Tense times for kindred spirits Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
Upon leaving the White House, Barack Obama described German Chancellor Angela Merkel as his closest international ally during his eight years in office. Some Britons saw this as a snub to the supposed US-UK 'Special Relationship.'
This was a term coined in the 1940s to describe the alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom. The relationship is often embodied by the respective leaders of each country, and perhaps none have captured its essence quite like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Staunch conservatives and anti-Communists who led their respective nations throughout the 1980s, one aide even went as far as to dub them 'political soulmates'.
However, President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher's political alliance was not always as harmonious as many believe. As archives are opened and documents declassified, historians are beginning to paint a clearer picture of what went on behind closed doors. One episode that now captures both the strengths and limitations of the Special Relationship was the United States' invasion of Grenada in October 1983, otherwise known as Operation Urgent Fury.
The US invasion of Grenada was the first deployment of American troops in an armed conflict since their crushing defeat in Vietnam. On 25 October 1983, President Ronald Reagan deployed 7,000 American troops in the East Caribbean, occupying the tiny island of Grenada, whose population was no greater than 100,000 people. This incident is often relegated to the footnotes of America's military history, but it offers a significant example of friction in Reagan and Thatcher's supposedly 'special' relationship. Grenada was a former British colony, gaining its independence in 1973, and it remained part of the British Commonwealth. Mrs Thatcher firmly opposed US intervention in the region, telling Reagan at the time that 'the United States has no business interfering in [Grenada's] affairs'.
President Reagan justified his decision to invade, even without British support
Political unrest had been brewing on the island for a number of months, culminating with the assassination of the Grenadian Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop, during a coup d'état. The population of Grenada was placed under house arrest, including approximately 1,000 American civilians. The Organisation of East Caribbean States (OECS), a 'regional collective security organization', met on 21 and 22 October to discuss the situation in Grenada. The OECS member states, alongside Jamaica and Barbados, decided to intervene in Grenada, with the proviso that the United States agreed to supply the bulk of the required military power. Reagan authorised the use of American troops on the afternoon of 24 October, without consulting Thatcher. On 25 October the invasion began.
President Reagan justified his decision to invade, even without British support, on several grounds. Firstly, he told the world that he had received a formal appeal for aid from the OECS, who were keen to see democracy restored to Grenada. He stated that since 1,000 American civilians lived on the island, he had the right to stage a rescue mission. He also claimed that the Governor General of Grenada, Paul Scoon, had sent a formal aid request to the US, which Reagan used to legitimise the invasion. Finally, the strategic significance of the Caribbean for American trade, combined with concerns about the spread of communism in the region, meant the invasion was justified on the grounds of 'national security'. Most of these claims do not stand up to scrutiny, and upon discovering Reagan had deployed troops without consulting the UK, Thatcher was livid.
The presence of around 1,000 US civilians in Grenada, including approximately 600 young medical students, quickly became a focal point for discussions. Concerns regarding their safety permeated both public and private discourse, with Reagan frequently claiming that they were the most important reason for his decision to authorise the invasion. Fears created by the 1979-1981 hostage crisis in Iran exacerbated concerns about civilian safety, helping to garner popular support for an evacuation of US civilians. However, there was little evidence to suggest that American civilians were truly in danger, and an evacuation of civilians did not explain why US troops remained in the region after the bystanders had been 'rescued'. Portraying the invasion as a rescue mission helped the administration to justify using military force in the region in the face of congressional scrutiny. The civilians provided both constitutional and emotional reasons for deploying troops, which were difficult for Reagan's political opponents to criticise.
There had been no direct threat made against foreign nationals living on the island
Proving that Americans were in danger also formed a vital part of Reagan's constitutional right to engage the US military in a conflict in the East Caribbean. As Commander in Chief of the US Army, President Reagan had the authority to use the armed forces to rescue civilians facing a threat abroad, according to Article VI of the Constitution of the United States. This clause stipulates that the President must uphold the 'Laws of the Land', which includes international laws the US is bound by, such as the Charter of the United Nations. Since the UN Charter allows for the 'inherent right […] of self defense', Reagan's best chance to legitimise his actions under international law hinged upon his ability to demonstrate that American civilians were in danger. Indeed, 35 years after the invasion Edwin Meese (Counselor to the President) stated that 'their being there was a lucky break for us', as it created an excuse for deploying troops.
To outsiders, the extent to which the US civilians living in Grenada were in any genuine danger was at best unclear at the time of the invasion. There had been no direct threat made against foreign nationals living on the island during or after the coup d'état, although American citizens were placed under house arrest in the same manner as the rest of the island's population. However, this curfew came to an end on 24 October, prior to the US invasion. Classes had resumed at the medical school, shops were reopening, and order was being restored on the island. There was a lack of 'concrete' evidence offered to suggest American nationals needed to be evacuated. Members of the administration referred more generally to a 'clear and present danger' to American nationals, rather than a more precise outline of why the political unrest was a risk to civilian safety. Additionally, the administration was later forced to retract a claim that Grenada's only airport had been closed on 24 October, contributing to their decision to invade, when it was revealed that the airport had allowed at least four charter flights to take off that day.
Reagan wrote to Thatcher on 24 October to tell her he was giving 'serious consideration' to deploying troops to Grenada. She firmly opposed the invasion, but he gave the order to invade before waiting for her opinion on the matter. Despite her pressure to call off the invasion, Reagan persisted with his plan on the grounds that he was supporting the smaller Caribbean countries that had requested US support. Reagan called Thatcher on 26 October to apologise, telling her that the US 'regret very much the embarrassment that's been caused' to the UK as a result of launching the invasion without telling their supposedly closest allies of the plan. Thatcher's response was somewhat frosty (audio of their conversation was released to the public in 2014), and she later stated that she was 'not in the sunniest of moods' when she took Reagan's call that day.
