Note to readers: This page highlights the visuals and reference materials for the podcast “The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop,” and it will be updated as new episodes are released.
Maurice Bishop: The Revolutionary Leader of Grenada
Maurice Bishop, the revolutionary leader of Grenada, was executed in 1983 along with seven others. The location of their remains is unknown. Over the past two years, we have investigated this mystery, including the role of the U.S. government in shaping the fate of the Caribbean nation, in a six-part podcast. We have interviewed over 100 people, examined archival photographs, studied government documents, and visited the sites where events took place. Here, we share some of the visuals and other evidence we’ve uncovered, episode by episode.
Episode 1: “Somebody Knows”
Our report began where it all started: in the courtyard of the military fortress where 39-year-old Maurice Bishop, three government ministers, and four of his closest supporters were killed.
Photographer Gabin Poutsford captured images of the fortress as it stands today. Formerly known as Bobert, it is now called Fort George.
You can still see bullet holes in the basketball pole.
When coming to power, Maurice Bishop was a young and charismatic revolutionary leader who gained the friendship of communist leaders. We found photographs of Bishop standing next to Cuban President Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega, who was then a member of the Nicaraguan revolutionary government, at the May Day demonstration in 1980 in Cuba’s Plaza of Revolution.
This was the height of the Cold War. U.S. President Ronald Reagan viewed Grenada’s ties to Cuba – and by extension the Soviet Union – as a serious threat. He emphasized this in a live television address on March 23, 1983: “We were told that Grenada was a friendly island for tourism. Well, it wasn’t.”
Bishop traveled to New York a few months later, on June 5, to address an enthusiastic audience. He read from what he claimed was a “secret State Department report,” telling the crowd that it revealed the real reason the U.S. believed Grenada posed a threat: “And if we have 95 percent of the population of African descent in our country, we could have a devastating impact on 30 million black people in the United States.”
Episode 2: “We All Had High Hopes”
Grenada is an island nation of 125,000 people on the edge of the Caribbean Sea. Many of the residents of this former British colony are descendants of enslaved Africans. (If you heard “Grenada” and thought we were talking about a city in Spain, check out the helpful map below).
In the 1960s, as Bishop was growing up, Grenada was still a poor country, with many citizens working on farms as their ancestors had done.
There were also families like the Bishops. Ellen Bishop Spelman, Bishop’s younger sister, shared this family photo and told us more about her family and her brother.
“We tended to be classist. You could not enter our lives if you were outside our class. If you walked home from school and talked to a taxi driver or a servant child, you would be reprimanded. We were a bit snobbish,” Spelman said.
“Maurice was very nice, and handsome of course,” she said. “He was my doll. You know, I remember one time I took a nap and I was playing with his hair and I wrapped most of his hair. And he woke up and was in a hurry for an appointment and couldn’t get it out.”
Sir Eric Gairy was the national prime minister at that time. He was initially popular, but some Grenadians began to see him as overly ambitious and corrupt, and he unleashed brutal violence on his political enemies. Here he is at a press conference in February 1974, joking that those who opposed him might end up in the cemetery, dead from “natural causes.”
It was…
about the Grenadian revolution, which Bishop helped lead, as a new beginning for many Grenadians. In addition to the radio clips you hear in this episode, we also found video clips documenting people’s lives at the time.
We also heard stories about the negative side of the revolution. Although Bishop painted an idealistic vision of what Grenada had become, cracks began to show rapidly. Here is an excerpt from his speech at Hunter College in June 1983: “The revolution has established a law that prohibits anyone, regardless of their identity, from participating in any activity related to the overthrow of the government using armed violence. Anyone who heads in this direction will be crushed mercilessly.”
In 2001, the Grenadian government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate “some political events” in the country, including activities during the revolution. The resulting report found that around 3,000 people were arbitrarily detained during Bishop’s four-year rule. Some testified that they were beaten and tortured in prison.
There were also sharp divisions within the ruling party. We interviewed several people who were loyal members of the revolution. One of them, Christopher Stroude, was a commander in the Grenadian army.
Stroude said: “There was a belief that the revolution was slowing down. People were dissatisfied, on various levels. We couldn’t address the different issues that were on people’s minds.”
Christopher Stroude spent time in prison for the murder of Maurice Bishop.
We pieced together our account of October 19, 1983, by interviewing 18 people who were there that day, including some who were later convicted of playing roles in the executions.
At least dozens of people were shot dead that day. Others died or were injured when they jumped from the fortress to escape the gunfire and fell onto rocks approximately 50 to 60 feet high.
Maurice Bishop and the other seven were lined up at the fortress and shot. While the remains of others have been located, the bodies of these eight individuals are still missing. We could not find pictures of everyone.
Anne Bean told us about her husband, Norris Bean, who died alongside Bishop that day: “Every October 19th, this thing comes up. Every October 19th, 1983, this thing comes up. And there is no answer.”
But we found someone with an answer.
Episode 3: “We Brought Them to Calivigny”
To understand what happened to the bodies of Maurice Bishop and seven of his followers, we had to trace every move they made, starting from hours after the execution on October 19, 1983. To confirm the chain of events, we needed to talk to the people who were there.
