Note to Readers: This page highlights the images and reference materials for the podcast “The Grave of the Missing Communist Leader,” and it will be updated as new episodes are released.
Maurice Bishop: The Grenadian Revolutionary Leader
Maurice Bishop, the revolutionary leader in 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 images, scrutinized government documents, and visited the sites where events took place. Here, we share some of the visual art pieces and other evidence we discovered, episode by episode.
Episode 1: “Someone Knows”
Our report began where it all started: in the courtyard of the military fortress where 39-year-old Maurice Bishop, three ministers, and four of his close aides were killed.
Photographer Jabin Putzford captured images of the fortress as it stands today. Previously known as his father’s name, Bobert, it is now known as Fort George.
You can still see the bullet marks on the basketball pole.
When he came to power, Maurice Bishop was a charismatic young revolutionary leader closely associated with communist leaders. We found images of Bishop standing beside Cuban President Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega, who was then a member of the Nicaraguan communist junta, at a May Day rally in Revolution Square in Cuba in 1980.
This was the height of the Cold War. U.S. President Ronald Reagan viewed Grenada’s ties to Cuba – and consequently the Soviet Union – as a serious threat. He emphasized this in a live televised address on March 23, 1983: “We were told that Grenada was a friendly island for tourism. Well, it was not.”
Bishop came to New York a few months later, on June 5, to speak before an enthusiastic crowd. He read from what he claimed was “a top-secret report issued by the State Department” and told the audience that it revealed the real reason the United States believed that Grenada posed a threat: “And if we have 95 percent African descent in our country, we could have a serious influence on 30 million black people in the United States.”
Episode 2: “We All Had High Hopes”
Grenada is an island nation with a population of 125,000 on the edge of the Caribbean Sea. The origins of the inhabitants of this former British colony trace back to enslaved Africans. In the 1960s, as Bishop was growing up, Grenada was still a poor country, with many citizens working on farms just as their ancestors had.
There were also families like the Bishops. Ellen Bishop Spelman, Bishop’s younger sister, shared this family picture and told us more about her family and her brother.
“We tended to be classist. You couldn’t enter our lives if you were outside our class. If you walked home from school and spoke to a taxi driver or a servant child, I would be punished. We were somewhat arrogant,” Spelman said.
“Maurice was very nice, and handsome, of course,” she said. “He was my doll. I remember once he took a nap, and I was playing with his hair and wrapped most of it up. 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 the time. He was initially popular, but some Grenadians began to see him as power-hungry and corrupt, directing brutal violence against political opponents. Here he is at a press conference in February 1974, joking that those who opposed him may have died from “natural causes.”
The Grenadian revolution, which Bishop helped to lead, was a new beginning for many Grenadians. In addition to the radio clips you hear in this episode, we also found video footage documenting people’s lives at that time.
We heard
also about the negative side of the revolution. While Bishop presented an idealistic view of what Grenada had become, cracks began to show quickly. Here is an excerpt from his speech at Hunter College in June 1983: “The revolution has established a law stating that no one, regardless of their identity, will be allowed to engage in any activity related to overthrowing the government using armed violence. Anyone heading in those directions will be ruthlessly crushed.”
In 2001, the Grenadian government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate “some political events” in the country, including the 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 was also a struggle within the ruling party. We interviewed several people who were loyal members of the revolution. One of them, Christopher Strowd, was a commander in the Grenadian army.
Strowd said, “There was a belief that the revolution was stagnating. People were dissatisfied, on different levels. We couldn’t address the various issues that were troubling the people.”
Christopher Strowd spent some time in prison on charges of killing Maurice Bishop.
We compiled our account of October 19, 1983, by interviewing 18 people who were there that day, including some who were later convicted of playing a role in the executions.
At least dozens of people were shot dead that day. Others died or were injured when they jumped from the castle to escape the gunfire, falling onto rocks that were 50 to 60 feet high.
Bishop and the other seven were lined up against the wall of the castle and executed by firing squad. While the remains of others have been accounted for, the bodies of these eight individuals remain missing. We could not find photos of everyone.
