WEINBERGER: US IS ON VERGE OF VICTORY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100570001-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: October 27, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000100570001-9
AR:i cLE Ap
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BOSTON GLOBE
27 October 1983
Weinberger:. US is on verge
By Fred Kaplan ? in a coup. The officials reportedly noted that Fi
Globe Correspondent- T 7~ del y Castro, Cuba's p e ident, seemed distressed
WASHINGTON US troops ~/ e o v by the ouster of Bishop, who was a Marxist with
ties to Cuba.
close
were on the verge of victory over
Cuban and Cuban-backed forces there and a Cuban colonel was taken pris- Reagan and others in the Administration
on Grenada, Defense Secretary oner, Weinberger said. have speculated publicly that the coup may
Caspar W. Weinberger said last Pentagon officials said about 800 paratroop-have had Cuban support - another stated juste-.
night. ers from the Army's 82d Airborne Division ar-fication for the American invasion:
He told reporters that Cuban de- rived in Grenada yesterday to back up the US The congressional source said CIA and Brit-
fenses had been reduced to just one' Marines and Army Rangers who descended on ish intelligence officials cooperated in planning
major "pocket of resistance" and ..the Pearls and Point Salines airports by helicop-the landing .of American helicopters at the two
that "about 600" Cubans - ntany ter and parachute in the initial assault Tues-air bases in Grenada. For example, they knew
of them combatants and almost all day. just where the Grenadian military .had placed
carrying at least rifles - had been At 2:56 p.m. yesterday, about 34 hours after steel drums on the airstrips to impede or inter
captured. the US units landed, Cuban radio announced fere with a landing force. Prime Minister Marga-
The Defense Secretary also said the resistance to US forces had ended. Wein ret Thatcher of Britain has publicly criticized
that all of the more than 600; berger said at the press conference two hours the decision to invade Grenada.
American medical students at St. later that the Cuban report was untrue.
George's University Medical School In the area around Richmond Hill Prison, Asked about the information provided by the
on the island were.safe. one mile east of St. George's. Cuban and Grena-congressional source. a Pentagon spokesman
As he spoke. the first of two than troops were still holding out, the Defense said, "We don't comment on intelligencecapa-
C141 transport planes bearing eva- Secretary said. Weinberger and Vessey said bilities."
cuees from Grenada touched down they did not know how many of these soldiers
at Charleston Air Force Base in were still fighting. The congressional source also said that just
South Carolina. The plane carried Cuban forces put up much heavier resis- as the invasion began, the CIA told Cuban and
69 Americans and two British civil- tance than anyone had anticipated, the two offi- Soviet officials that Cubans in Grenada would.
ians. ? cials said. Earlier yesterday, a Pentagon official notbe harmed if they did not resist and would'
Six US soldiers were killed, 33 said: "We're very surprised. There's no question be safely escorted to Cuban boats just offshore.
wounded and eight were missing in that the Cubans are resisting like they're not The offer was ignored, the source said.
fighting in Grenada, Weinberger just a bunch of engineers. That's a fighting
said. Three US helicopters were force down there.... They're a trained force, a
also reported downed. professional force." Other officials in the Penta-
Weinberger said he had no good gon and the State Department agreed with this
estimate on the number of Cuban assessment, as did Vessey.
or Grenadian casualties, but Gen. About 700 Cubans reportedly have been sta-
John V. Vessev, chairman of the tioned in Grenada, 500 of them construction
Joint Chiefs of Staff, who accompa- workers. Many of them have been building a
nied Weinberger at the Pentagon 9000-foot-long airstrip at Point Salines, which
press conference, said there were Grenadian officials said would improve tourism
"20-some wounded Cubans."
Weinberger and Vessey said they but which US officials said would be used for
knew of no civilian casualties. Soviet-backed planes.
While US officials have long believed that
US troops also overran a Cuban
military installation at Freouente, these workers had some military reserve train-
less than one mile north of the ing Vessey expressed surprise at how well-orga-
medical school campus at True nized they were. "We didn't anticipate meeting
Blue. they said. Radio gear and se- Cuban fighting units." he said.
cret documents were captured By the time of the invasion early Tuesday.
according to a congressional source with con-
tacts inside the US intelligence community, the
CIA had concluded that while US medical stu-
dents in Grenada may have been in some dan-
ger last week, they were "no longer in imminent
danger:" One of President Ronald. Reagan's
chief rationales for entering Grenada was to
protect some 1100 American citizens residing
there, most of them at the medical school.
The -source also said most intelligence offi-
cials do not believe Cuba was connected with
the assassination of Maurice Bishop, Grenada's
former prime minister. who was killed last week
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100570001-9