Many witnesses to those moments are no longer alive, but some are still living. One of them, apparently, owned an electrical repair shop in the heart of the Grenadian capital, St. George’s.
We headed to a narrow side street in the city center, searching for the shop. We found a faded sign for Mr. Brown’s electrical services, stating “Only the best is good enough.” The shop is owned by Mandley Philip.
Before running this shop, Philip worked in the Grenadian army, or the revolutionary popular army. Philip was at the fortress on the day Bishop was killed. He said he did not witness the execution, but he saw afterwards. It is still hard for him to talk about it.
He said: “When I saw what happened to Maurice, it was sad. And the other comrades, like Norris Bean… Jacqueline Croft…” It took him a long time to be able to speak.
Later that night, Philip was ordered to dispose of the bodies. He said he oversaw soldiers who were told to take the bodies to Calivigny, an area of the island that was being used as a military barracks at the time. He watched as the soldiers placed the bodies in a pit, put tires over the remains, doused them with gasoline, and then lit them on fire. He said he and the other soldiers left – no one stayed to tend to the fire. Others reported that the flames had turned to smoke the next day.
We spoke
Some forensic experts said they do not believe these conditions would lead to the body being burned.
Six days later, on October 25, 1983, the United States launched an invasion of Grenada. President Ronald Reagan held a press conference alongside Eugenia Charles, the Prime Minister of the Eastern Caribbean and the Caribbean Island of Dominica. We found video of that on YouTube.
Reagan said: “In the early morning hours, forces from six democracies in the Eastern Caribbean and the United States began operations to land, or landings, on the island of Grenada in the Eastern Caribbean.”
He stated: “Between 800 and 1,000 Americans, including many medical students and senior citizens, constitute the largest group of foreign nationals residing in Grenada.”
The mission was dubbed “Urgent and Immediate.” It began with the first wave of American troops. Initially, Reagan described the invasion as “completely successful,” but this was not the whole picture. Nineteen American soldiers were killed during the invasion. Some were victims of friendly fire or accidents, including helicopter crashes.
The United States also mistakenly bombed a psychiatric hospital in Grenada, resulting in the deaths of several patients. In total, more than 20 civilians were killed during the invasion. At least 69 Grenadian and Cuban soldiers were killed.
We discovered a report prepared by the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the Joint History, which found that “the operation faced problems from the start.” The report stated: “The success of the Urgent and Immediate Operation was compromised by a lack of time for planning, a lack of tactical intelligence, and issues with joint command and control.”
Colin Brathwaite was an investigator in Barbados at the time. In his mid-thirties, he was sent to Grenada to assist in the investigation into the executions, arriving just after the U.S. invasion.
Brathwaite was responsible for investigating the killings. So he interviewed witnesses and searched for evidence – including the bodies. He said: “We received some reliable information, as I believe, about the burial site of the bodies. My information was that the bodies were in Calivigny.”
He said he and a group of police officers did not go to the reported grave in Calivigny until several days later. We believe that this was after several weeks from the executions. And when they arrived there, they found the pit. But he said he immediately knew something was strange.
He said: “The area had been completely dug up, and there was warning tape around it, you know.”
Someone had arrived before him.
During our report, we discovered a collection of photos taken by the associated press on November 8, 1983, at the burn pit site. Some photos show U.S. Army soldiers retrieving what appears to be a body bag from a pit in Calivigny. Brathwaite had never seen the photos before.
Through our report, we also learned that within two days, these bodies were examined by a U.S. forensic medical team, which was tasked with determining whether the remains belonged to Bishop and the others who were executed with him.
However, the United States did not disclose the examination results to the public.
Episode 4: “The military wants to take a look at some bodies”
Warning: This episode contains detailed descriptions of human remains.
Stephen Trujillo was a U.S. Army doctor during the Grenada invasion. In 2017, he published his autobiography which included details about what happened in Calivigny that may provide a new explanation for part of the mystery surrounding the remains of Maurice Bishop and his followers. That summer, we tracked him down and he told us his story.
On October 25, 1983, Trujillo and his fellow U.S. Army personnel parachuted onto the island. He said they quickly took control of the Cuban resistance and seized the airport. They killed many Cubans that day.
He said:
“but it was a war. I was a soldier. They were soldiers. And this is what happens when old men send young people to war. We fight and kill each other for stupid reasons most of the time.”
The next day, Trujillo and his team rescued American students on the campus of the medical colleges. He thought their work was done. But on October 27, they received a new mission.
He ordered the soldiers to prepare for an attack on Kalefingi, where the last resistance from Cuba and Grenada was believed to be hiding. Trujillo said that one of the commanders was upset because there wasn’t enough time to prepare for the assault, and they lacked information about the potential threat.
He said, “He said, ‘My soldiers won’t go unless I make it a parking lot situation.’”
So Kalefingi was bombed. Trujillo and his team watched from a nearby airport as the U.S. military bombarded Kalefingi with artillery from the ground, while U.S. Navy planes flew overhead. We later discovered from U.S. Navy accounts that the planes were dropping explosive bombs called Mark 20 and 500-pound bombs known as Mark 82. They were also firing thousands of rounds.
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