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The Press and Grenada 1983 Eight years after the crisis in Grenada, the late Vice Admiral Lee Joseph Metcalf III, U.S. Navy, retired, spoke out in public about one aspect of the Grenada situation when he presented "The Press and Grenada, 1983" at an International Conference on Defence and the Media in Time of Limited Conflict. His paper was one of seven case studies presented in Brisbane, Australia: Saddam Hussein declared the conflict over Kuwait to be the `Mother of Battles'. He may have been right. History may show that his war with the United Nations fundamentally changed the Middle East. History may also show that while Grenada 1983 was a skirmish in terms of warfare it may also have been the information warfare `mother of battles'. If this is so, it will be because Grenada was a watershed in relations between the media and the military - the age of instant information. It marked a start toward equilibrium in the relationship between the government, the military and the news media. At the time of the Grenada intervention, relations between press and the US military had been eroded to an appalling state. The root of the problem was the ill-will between the press and the military that came out of Vietnam. A pall of mutual misunderstanding still enveloped these two elements of American society eight years after the last shots were fired. The military brooded over the loss in Vietnam, and many blamed the press. At the same time, the media was deeply suspicious of those in authority within the military and its surrogate, the Pentagon. It was an unnatural situation. The normal adversarial relationship between the press and the military that had existed for years had given way to ugly confrontation. The defense establishment, particularly those in senior positions, uniformed and civilian, accused the press of projecting increasingly a distorted, negative picture of military affairs. Unfortunately, out in the field where the captains and colonels worked, the situation was not much better. These were the people who actually fought in Vietnam, and to many, animosity toward the press was deeply felt and very personal. Military spokesmen in an interview usually felt that the press was out `to get' them. They felt that the press assumed them guilty of hiding something or lying before the fact. Unfortunately this view marked a common ground, the press as an institution did not trust the military. The result was great antipathy for each other. Both sides felt the deck was stacked against them. This period was the heyday of the ubiquitous anonymous `informed sources'. A faceless `authority' could with impunity question the judgment of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Paranoia roamed the corridors of the Pentagon. Service chiefs and defense officials spent as much effort reacting to the `Early Bird'1 as they did attending to the business of the Cold War. The press and the Pentagon played games with each other. The Department of Defense even resorted to releasing bad news on Friday afternoon, too late for the seven o'clock news. They hoped, and the stratagem usually worked, that by Monday the event would have passed below the threshold of network interest. My own direct involvement with the press prior to Grenada had consisted of cameo appearances on television and interviews with the reporters serving the military press. I had experienced the television equivalent of `bait and switch', the 30-minute interview, cut to one minute, out of context and unexpectedly controversial. I had participated in and observed close at hand history in the making and marveled at the differences in what I had seen and what appeared in the media. I had little confidence in the press to report accurately events or make balanced interpretations of what had occurred. I shared a common belief that the media was not inclined to play it straight. This was the military - media environment in which the Grenada operation and the subsequent media reporting of it took place. The lapse of time between the notification that I was to lead the Grenada operation and the first landing of troops was 39 hours. In this brief period before combat the only consideration that I gave to the media occurred at about six hours into the 39. A lieutenant commander, a CINCLANT2 [Commander in Chief Atlantic] public affairs officer (PAO), came to me and said, `there will be no press, do you have any problems with this?' I said I did not. My answer came more from attention to urgent operational matters rather than a thought out position on the issue of the press. Was this formulation of media policy by acquiescence or did I have an option? I suspect the policy was de facto but the truth is I do not know. Combat operations in Grenada commenced at 0500, Tuesday morning 25 October 1983, with the simultaneous landings of the Marines and Rangers and the breaking of radio silence that covered the movement of forces. Information warfare commenced at the same instant with a continuous account of the action transmitted through military channels to CINCLANT in Norfolk, Virginia, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington. The first on-scene 'media event' occurred in mid-morning of the first day when an enterprising stringer representing the Washington Post appeared in the flagship, demanding that we relay his copy to the paper. He was advised that no immediate press coverage of the operation was permitted and that he would have to wait. This caused considerable consternation on his part. It was also clear that he was more interested in his copy than what was going on. My PAO escorted him below. In due course, the presence of this journalist was reported up the chain of command. The reaction was swift. The Pentagon demanded an explanation for his presence. The `no press policy' was reaffirmed, and we were unexpectedly admonished for having allowed the reporter on board the ship. However, the vagaries of information warfare are swift. Within two hours this same Pentagon was demanding to know when we would allow the press to join the war. I asked `how many?' The answer was 400. (This works out to be roughly one reporter for every 18 combat troops in the operation on Grenada.) My response was that we could not physically handle such a group. No further assistance or guidance was offered. It was then clear to me that the responsibility for press access policy had shifted. On the second day of the operation we were petitioned again to allow media on the island. Again, I said no. Combat operations continued in and around the airstrip. The capital, St. George's, was not secure. The location and rescue of the American students were still uncertain.3 The island was without running water and electricity. The fighting continued. I was also mindful of one of the basic tenets of my operation order; minimum casualties. I did agree to allow a press pool of 25 to visit the combat zone the following day, the third day of the operation. I also had learned that a number of more adventuresome members of the fourth estate, determined to open up their own second front on Grenada, were on the way by speedboat. My response was to quarantine the island. I established an exclusion zone around Grenada enforced by destroyers and aircraft. The members of the first press pool arrived from Barbados on the afternoon of the third day and remained on the island for about three hours. In the main they were excellent and professional. I briefed them, and they toured the immediate area of the Salines Airport, interviewed American students, and inspected the warehouses full of arms and ammunition that had been found on the island. The press pool increased to 50 the following day. We repeated the briefing format of the previous day. On the fifth day of the operation the island was secure in the vicinity of Salines Airport and the town of St. George's. At this time we granted free access to the island, to the troops and to the island's population. The number of press who visited the island was limited to the availability of aircraft to ferry them from Barbados. I also flew to Kingston, Barbados, and conducted a two-hour news conference for those who had not been able to get to Grenada. This was a very contentious session with more interest expressed by the media in attacking the press policy rather in than gathering news. The final media event occurred on the tenth day, the last day of the operation. By this time Grenada and the Grenadine islands to the north were secure. The United States had designated an ambassador and he had arrived in St. George's with the nucleus of a country team. I felt that a formal ceremony transferring cognizance of US forces from a US military commander to the US ambassador should be accomplished. Working with the ambassador, I decided that a formal reestablishment of a government for Grenada was necessary. Both objectives were accomplished by a ceremony conducted with pomp and circumstance at the official residence of the Governor-General of Grenada, the representative of Queen Elizabeth II. The event was well-attended and recorded by US, print and television news services, as well by a number of foreign journalists. To my knowledge this occasion, an event of historical importance marking the end of the Grenada operation, never appeared on American television. The students had been rescued and peace restored. A regime that threatened the security of Caribbean region had been removed, and a new government installed. The defining aspect of the Grenada operation was that the media did not have immediate access to the scene of combat. It is still the issue that transcends all others. Looking back, how was the media policy for Operation `Urgent Fury' formulated in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Department of Defense? In my opinion it probably `just happened'. The policy of `no media' likely became a logical extension of the tight security that covered the early planning and the diversion of the amphibious force and carrier battle group to the Caribbean. The initial no press policy stood until the question `when can you take media' in the first hours of combat. Lacking guidance or prior precedence I established the rules for a media presence during the combat phase operation. They were as follows:
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