Ronald Reagan on War & Peace

Grenada invasion: deter Soviets & Cubans

Several times Reagan took military action, either as an instrument of foreign policy or as a possible deterrent to terrorism. In October 1983 he ordered the invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada, declaring that Americans there were in jeopardy and that the country had become a potentially dangerous Cuban-Soviet military base. The Grenada operation occurred just two days after a terrorist attack on the U.S. Marine peacekeeping contingent in Lebanon caused the death of 241 servicemen. Source: Grolier Encyclopedia on-line, “The Presidency” Dec 25, 2000

Invaded Grenada right after Beirut bombing

On Oct. 22, 1983, six East Caribbean states formally requested American assistance in restoring democracy to Grenada. If the Cuban-fomented revolution there was allowed to succeed, then they feared fore their own freedoms. Reagan said, “There’s no way we could say no to this request,” [and ordered] “an outright invasion” of Grenada.

On Oct. 23, a grinning suicide bomber had driven a yellow truck full of explosives through the guard gate of the Marine headquarters at Beirut International Airport, killing 241 US troops. The next few days, Reagan was involved in post-tragedy and pre-invasion meetings.

“Operation Urgent Fury” was an embarrassingly clumsy success. The world’s ranking superpower, hampered by old tourist maps and incompatible radio frequencies, needed two full days to overcome the resistance of an island not much bigger than Washington DC. Democracy was restored, and some damp Cuban documents impounded, along with 24,768 signal flares-clear evidence of incendiary Red activity.

Source: Dutch, by Edmund Morris, p. 501-4 Oct 22, 1983

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