The Grenada Documents Collection contains copies of some of the documents which were captured on Grenada by the United States Defense Department when the U. S., at the urging of many of the smaller Caribbean nations, joined a rescue mission to end the rule of the Revolutionary Military Council which had taken control of the country when Maurice Bishop, formerly head of the PRG (People's Revolutionary Government), was assassinated along with many of the people at Fort Rupert in October, 1983, as a result of internal factions and power plays in the NJM (New JEWEL Movement) and PRG. The Documents "provide insight into the extensive nature of the nation's bond with Cuba, the Soviet Union...and the growing dissatisfaction of the Grenadian people with its government." [Document Exploitation Interim Report No. 1, 1 Nov 1983]
The copies contained in this collection were given to the Special Collections Division by Gregory Sandford, a State Department diplomat and co-author (with Richard Vigilante) of Grenada: The Untold Story, a fascinating examination of the formation of the New JEWEL Movement, its takeover of power from the Gairy government and the formation of the PRG, its policies, and eventual downfall. Sandford collected this material while researching and writing his book. The collection is arranged in five series : NJM Party Documents Series, NJM Subject Series, International Relations Series, Manuscripts Series, and Gregory Sandford Series.
The NJM Party Documents Series contains copies of material referring to the formation of NJM and the takeover of Gairy's government, as well as minutes of Central Committee, Political Bureau, Economic Bureau, Organizing Committee, and Workers Committee meetings and related correspondence, resolutions, and agreements. This series, the largest in the collection, comprises 93 folders in Boxes 1 and 2 and is arranged chronologically. Copies of letters by Teddy Victor, former head of JEWEL (Joint Endeavour for Welfare, Education, and Liberation), explain how MAP (Movement for Assemblies of the People), with Maurice Bishop and other PRG members at its head, merged with and then took over JEWEL to form the New JEWEL Movement. This series also contains information on NJM's assumption of power, including the "People's Laws", and general party structure. The most fascinating part of this series are the minutes of meetings which "portray an ideological movement divorced from reality and in the process of disintegration." [Grenada: The Weapons and Documents by Nestor D. Sanchez, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Inter-American Affairs] The minutes show the internal state of the party and its struggles to force Marxist-Leninism on a people who clearly were uninterested in it. They refer to internal party disputes, trips made to various countries to request financial assistance or further international relations, and the NJM's plans for and problems with the economy, education, propaganda, and the "mood of the masses."
Some of the most illuminating minutes are those for the last Central Committee meetings in the last days of the PRG's rule in October, 1983. These minutes, notes, and reports give a particularly enlightening account of the deaths at Fort Rupert and takeover of the country by the Revolutionary Military Council.
The second series, NJM Subject Series, comprises 35 folders and contains copies of reports, correspondence, and agreements relating to specific areas such as agriculture, detainees, the economy, and unions. Material in this series often refers to the NJM's specific policies or actions in these areas. This series provides a concise but illuminating look at specific subjects which may be of interest to researchers. The material on health, for example, presents startling contrasts between the official PRG reports of health care and progress in Grenada and copies of TLS by a foreign doctor and Phyllis Coard, a Central Committee member, who descry the situation in the General Hospital, "where services are crumbling, where we have an unnecessary death every week." [Copy of TLS by Dr. Beverly-Mae Fitch Pole, June 28, 1982] The NJM Subject Series is arranged alphabetically.
The International Relations Series comprises 37 folders and contains material referring to the NJM/PRG's relations with foreign groups and countries. It is arranged according to General Policies, Groups/ Organizations (such as Socialist International) and Individual Countries. Groups/Organizations and Individual Countries are arranged alphabetically. Of particular interest in the Groups/Organizations section is the correspondence and related material in the Socialist International, Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and Workers Party of Jamaica folders which show the NJM's, and especially Bishop's, attempts to form friendships with revolutionary as well as simply socialist organizations. In the Individual Countries section, material relating to Cuba, the GDR (German Democratic Republic),the United Soviet Socialist Republic, and the United States of America is particularly revealing.
The Manuscripts/Notes Series comprises 10 folders and contains copies of portions of Bishop's Diary for 1979-1980, 1982, and 1983. It also contains his Notes regarding the Central Committee's Marx-Lenin Study Group. Copies of E. J. "Headache" Layne's Notebook for 1982 - 1983 can also be found in this series. Layne was one of the Central Committee members who supported Bernard Coard and opposed Maurice Bishop.
The final series, dubbed "The Gregory Sandford Series," contains some material which Sandford collected when writing Grenada: The Untold Story which was not part of the captured documents. This series comprises 12 folders and 12 audiotapes and contains some particularly fascinating items such as the audiotapes of Sandford's inteviews with many former PRG detainees or oppostion leaders, for example, Herbert Blaize, Teddy Victor, and Wynston Whyte. He also taped interviews with some former PRG members such as George Louison or Michael "Chicken" Roberts. The series also includes photos of Maurice Bishop, Bernard Coard, and the People's Revolutionary Army as well as indexes, reports, notes, and clippings. For those interested in a brief overview of the events in Grenada or our capture of the documents, this series would be the best place to begin. Reports and a list of the chronology of events provide a short summary of events in Grenada. Lists of references give the researcher a large range of books and articles about Grenada. Sandford's notes provide a short subject listing with the dates of meetings when items were discussed as well as a list of names with short identifications. The series also includes some of the Document Exploitation Interim Reports which provide information on and numbers of the documents. [Please Note: Not all the Documents described in these reports are contained in this collection.] The material in this series as well as the material in the rest of the collection represents Gregory Sandford's painstaking attempts to bring the truth of Grenada's tragic situation during the PRG's rule to light.
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Extent: 5.0 linear feet
Provenance: Gift of Gregory Sandford, July, 1988
Date Span: 1979 - 1984
Processed by: Deborah A. Marrone
Date: August 12, 1988
ABBREVIATIONS
NJM .......................... New JEWEL Movement
PRG........................... People's Revolutionary Government
PRA .......................... People's Revolutionary Army
MAP .......................... Movement for Assemblies of the People
JEWEL ........................ Joint Endeavour for Education, & Liberation
CC ........................... Central Committee
PB ........................... Political Bureau
NWO .......................... National Women's Organization
NYO .......................... National Youth Organization
ALS .......................... Autograph Letter, signed by the author
AL .......................... Autograph Letter, unsigned
D(s) ......................... Document(s)