The U.S. Invasion of Grenada by Philip Kukielski

Author:Philip Kukielski [Kukielski, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

10

The Enemy Is Cuba

The United States invaded the territory of Grenada, but Cuba was regarded as America’s ultimate adversary on the island. The invasion planners in the Reagan administration believed that the Coard-led coup could not have happened without the tacit approval of Cuba and/or Moscow. The subsequent assassination of Bishop and his supporters was seen as a sudden destabilizing move left that could lead to Cuba dispatching troops to Grenada to shore up the newly installed military regime. This was a Cuban muscle-flexing pattern that played out in the 1970s in Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia.1 Based on this ideological interpretation of recent events, the Grenadian military was seen to be already under effective Cuban control with the arrival of Col. Tortoló and Diaz. Statements to the contrary coming from Cuba were disbelieved. The nuance of Cuba's role in, and view of, the crisis was either misinterpreted or disregarded. Relatedly, the Pentagon gave too little credence to the possibility that Grenadians themselves might put up an effective fight against the Americans.

The possibility that Cuba would try to dispatch military reinforcements to Grenada was a prime reason offered by the Pentagon leadership for the tight secrecy that was imposed on the American intervention planning. Cuba’s military was no match for the U.S., but a superpower among the many microstates of the Caribbean Basin. In 1983, Cuba had more than 200,000 combatants in uniform, two hundred jet fighters and two submarines.2 The first overt acts aimed at keeping Cubans at bay came on late on Oct. 22, three days before D-Day. Four E-3A AWACs aircraft based at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma were deployed to the Caribbean to begin looking around the clock for any unusual aircraft movements by the Cubans.3 At the same time, a detachment of eight F-15 Eagles based at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida was also sent to the Naval Station Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico. From this forward position, the fighters could interdict any planes sent from Cuba to Grenada once hostilities commenced. At least one F-15 was continuously on 15-minute alert through Nov. 2. Twice F-15s were scrambled to close on Cuban planes, but both the aircraft were identified as civilian airliners before contact was made.4 The Strategic Air Command also deployed an array of reconnaissance aircraft to collect intelligence on Cuban intentions and Grenada’s preparations. Air Force SR-71s, U-2Rs and the RC-135s flew a total 42 missions over, or on the periphery of, the two islands.5 In addition to the SAC planes, the Tactical Air Command sent RF-4Cs from Bergstrom Air Force Base in Texas on a total of 50 photographic, infrared and electronic reconnaissance missions.6

There was also a psychological warfare objective at work in the decision to sortie so many different aircraft to the Caribbean from so many U.S. bases. The JCS was intent on making Urgent Fury a “narrow” operation aimed at ousting the Revolutionary Military Council and extracting Americans on the island, without Cuban interference. “We went to considerable extent …

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