by H.W. Brands( 2016)
Hours after hearing the terrible news from Beirut, Reagan launched a military operation that seemed to have nothing to do with the conflict in Lebanon. Most Americans had never heard of Grenada before Reagan became president; even American newscasters required time to get the pronunciation right( gre-NAY-da). The invasion of this tiny island country in the eastern Caribbean took the American people by such surprise that Reagan’s critics hardly had time to react before the deed was done.
Reagan intended things that way. Since entering office, he had been looking for an opportunity to demonstrate his and America’s decisiveness in foreign affairs, in particular to exorcise the ghost of Vietnam and dispel the impression that the United States would not act forcefully in defense of its interests. Latin America seemed a likely place for the kind of demonstration Reagan intended. Fidel Castro and his leftist allies in the region needed a chastening, Reagan judged, and in Latin America the United States enjoyed an overwhelming military advantage over any conceivable foe.
Suriname briefly caught his eye. In December 1982 soldiers in the service of military strongman Desi Bouterse killed fifteen political dissidents in that former Dutch colony. Bouterse then made statements that struck Reagan’s ear as suggesting he was cozying up to Castro. “This must not be allowed,” Reagan wrote confidentially. “We have to find a way to stop him.” The president considered sending in the marines but decided against it. “We’d lose all we’ve gained with the other Latin American countries.”
So instead he plotted covert warfare. In the spring of 1983, Reagan’s national security team developed a plan for neutralizing or toppling Bouterse. “Based on the President’s directives at the NSPG meeting yesterday, we suggest the following possible actions,” staffers Alfonso Sapia-Bosch and Oliver North wrote: “That a Presidential emissary travel to Venezuela and Brazil this week to meet with the respective presidents to brief them in detail on what is now taking place in Suriname and what the result is likely to be, e.g., the Cubanization of Surinamese society. Furthermore this will allow the establishment of a Cuban and Soviet base on the tip of South America that will give improved access to the South Caribbean and a base from which to extend their influence with South America. Northeastern Brazil will then be open to propaganda infiltration at the very least. Venezuela will have another unfriendly country near its border.”
Sapia-Bosch and North recommended briefing not only the president of Venezuela, Luis Herrera Campins, but also his probable successor, Jaime Lusinchi. “Herrera Campins feels very vulnerable because of ineptitude, financial problems, corruption, etc. By bringing Lusinchi into the loop, we would reduce pressure on Herrera Campins.” In Brazil the approach should be straightforward. “President Figueiredo must be made to understand the threat that Cubans and Soviets will present when they are on his northern border. He is an army general and should recognize the problem.”
Sapia-Bosch and North recommended other actions that were deemed too sensitive to reveal when their memo was declassified a quarter century later. But George Shultz, in his memoir, indicated what they had in mind. “The CIA sent briefers to me to outline a plan under which a force of 50 to 175 Korean commandos would stage out of Venezuela and run an assault into Paramaribo to overthrow Bouterse,” Shultz wrote. The secretary of state could hardly believe what he was hearing. “It was a hare-brained idea, ill thought out, without any convincing likelihood of success and with no analysis of the political consequences at home or internationally.” “The whole thing depended on impossibly intricate timing and a presumption that the Koreans would be taken as members of the local population. This was crazy. I was shaken to find such a wild plan put forward seriously by the CIA.”
Reagan nonetheless used the threat of invasion as leverage for diplomacy. He named William Clark as his emissary to Venezuela and Brazil. The journey was secret, but its point was clear. “Our message,” Clark recalled later, “was, Look, either you take care of the situation, of the Soviet foothold, the Cuban foothold…either you take care of it down here or we’ll have no alternative but to do so ourselves.” Clark laid out the American invasion plan to Herrera Campins in Caracas. “He turned pale, and before I left his office, said, “Talk to Brazil, they’re closer. I don’t want anything to do with it right now, I’m in enough political trouble.” Clark proceeded to Brasilia, where he met not with the Brasilian president but with the general who chaired the country’s military chiefs of staff. “We parked at the end of the runway; it was after dark,” Clark recalled. Again he delineated what an American-backed invasion of Suriname would look like. “The chairman ran to the men’s room and threw up, he was so frigtened,” Clark said.
Perhaps Clark misunderstood the cause of the general’s distress. Or perhaps the general did not convey that distress to his civilian bosses. In any event, the Clark mission failed to achieve what Reagan wanted. “Venezuela couldn’t go along, “Reagan noted after debriefing Clark. “The President of Brazil had an idea somewhat different than ours.” What that idea was, Reagan did’t say. But he added cryptically, “So operation ‘Guiminish’ is born. We’ll know before the month is out whether it has succeeded.”