U.S. Invasion: Grenada Disappeared
Volk, Steven S.
One of the lingering mysteries of the U.S. invasion of Grenada is how the Reagan Administration generated such wide support for its bellicose action. For a people nurtured on the...
...Battled Soviet Troops in Grenada...
...Did the followers of the murdered prime minister, Maurice Bishop, actively oppose the invasion...
...In the four-and-a-half years during which Bishop's New Jewel Movement governed Grenada, the U.S...
...Yet media coverage of Grenada during and after the invasion parallels the way the press framed its story before the Marines even hit the sparkling beaches...
...A critical examination of U.S...
...Grenada ceased to exist when the Administration and the media chose to see it only as a pawn of other forces...
...Administration sources, on the other hand, were allowed to be more forceful...
...As long as the media can substitute the "Soviet Union" for "Grenada" or "Nicaragua" or "Chile," we can expect that the U.S...
...But the fourth estate's meek acceptance of the Administration's view that nations in our "backyard" have no legal legitimacy, no individual personality, has already had serious consequences...
...ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), called the charges "bull feathers" and "hysterical...
...consistently reported the island as a toy of other forces, not a sovereign nation with its own aspirations, strengths and shortcomings...
...The Washington Post, characteristic of most of the nation's press, bannered its invasion story, "Marines Invade Grenada, Fight Cubans...
...public will line up behind the bully as he kicks sand in the face of the 95-pound weakling...
...Headlines in major U.S...
...invasion against Grenada, but a U.S...
...What happened to the nation's militia...
...None of these questions required reporters to abandon objectivity or take sides, yet none was asked by a press which only had eyes for Cuban resistance, Cuban stockpiles, Cuban prisoners and Cuban airports...
...Officials...
...print media between March and October 1983-and framed by Administration concerns...
...or its Caribbean allies wanted was another Soviet or Cuban base .. . " In the days and weeks following the intervention, the media has begun to defend its coverage of Grenada, blaming some of its initial enthusiastic endorsement of Administration stories-many of which 45update . update . update . update have since been proven false-on its inability to get on the island in the early days of the fighting...
...As many have pointed out, the public was looking for a "victory," some potion which quickly and without side effects would erase the humiliations of Vietnam and Iran...
...When the New Jewel Movement ousted the corrupt and brutal government of Prime Minister Eric Gairy, Bishop quickly pledged to work together with the United States and its own neighbors in the eastern Caribbean, "with whom we seek only cooperation and friendship...
...Were the supporters of the New Jewel Movement in hiding...
...media coverage of events in Grenada from the advent of the New Jewel government in 1979 to the invasion shows that while the Reagan Administration prepared the Grenadian dish for public consumption, the nation's print and electronic media set the table...
...J. William Middendorf II, U.S...
...Such coverage prepared the U.S...
...Desmond Campbell, a hotel manager on Grenada, noted that "Americans must be asking themselves, 'Is Grenada that island with an airport, or is it the airport with an island?' " Little room was left for the concerns of Grenada's leaders...
...Invades Grenada in Warning to Russia and Cuba about Expansion in the Caribbean...
...Characteristically, the media tended to ignore events on Grenada for most of the next four years...
...AC-130 gunships strafed Grenadian beaches, antiaircraft guns were presented to the press as evidence of Soviet-Cuban intention to use Grenada as a revolutionary platform in the Caribbean...
...The Administration's decision to ban the press from coverage of events on Grenada during the invasion will undoubtedly be debated for many months...
...Administration officials lectured Jan/Feb 1984 the public on, and the press duly reported, not a U.S...
...Only when President Reagan charged in March 1983 that the island nation was a serious security threat to the United States did reporters again take out their maps to find Grenada...
...46 Coverage of the famous airport runway overshadowed articles on economic, social or political developments on the island...
...Still, coverage continued to be spotty-there were only a dozen major stories about Grenada in the U.S...
...The Administration's unusual decision to bar reporters from the island for the first two days of the invasion, and then only to permit guided, limited tours for an additional two days, encouraged such displacement...
...The Wall Street Journal's lead article on the invasion barely conceded the island's existence: "U.S...
...Conspicuously absent from press accounts of the U.S...
...When Bishop's government raised serious questions about a threat of invasion from the United States, the press gently chided Grenada for its "paranoia," much as one would speak to a child who sees a monster instead of a chair in his darkened room...
...Still, this national longing cannot explain how eagerly the public accepted the massive deployment of force against a country which had neither Air Force nor Navy, and whose defense force, as news photos later showed, often lacked shoes and shirts...
...The Journal of Commerce wrote that the "Little Island Causes Big Headaches for U.S.," and The Wall Street Journal followed with a report that "Cuba's Drive to Help Grenada, Other Isles, Worries U.S...
...In the final analysis, there could be no legitimate selfdefense for Grenada, for it didn't exist...
...The New York Post, with its more florid imagination, headlined its November 2 edition, "U.S...
...This article first appeared in the December 9, 1983 issue of National Catholic Reporter...
...Grenada had disappeared...
...public to see Grenada through the Administration's eyes, accepting as logical what common sense would challenge when the invasion finally came...
...Ridiculous," charged State Department spokesman Alan Romberg...
...Even as U.S...
...A month after the Bishop coup, The Washington Post saw only "U.S...
...For a people nurtured on the righteousness of Davids conquering Goliaths, one would have imagined a degree of embarrassment at the thought of a powerful nation of 220 million people squashing a country whose entire population could be seated comfortably in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum...
...In a similar vein, an October 25 commentary by ABC news correspondent Jack Smith saw Grenada only as a battlefield for other forces: "With Fidel Castro now firmly established as an ally of Nicaragua's leftist regime and with the guerrilla war now being fought in El Salvador, the last thing the U.S...
...Cuba on Caribbean Isle of Grenada...
...And this complacent attitude can only please the Administration as it bites into meatier problems in Central America...
...confrontation with Cuba and the Soviet Union...
...dailies, however, showed an inability to view Grenada through other than an East-West prism...
...invasion is Grenada itself...
...How much easier to win support for a battle against the Soviet Unionpicking on someone "our own size"-than little Grenada...
...Where were the Grenadians, one wondered...
Vol. 18 • January 1984 • No. 1
