EX-CIA AGENT: GRENADA SIGNALS NICARAGUA INVASION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100500075-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 9, 2010
• Sequence Number: 75
• Publication Date: November 9, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/09: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100500075-3
IOWA STATE DAILY (IA)
9 November 1983
Ex-CIA agent Grenada
signals-- Nicaragua invasion
by JEFF MORGAN
The United States invaded
Grenada because the Reagan
administration wanted to divert
attention from incidents in
Lebanon and prepare the
American public -for a future
invasion of Nicaragua, ac-
cording to former Central In-
telligerice Agency officer John
Stockwell.
"Ronald Reagan.is up front,"
Stockwell said in an interview
Tuesday. "This - guy likes
controversy. It-makes him look
like what be thinks is a leader."
During the Vietnam
War, the
American publicdidn't approve
or accept military troops in that
country, Stockwell said. "There
has been talk of - invading
Nicaragua for the last two
years," he said. "All you have
to do is read what [officials]
have- said during those two
years
Stockwell .left Grenada for
Trinidad only weeks before the
bloody coup took place in which
Grenadian Prime Minister
Maurice Bishop and four of his
aides were shot and killed
JOHN STOCKWELL
Stockwell knew Bishop per-
sonally.
"Trinidad is within eyesight
of Grenada, ' he said. "I was
_going . to -go back over to
Grenada but I got sick, the flu
or something: I'm glad I didn't,
now. I would have been right in
the middle of the whole -thing
had I returned."
STOCKWELL CRITICIZED
Reagan's move into Grenada,
saying that violence there, had
apparently concluded with the
end of the Marsist4 _militarycoup.
The farmer agent, who joined
the CIA in 1964 and earned the
position of the Chief of the
Angola Task Force In 1975, said .
Cubans in Grenada could have
shot the Marine paratroopers
while they were sti lin the air.
"They saw A he mission
coming," Stockwell said. "They
didn't fire until they were at-
tacked. They fought so
vigorously that Washington
kept raising its estimates of
how many Cuban troops were
there," Stockwell said. "They
had estimated half a brigade,
but when they . couldn't find
1,100 troops, [the Pentagon)
said there were only.750, just
what Cuba had reported."
Historical research has
shown that all indicators are in
place for another major world
confrontation, be said.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/09: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100500075-3