Chapter 4: Low Intensity Conflicts and Presidential Decision-making: Interventions in the
4.2 Grenada
4.2.3 The Decision to Intervene in Grenada
4.2.3.1 Reasons to Intervene
Just as in the case of the Dominican Republic, the loss framework of decision-makers in Grenada was based on international motivations. Troubles were cast in the mould of a worldwide struggle against Communism. Even before troubles turned into crisis, it is not difficult to see that the United States saw developments in Grenada in Communist terms.
Accordingly, President Reagan asserted that Grenada “now [April 1982] bears the Soviet and
388 Arnson 1993, 58, Farrell 2001, 612-614
389 Farrell 2001, 612-5; Arnson 1993, 53-146.
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Cuban trademark, which means that it will attempt to spread the virus amongst its neighbors.”390 Thus, Grenada was seen as a security threat in which the new airport with a 10,000-foot runway featured prominently. In March 1983, the President claimed that the runway was a sign of the “Soviet-Cuban militarization of Grenada,” or, in other words, it was evidence of Communist “power projection into the region.”391 In other words, Grenada was not seen as a tiny, underdeveloped and unimportant island with a newalbeitleftist regime, but as a “salient link in a chain of events that, if allowed to continue, could threaten vital American interests.”392
Evidence, however, were only circumstantial or scant. The runaway construction was not a singular event in the Caribbean: many countries opted for it to boost the tourist industry and not in order to host Cuban airplanes. Financial support for it only partially came from the Communist block. Eighty percent of the money came from American, Canadian, and European companies.393 Moreover, the United States could only rely on technical intelligence but not on human intelligence or diplomatic channels in collecting information about Grenada.394 All in all, the Reagan Administration needed a great deal of luck so that its appraisal would prove rightex post. Documents confiscated during the invasion supported the supposed Communist connections of Grenada: it had mutual agreements of military assistance both with Cuba and North Korea.395
As events in Grenada started to accelerate, the global struggle against Communism and its local consequences remained an issue with the decision-makers. The initial concern for the safety of about 1000 American citizens – including 600 medical students – was also framed in
390 Williams 1997, 134, and Beck 1993, 29.
391 Beck 1993, 30.
392 Vertzberger 1998, 177.
393 Beck 1993, 30 and 48 (note 144).
394 Shultz 1990, 329; Weinberger, Caspar. 1990.Fighting for Peace: Seven Critical Years in the Pentagon. New York: Warner Books, 181-182. Lack of American agents in Grenada was due to austerity measures at the CIA initiated by President Carter, diplomatic channels were non-existent, because Reagan did not accredit any ambassadors, and the American ambassador to Barbados disobeyed orders from Washington to talk to Bishop.
395 Beck 1993, 62; Menges, Constantine C. 1988.Inside the National Security Council. The True Story of the Making and Unmaking of Reagan’s Foreign Policy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 89.
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anti-Communist terms. National Security Assistant for Latin American Affairs Constantine Menges argued that American citizens (medical students) in Grenada were in danger, because they were situated in the middle of an unstable political climate. He saw such a climate as the result of the tactical quarrel between Cuba – and the pro-Cuba Maurice Bishop – and the Soviet Union, that is, Bernard Coard. The same day – six days before Bishop’s murder – Menges composed his memorandum in which he suggested to use the opportunity not only to evacuate the students but to restore democracy in the Caribbean. 396
During an October 17 meeting in the Defense Department, he repeated his views and argued that restoring democracy in Grenada would demoralize Communists in Central America. However, the State Department was not convinced. First, most decision-makers were less concerned with Soviet intervention. They interpreted the Communist threat in somewhat narrower terms. For them, the problem was only possible Cuban involvement and the fear from the establishment of another Cuba in the Caribbean.397 Accordingly, he was told that the plan had “no chance whatsoever within this administration” but certainly not with the new national security advisor, Bud MacFarlane. He was not only advised to do nothing about Grenada but was warned that if he did, he might lose his job.398 In harmony with this view, on October 14, the State Department started planning for a strictly non-combatant evacuation of students without any involvement in the domestic power struggle of Grenada.399
Yet, there were hardliners in the administration such as Ambassador to the UN Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.400 Therefore, diplomatic measures never were given much of a chance to succeed. Some discussions were initiated with the Coard regime in order to peacefully resolve the concern over the safety of the students. This entailed either Grenadine power holders giving the US the opportunity for the peaceful
