. It said that Americans on the island were in no danger and would be permitted to leave if they wished. The State Department chose to ignore it. At a final military planning meeting from 2:15 to 3:30 p.m., Reagan gave his "semifinal" approval to proceed. At 6 p.m. he signed an order that put the invasion plans into action.

Presidential aides then turned to the touchy task of notifying key congressional leaders without letting reporters know that something unusual was astir. The leaders quietly slipped into the White House through the old Executive Office Building to the White House basement and up a back stairs. Solemnly, the President laid out his plans and his reasoning, much as he would later do on TV. But as the President finished his explanation, the five leaders sat in hushed silence. Finally House Speaker Tip O'Neill broke it. "God bless you, Mr. President," he said. "And good luck." Tip gently patted Reagan's arm in a rare moment of rapport.

Reagan then received a telephone call from Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He told her that the invasion was imminent and explained why. To his apparent surprise, she raised strong objections to the entire proposal, suggesting vaguely that economic sanctions would be more appropriate.

The President was not deterred. The next morning, Tuesday at 9:07, he stepped into the White House briefing room to tell reporters, and the nation, the startling news: "Early this morning, forces from six Caribbean democracies and the United States began a landing or landings on the island of Grenada in the eastern Caribbean."

Some 30 hours later, the televised scenes of American students kissing the tarmac on their return to Charleston, S.C., testified to the dominant feeling among them that the President's action had been justified. Many said they had considered themselves in effect hostages on the island. Chancellor Modica, too, said after State Department briefings that he had changed his mind; his students had been in greater danger than he had realized. "The President acted properly," Modica now admitted.

But even as the students rejoiced, the fighting in Grenada continued. The initial invasion force of 1,900 had grown to 6,000 men. They controlled the island's major populated areas, but not its wooded and mountainous ulterior. Although the Administration had at first expected the U.S. troops to be able to withdraw within a few weeks at most, leaving police from the neighboring islands to maintain order, the military field commanders were becoming less sanguine. "If the Cubans want to go up hi these hills and play games, it will take a while," said Vice Admiral Joseph Metcalf, commander of the invading American task force. "This is a jungle."

Grenada's General Austin, whose cold-blooded executions had created the chaos that prompted the invasion, had still not been located by week's end; he was believed to have fled into the mountains with his hard-core followers. But on Saturday a Marine detachment found the long-missing Coard in a guarded house in St. George's. Said he of the Bishop murder before he was whisked off to the Guam: "I'm not responsible. I'm not responsible."

Clearly, it would not be easy to find a group of Grenadian leaders who could form a government that would restore stability to the island. One possibility, being contemplated by Britain, Canada and other former British colonies, was the creation of a Commonwealth force to replace the U.S. troops once the fighting had ended.

Still, having employed force in such a dramatic and massive way, the U.S. had probably assumed the practical burden of helping shape Grenada's future. Observed a Grenadian lawyer familiar with his nation's tangled politics: "The U.S. can't just invade a nation and then leave. If we are to be healed now in a democratic way, the U.S. must stay." The lesson was all too familiar: it is easier to intervene in a country's affairs than to walk away from its problems.

--By Ed Magnuson. Reported by Douglas Brew/Washington, Bernard Diederich/ St. George's and William McWhirter /Bridgetown

With reporting by Douglas Brew, Bernard Diederich, William McWhirter This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.