Annie Bain told us about her husband, Norris Bain, who died alongside Bishop that day: “Every October 19, this thing comes back. Every October 19, 1983, this thing comes back. And there are no answers.”
But we found someone who had answers.
Chapter 3: “We Took Them to Calivigny”
To understand what happened to the bodies of Maurice Bishop and seven of his allies, we had to trace every movement of them, starting hours after the executions on October 19, 1983. To confirm the chain of custody, we had 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, we learned, owned an electrical repair shop in the capital of Grenada, St. George’s.
We took a tour down a narrow side street in the city, searching for the shop. We found a faded sign for Mr. Brown’s electrical repair services, which reads “Only the best is good enough.” The shop is owned by Mandley Philip.
Before running this shop, Philip served in the Grenadian army, or the People’s Revolutionary Army. Philip was at the castle the day Bishop was killed. He said he did not witness the executions, but he saw the aftermath. It is still difficult for him to talk about it.
He said, “When I saw what happened to Maurice, it was heartbreaking. And the other comrades, like Norris Bain … Jacqueline Croft …” It took him a long time to speak.
Later that night, Philip received orders to dispose of the bodies. He said he oversaw soldiers who were told to transport the bodies to Calivigny, an area of the island that at that time was used as a military barracks. He watched as the soldiers placed the bodies in a pit, covered the remains with tires, poured gasoline on them, and then set them alight. He said that he and the other soldiers left – no one stayed to tend the fire. Others mentioned that by the next day, the flames had reduced to smoke.
We spoke
With some forensic experts on this matter. They said they do not believe these conditions would lead to the body’s cremation.
Six days later, on October 25, 1983, the United States launched an invasion of Grenada. President Ronald Reagan, at a press conference standing next to Eugenia Charles, the head of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States and Prime Minister of Dominica, said, “Early this morning, forces from six democracies in the Caribbean and the United States began landing on the island of Grenada in the eastern Caribbean.”
He stated, “Between 800 and 1,000 Americans, including many medical students and seniors, represent the largest group of foreign residents in Grenada.”
The operation was named “Urgent Fury,” and began with the first wave of American troops. Initially, Reagan described the invasion as “entirely successful,” but that was not the full 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 found a report prepared in 1997 for the Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which concluded that “the operation experienced problems from the outset.” The report stated, “The success of Operation Urgent Fury was marred by the consequences of insufficient planning time, a lack of tactical intelligence, and joint command and control problems.”
Cullen Brathwaite was an investigator in Barbados at the time. In his mid-thirties, he was sent to Grenada to help investigate the executions, arriving on the island after the U.S. invasion.
Brathwaite was responsible for investigating the killings. Thus, he interviewed witnesses and sought evidence – including corpses. He said, “We received some reliable information about where the bodies were buried. 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 for several days. They believed it was several weeks after the executions. And when they arrived there, they found the pit. But he said he immediately knew something was off.
He stated, “The area was dug up and there was caution tape around it, you know.”
Someone had arrived there before him.
During our report, we uncovered a set of photos taken by the Associated Press on November 8, 1983, at the burn pit site, days before Brathwaite and his team of investigators reached the scene. Some of the photos show U.S. Army soldiers pulling what appears to be a body bag from a pit in Calivigny. Brathwaite had never seen these photos before.
Through our report, we also learned that two days later, these bodies were examined by a U.S. forensic medical team, which was tasked with determining whether these remains belonged to Bishop and the other individuals who were executed with him.
However, the U.S. never revealed the results of the examination to the public.
Episode 4: “The Army Wants to Take a Look at Some Bodies”
Warning: This episode contains detailed descriptions of human remains.
Stephen Truijillo 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 of the remains of Maurice Bishop and his supporters. This summer, we tracked him down and he shared his story.
On October 25, 1983, Truijillo and his fellow paratroopers jumped onto the island. He said they quickly took control of the Cuban resistance and secured the airport. They killed many Cubans that day.
He said:
“But it was a war. I was a soldier
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/10/23/empty-grave-comrade-bishop-podcast-guide/?itid=mr_investigations_3
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