396 Beck 1993, 59 and 72 (note 19), Williams 1997, 144
397 Williams 1997, 149 and 152; Vertzberger 1988, 187.
398 Williams 1997, 151.
399 Beck 1993, 95-96; Williams 1997, 147.
400 Brown 1983, 573.
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evacuation of students or a guarantee that assured the students’ safety. Their October 18 inquiry about the safety of American citizens was answered the next day. Grenada replied with the assurance that “the interest of US citizens [is] in no way threatened by the present situation in Grenada.”401
The loss framework brought on by the worldwide struggle against the expansion and for the rollback of Communism made it impossible to accept any guarantees from the junta. The Reagan Administration interpreted the Grenadine assurance as a blunt rejection to safeguard the interest of American students.402 The administration set an impossibly high benchmark for Grenada: the United States was ready to accept only a 100 percent assurance to allow students to stay on the island,403 but in the chaos that characterized the situation in Grenada no government would have been able to give a credible guarantee. In addition, Coard’s ideological commitment also seriously limited the credibility of his assurance.404
Neither did the United States try too seriously. In an interview on October 26, 1983 Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger never tried to deny for a minute the interviewer’s assertion that the US did not exercise “all diplomatic efforts available,” because, he said, Grenada’s neighbors had already exhausted those means.405 The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) opposed advanced military planning on October 17 on the basis that peaceful alternatives had not been exhausted, which points toward the same conclusion.406 Thus, in spite of Grenadine assurance, the Reagan Administration remained unconvinced and went ahead with the planning of an operation to bring the students home from Grenada.
By October 19, the day Bishop was murdered, the tide was clearly turning in favor of a more grandiose operation in Washington, D.C. By then Menges was not the only person who
401 Beck 1993, 102; Williams 1997, 154.
402 Beck 1993, 102-103.
403 Shultz 1990, 328.
404 Williams 1997, 154.
405 Weinberger 1990, 128.
406 Beck 1993, 98. See also Williams 1997, 151.
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pressured the administration for a full-scale invasion instead of a limited evacuation operation. On October 17 the Prime Minister of Barbados advanced similar views, citing an argument identical to that of Menges. He stressed the opportunity that the Grenadine situation offered for the U.S to scale back Soviet influence in the Caribbean.407 Finally, Bishop’s murder fitted well with the decision-makers’ perception of the situation in Communist terms.
It also made clear which faction won the fight in Grenada.
Most importantly, the President himself favored a military solution. At each critical point in the decision-making process, the President endorsed options that revealed preference for active policy-making. For instance he ordered the reluctant JCS to start planning the evacuation operation and also authorized the rotational forces en route to Lebanon to change course and sail south toward Grenada.408 Despite the assertion of the Secretary of State George Shultz that presidential preference was a consequence of the inability of the President to sit still while American citizens were in danger,409 this alone cannot account for the decision for a large-scale intervention. Had safety been the only concern, a limited evacuation operation would have perfectly sufficed. The conduct of the invasion also casts doubt on whether the students were still the primary concern on October 25. The first group of students was not rescued until the second day of the invasion and some others were only taken care of on the fourth day of the invasion, leaving about a 96-hour vulnerability gap, when the Grenadine government could have easily taken hostages.410
By October 19, the administration clearly started to consider “more extreme military options” than the evacuation of the American students and a day later planning started for wide-scale action.411 The JCS came down on the side of intervention, arguing that taking the
407 Beck 1993, 98.
408 See for example Shultz 1990, 327.
409 Shultz 1990, 328,
410 Beck 1993, 33.
411 Vertzberger 1998, 191; Beck 1993, 103-108.
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island was safer militarily than a surgical operation.412 It appears that most administration officials, including the President, arrived at a conclusion similar to that of Constantine Menges. High level officials started to perceive the importance of Grenada in a global rather than regional light: from that point of view Grenada was nothing else but a golden opportunity to demonstrate the administration’s commitment to fighting Communism. For example Shultz warned his colleagues, “To think of Suriname, too,” hoping that an intervention in Grenada would send the right message to Suriname’s dictator to scale back the Cuban connection.413 In similar vein, his deputy – Lawrence Eagleburger – wanted to warn Nicaragua and El Salvador.414
Nonetheless, the decision depended solely on and was made by the President and he decided for a mission that encompassed much more than saving nationals.415 At 3.30 a.m. on October 22, the President had unequivocally expressed his intention to go beyond an evacuation mission. Answering the Vice President’s question if he agreed with the threefold objective of action against Grenada, Reagan answered in the affirmative. That is, he agreed that “to ensure the safety of American citizens” was only one of the aims of the mission. In addition, it was also to serve the more general purposes of “restor[ing] democratic government to Grenada” and “eliminat[ing] current and future Cuban intervention on the island.”416 Only an invasion could achieve all those objectives.