In the face of Thatcher's disapproval, Reagan's White House was keen to emphasise that the episode in Grenada was a 'multinational' effort rather than an American invasion. When Reagan told the world that he had deployed troops he did so in a joint announcement with Prime Minister Eugenia Charles of Dominica, one of the neighbouring eastern Caribbean nations. By making a shared announcement with the leader of another sovereign state Reagan could more convincingly argue that the invasion was a multinational mission rather than an act of American aggression. Reagan said that the United States had 'acceded to the request to become part of a multinational effort' to 'restore order and democracy' to Grenada. Charles was then invited to address the audience, and the two heads of state hosted a joint question and answer session with the press afterwards. Although Reagan was keen to present this as a joint military effort, only American troops were engaged in combat. In fact, only 300 troops from the other members of the 'multinational effort' were deployed, arriving on the afternoon of 25 October and assisting only with 'civilian police work and guarding of detainees'. The administration clearly tried to present this as a far more 'multinational' effort than it truly was.
In the process of offering aid to the OECS the Reagan administration risked jeopardising the strength of far more important alliances, not just their alliance with the British. The OECS was only founded in 1981, and had just six small member states (excluding Grenada). In contrast, the Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, was established in 1973 and included all six members of the OECS plus another nine member states. CARICOM discussed the situation in Grenada and concluded that 'there should be no external involvement in what was an internal problem' three days before the US and OECS deployed troops in the region. CARICOM was therefore opposed to this joint action, as was the even larger Organisation of American States (OAS). It should be noted that alongside the OECS, the US acted with the support of Jamaica and Barbados, but without the support of the rest of CARICOM. The fact that the US was willing to act without the support of these other large powers in the region, despite none of these other powers feeling the political unrest warranted a military intervention, suggests that the invasion was unnecessary.
Grenada's membership of the British Commonwealth added a further level of complication to the US decision to invade. The island had a Governor-General, Paul Scoon, who acted as a figurehead representing Queen Elizabeth II. No formal request for aide had been made by anyone on the island of Grenada while Reagan was deliberating whether or not to deploy troops. However, a formal distress call from a figure such as Scoon promised to give valuable political legitimacy to the invasion, and would help Reagan to fend off international criticism. So, the US orchestrated a distress call from Scoon to add credibility to the invasion.
This lack of any formal request for aid was raised in Congress in the days following the invasion. Congressman Robert W. Edgar pointed out that no appeal for aid had been received from the Grenadian people, or the hospital where the students were based. Several days later the administration announced that it had received a request for aid from Paul Scoon, but had not announced this to the public due to fears for Scoon's safety. In his remarks on 4 November 1983 Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth Dam claimed that Scoon's request was 'an important element — legally as well as politically — in our respective decisions to help Grenada'. Scoon's aid request was useful because he represented a 'legitimate' form of authority on the island, which helped the US and the OECS to claim that they had received a 'distress call' directly from the island.
there was some reluctance among British policymakers for the UK to become involved
In fact, Scoon's request did not factor into the US decision to invade at all. He later confessed to fabricating the aid request (although maintaining his request was sincere), and evidence has emerged that his letter appealing for aid was backdated to make it appear like a genuine distress call. A memorandum sent at 6.45am GMT from the American Embassy in Bridgetown, Barbados to Secretary of State George Schultz read: 'below follows the text of a letter the countries participating in the Caribbean security forces propose that the Governor General sign and deliver to the OECS, Jamaica, Barbados and the United States'. Given that the memorandum was sent at least 12 hours after Reagan had given the order to invade, and was sent only to the nations that had already agreed to participate, it provides proof that the decision to get a written request for aid from Scoon came after the decision to invade had been reached by participating parties. Scoon's request provides evidence that the participating parties wanted to give more legitimacy to their invasion by having a written 'distress call', which they used as evidence of their right to be involved the region.
Recently declassified documents held by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation demonstrate that Scoon was corresponding with Downing Street throughout the period of the invasion. On 22 October he said that despite the assassination of the Grenadian Prime Minister, he and his wife did not believe themselves to be in any immediate danger, which directly contradicts the contents of the distress call. He later remained on the island to offer advice on the best way to establish an interim government alongside the US forces, though there was some reluctance among British policymakers for the UK to become involved in the American efforts. Indeed, one British diplomat expressed his concern by remarking on 'the natural tendancy [sic] of our American cousins to act like bulls in a China shop on unfamiliar territory'.
Though this was clearly a moment of tension between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, ultimately the Grenada episode was quickly forgotten, at least in the public's imagination. The invasion did not feature in Reagan's State of the Union Address in 1984, and with the exception of his speech on the fifth anniversary of the invasion he did not mention it again in any public speeches. Still, in Reagan's memoirs and public diaries he maintained that Grenada was 'a rescue mission', a belief which endures in the public imagination to this day.
While Thatcher's disapproval of Reagan's handling of the Grenada invasion was public knowledge at the time, the extent of her frustration becomes clearest when we turn to the archives, looking at their correspondence and listening to their phone conversations from this period. Similar revelations are coming to light regarding Anglo-American relations during the Falklands War just a year before the Grenada episode took place. Therefore, this episode highlights not just this moment of friction between two world leaders, but also the importance of conducting archival research in order to understand and appreciate our recent past. As Republicans and Democrats alike seek to lay claim to the legacy of the United States' 'Great Communicator', scholarly research into 1980s American political history is perhaps timelier than ever.
The Margaret Thatcher Foundation is an open access resource which gives access to thousands of historical documents relating to Margaret Thatcher and her time as Prime Minister.