In Grenada, Apocalypso Now

By Richard Stengel.

The ebullient beat of calypso music wafted across the crowded field. Some 40,000 Grenadians waiting for their first words from the President of the United States swayed to the lyrics of the country's most popular ballad. The song, which recounts the landing of U.S. troops on the tiny Caribbean island, mimics the drone of helicopters, the "rat-tat-tat" of machine guns and the boom of big guns as it pays exuberant tribute to the island's liberator, "Uncle Reagan."

For his part, Uncle Reagan reveled in the adulation from the singing, bouquet-waving crowds. The President had come to Grenada for a 5-hour visit last week to commemorate the U.S. invasion that swept away the country's ultra-Marxist "revolutionary council" in October 1983. "I couldn't feel closer to anyone at this moment than I do to you," he told the cheering islanders who had been given a national holiday by the government of Prime Minister Herbert Blaize to jam the dusty cricket field at Queen's Park.

But the audience that Reagan was really addressing was back home, in the U.S. Congress--and it was less receptive than the grateful Grenadians. Reagan's extravagant, minutely orchestrated drop-in on Grenada (the White House flew in two limousines, the President's drinking water, two bomb- sniffing dogs and 28 toilets) became the colorful centerpiece of a campaign to sell what has become known as the Reagan Doctrine: U.S. support for "freedom fighters" battling Soviet-backed governments around the globe. Indeed, Reagan's speech at Queen's Park went beyond praise of the newfound freedom in Grenada, and railed against the absence of it in Nicaragua.

With private briefings as well as speechmaking, the Administration last week began the difficult job of persuading congress to authorize $100 million in military and economic aid for the contras seeking to overthrow the Marxist- Leninist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. Administration officials also confirmed in congressional testimony that the CIA will funnel some $15 million in covert aid to rebels fighting the Cuban- and Soviet-backed government of Angola. This week the President will go on national television to plead for public support for his massive defense buildup, which is threatened by the deficit cutters on Capitol Hill. Reagan's tribute to the invasion of Grenada --the one example of the President's use of military force in support of his stand-tall rhetoric--was intended as a symbolic reminder that the U.S. cannot protect freedom around the world without the wherewithal to project force.

"It's encouraging to witness what can happen in an environment where free enterprise is allowed to fluorish," Reagan told the islanders. The praise, however, was premature. Despite some $74 million in U.S. aid over the past two years, the before-and-after picture of Grenada is pretty much the same. The problems that beset the island under Marxist rule persist: high unemployment, minimal foreign investment, primitive communications and electricity systems. Unemployment is 30%, and twice that among youth. Almost 2 1/2 years after the U.S. promised to stimulate foreign investment in the island through tax credits, only two such efforts have been made: a business selling nutmeg kits that failed and a factory making wooden toys that closed after four months. Its owner was sentenced to two years in prison for defrauding the U.S. Government of $350,000.

Grenada was meant to be one of the beneficiaries of Reagan's 1983 Caribbean Basin Initiative, a plan to stir economic growth in the region by granting twelve years of duty-free entry into the U.S. for products from 21 Caribbean and Central American nations. But the free-trade clauses were $ stripped away as the bill made its way through a Congress more intent on protecting special interests in the U.S. than on helping the Caribbean. Last year, Caribbean exports to the U.S. dropped by 23%, a decline due in large part to a poor market in sugar, bauxite and cocoa. After a 90-min. parley with leaders of nine Caribbean nations last week on Grenada, Reagan promised to push a number of new economic initiatives.

"I will never be sorry that I made the decision to help you," Reagan told the Grenadians. Now, he added, the U.S. "must help those struggling for freedom in Nicaragua." The Soviets and Cubans, Administration officials contended, are strengthening the Sandinista regime's defenses with a "massive influx" of weapons. Though Congress approved $27 million in "humanitarian aid" to the contras last year, "we have to do more," Reagan told a delegation of congressional leaders at the White House last week. "You can't fight attack helicopters piloted by Cubans with Band-Aids and mosquito nets." Administration officials warn that the contras are getting bogged down and that without a quick transfusion of money and weapons, may not be around "to fight another day."

The Sandinistas' plan, suggest the Reaganauts, is to delay action by Congress through the rest of the dry season, which lasts until June, while the regime undertakes an intense effort to cripple the rebels once and for all. According to the CIA, the Sandinistas are staging a sophisticated "disinformaton" campaign designed to convince liberal legislators that the contras are a bloodthirsty band of freebooters. Skeptics assume that despite the Administration's hype, Nicaragua's efforts are no different from the lobbying routinely done by other foreign nations.

With Congress facing painful cutbacks in domestic spending, assistance to "freedom fighters" halfway around the globe is not the most popular issue on the Hill. In addition, many Congressmen feel that the President has been unable to muster much popular enthusiasm for his Central American policies in particular and the Reagan Doctrine in general. House Speaker Tip O'Neill called the President's Grenada visit "a Hollywood kickoff to a greater military involvement in Nicaragua." He warned, "Equipping (the contras) and sending them into battle will lead to nothing but slaughter and humiliation. The shame of that defeat will bring American troops into Nicaragua." Democratic House Majority Leader Jim Wright has hinted that his party is considering reinstituting restrictions on U.S. assistance to rebels in both Angola and Nicaragua.

Despite the President's rhetoric, many Administration officials realize that a blanket pledge to aid anti-Communist insurgencies everywhere entails unacceptable risks. Angola is a case in point. Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker revealed to a congressional committee last week that the U.S. had set "the process in motion" to provide some $15 million in covert funds to the rebels in Angola. The State Department hopes that the covert aid will forestall a conservative effort in Congress to mandate above-board funding.

The Republican right has embraced Angola's Jonas Savimbi as freedom fighter of the month, but State Department officials are wary of the onetime Maoist rebel leader. Most Administration policymakers recognize that Savimbi cannot win by military force. Rather, they hope to use Savimbi's insurgency to pressure Angola's Marxist rulers to reach some sort of diplomatic solution. Angola is a long way from American shores, and a Marxist regime there does not pose the same threat as Communism in the Caribbean or Central America. Foreign policy experts fear that confident promises to back freedom fighters around the globe will raise expectations of support that the U.S. cannot deliver. As invasions go, Grenada was a walkover. Earlier military ventures abroad have taught the U.S. that intervention has its limits.

With reporting by Johanna McGeary/Washington and Barrett Seaman with Reagan