He made the initial decision during a telephone conference between Augusta, Georgia – where the President was staying on an official engagement – and the White House on Saturday morning (October 22). The subject of the meeting was to discuss the National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) drafted by Constantine Menges, which was based on Reagan’s intention expressed at 3.30 a.m. that he wished to accept the invitation of the
412 Williams 1997, 169.
413 Shultz 1990, 328
414 Beck 1993, 106.
415 In fact, Reagan arrived at similar conclusions as his subordinates independently of them. Vertzberger 1998, 192.
416 Beck 1993, 134.
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Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) – engineered by the Americans – to invade.
By signing the NSDD on October 22, “the President signed orders to prepare for a broader mission to restore order in Grenada in cooperation with Caribbean forces.”417
4.2.3.2 The Role of Domestic Politics
Decision-makers discussed possible public reaction as well as Congressional reaction to American intervention, but as the hypotheses would predict, neither factor influenced the decision in favor of intervention. As both were perceived to be hostile to intervention, domestic politics was not responsible for invoking the loss frame with decision-makers. As for domestic political repercussions, the administration considered them rather late in the process and, finally, rejected them. First, the administration perceived the situation in such a way that it saw no domestic gains in an invasion: they only considered them as factors that could inhibit rather than foster it. Decision-makes were aware that Reagan’s foreign policy principles were strongly contested by many in America and were not sure how the pubic would receive the intervention in Grenada.418 However, to minimize a possible adverse reaction, the administration was careful to assess the likely reactions of the Grenadines. The aim was to make sure that those whom the administration wished to help would find such help desirable. This raised no special worry, as the Caribbean states – correctly – forecast Grenadine public support for US intervention.419
Furthermore, Congress – especially the House of Representatives – was outright hostile to the aggressive foreign policy of the White House. Reagan acknowledged that he was aware of “the resistance of many in Congress to the use of force abroad for any reasons,” and thus he
417 Beck 1993, 136.
418 Vertzberger 1998, 177. Domestically, the success of the invasion was saved by the gesture of one of the evacuated students who, stepping on American soil, kissed the ground. The importance of this event was not lost on decision-makers. Speakes, Larry. 1988.Speaking Out. The Reagan Presidency from Inside the White House.
New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 159-160.
419 Vertzberger 1998, 185.
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ordered tight security measures so that nothing would leak about policy deliberations.420 This did not, however, deter him to pursue the policy he favored. He simply made sure that Congress would not be able to act at cross-purposes. To elude immediate and strong opposition, Reagan ordered tight security, but no measures could be taken to avoid criticism once the invasion started. In the long run, they were concerned not so much with verbal criticism, but whether Congress could torpedo presidential policy. Therefore, they discussed the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which required the president to seek Congressional authorization if troop involvement exceeded sixty days. They concluded that Congress could mean no practical obstacle, because they judged that by the time the War Powers Resolution could be invoked, the Grenada adventure would be over (as it indeed was).421
Finally, when Reagan was warned by one of his staff members that the invasion of a small island would incite harsh criticism at home, the President expressed his willingness to take the domestic political heat, saying, “I know that. I accept that.”422 In other words the President recognized that an invasion may cost him politically at home, but did not change his mind despite the expected negative consequences.
The White House had the opportunity to reconsider the wisdom of the invasion when on October 23 241 US Marines on peacekeeping duty were killed in Lebanon. Nonetheless, the President did not change his view. While Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill was not alone in his conviction that the real point of the Grenada invasion was to divert attention from Lebanon,423 this was not the case. The President made the final decision for intervention the daybefore events turned sore in Lebanon.424
All through the crisis in Grenada, Lebanon was considered an obstacle to intervention.
Before the massacre of the Marines, Lebanon diverted a substantial amount of the quickly
420 Vertzberger 1988, 185.
421 Beck 1993, 134.
422 Beck 1993, 134.
423 Vertzberger 1998, 184.
424 Beck 1993, 135.
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deployable forces to make the execution of an invasion in Grenada more problematic.425 But now that the massacre occurred, Lebanon was threatening with negative domestic repercussions. The death of the Marines could easily reflect back on the President’s leadership abilities as a not very astute judge of where and how to involve American forces. But just as expected theoretically, this aspect did not worry decision-makers in the context of Grenada, which could have served as the kind of diversion Tip O’Neill accused the President of.
Instead of seeing Grenada as a chance for diversion, advisors feared that their hands might be tied and the President might have to reverse his earlier decision as a result of the events in Lebanon. It was thought unwise domestically to execute an operation that would inevitably result in further American casualties. Decision-makers spent most of October 23 to deliberate on this issue. Whatever his advisors feared or how unwise they perceived an intervention in Grenada, it was presidential preference that settled the issue. Disregarding the domestic imperatives, President Reagan put an end to discussions when he decided to go ahead, saying, “If this was right yesterday, it’s right today” and signed the relevant National Security Decision Directive.426