Secret Mission of URGENT FURY

摘要

Most Americans who remember Operation Urgent Fury-the October 1983 U.S.-led invasion of Grenada-recall it as a contingency action to protect U.S. citizens on a tropical island then in the throes of a bloody power struggle. "Rescue mission" became the Reagan administration's preferred shorthand phrase for describing, and justifying, the multinational intervention. That messaging was affirmed on the second day of the eight-day operation. At 1719 on 26 October 1983, the first planeload of Americans evacuated from St. George's University Medical School on Grenada landed at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina. One student dropped to his knees, spread his arms, and kissed the runway. That image appeared on live TV network broadcasts, and later on newspaper front pages, around the county. As soon as President Ronald Reagan's chief press spokesman saw that gesture of gratitude, he exulted. "That's it! We won," Larry Speakes shouted as his staffers cheered and pounded the table. But the domestic public-relations battle that was essentially won with a single kiss was not the same fight that was being waged by Vice Admiral Joseph P. Metcalf Ⅲ, the on-scene invasion task force commander.