We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you an NBC News report.
Grenada invasion, late report.
Good afternoon everyone, I'm Tom Brokaw, NBC News in New York, and here is the latest
situation as we now know it on the island of Grenada, which is a tiny island as you
know in the southern Caribbean.
It has been invaded by a multinational force as it's being described.
The bulk of that force, about 1800 American troops, that includes Marines and apparently
airborne troops as well, and about 300 troops from some islands around Grenada.
They were sent there by President Reagan from Barbados early this morning, he says, at the
request of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, those are the island nations around
Grenada.
Grenada is an island country that is now in the control of a Marxist military council
after its Marxist prime minister was executed in a military coup just last week.
There are about a thousand American medical students on the island.
The president said he was sending the troops in there to protect those students, but the
chancellor of the medical school said that they were all right and if there is any loss
of life, the blame will be President Reagan's.
At this time, we don't know if there have been any casualties.
There have been reports of casualties, however, both from the Pentagon and from Cuba.
Cuba is now saying that its construction workers at a big airport, about 9,000 foot runway
at the southern tip of the island, fought, in the words of Cuba, heroically against what
were described as Yankee invaders, and apparently several of the Cubans were killed.
Chris Wallace is standing by at the White House right now where President Reagan has
been talking about casualties too, but apparently, Chris, he has not assigned any number to that.
No, and he hasn't explicitly said that they are U.S. casualties.
Just a few moments ago, Tom, the president was meeting in the Oval Office with a foreign
leader.
Reporters were ushered in and one of the reporters asked about casualties and the president said,
and I quote, I know there are casualties, but I don't have any official report right
now.
We assume he was talking about U.S. casualties, but he didn't say so, so it's simply an assumption
on our part.
Earlier today, shortly after 9 Eastern time, the president came into the briefing room
to announce the U.S. action against Grenada, and he also explained the reasons for it.
Let's listen to some of what he had to say.
We have taken this decisive action for three reasons.
First, and to overriding importance to protect innocent lives, including up to a thousand
Americans whose personal safety is, of course, my paramount concern.
Second, to forestall further chaos.
And third, to assist in the restoration of conditions of law and order and of governmental
institutions to the island of Grenada where a brutal group of leftist thugs violently
seized power, killing the prime minister, three cabinet members, two labor leaders,
and other civilians, including children.
After the president spoke, senior U.S. officials gave us a briefing on just what has been going
on in Grenada today, and let's run through that with this U.S. government map.
It started about 5 a.m. when apparently four to five hundred Marines were landed by helicopter
at this airport in the northeastern part of the country at Pearls Airport.
They secured that airport according to U.S. officials.
We are then told that between 700 and 1,000 Army airborne troops landed or parachuted
into the Point Salinas International Airport and that they have secured that airport and
are now trying to protect Americans in the area and filter up here to the main population
center in St. George's.
We are told that there was initially some anti-aircraft fire that has been suppressed.
There is still some small arms fire on the ground, and they are dealing with that.
That's the latest here from the White House, Tom.
Thank you very much, Chris Wallace, and we have now at the Pentagon Jack Reynolds, who
has just emerged from a briefing, I believe.
Jack, what have you learned?
Tom, that briefing is still going on.
The Pentagon has been very scarce with details this morning about exactly what is going on,
but the briefing is continuing.
It's expected to go on for at least another half hour.
Most of the details that became available here through unofficial channels during the
course of the morning substantiated what Chris has outlined on the map.
The one question that remains unresolved and a great concern here is casualties, and the
Pentagon simply refuses to give us any information whatsoever on that.
However, there is a U.S. medical facility in the area at Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico,
and it's expected that whatever casualties there are will be sent in there rather quickly.
Congressional leaders are saying that the President intends to keep the troops there
about five to seven days.
He wants to get in, accomplish the mission, and get out quickly.
Is that what you're hearing of the Pentagon as well, Jack?
Yes, we are, Tom, and one of the things that was said here, one of the questions that I
asked here this morning was, won't this stretch the Marines a bit thin?
The force in Beirut was due to be replaced, rotated by the force which is now otherwise
occupied on Grenada.
There are other areas around where U.S. troops are committed.
The answer I got was that people here do not expect the Marines to be tied down very long,
and if in fact they are, there are other units that could go in to replace them.
All right, thanks very much, Jack Reynolds at the Pentagon.
By the way, those troops who are participating in this invasion of Grenada originally were
headed for Lebanon, where they were to be replacement troops.
And then, of course, we have the situation in Lebanon on Sunday with the explosion that
killed more than 200 American Marines.
All of this activity in the Caribbean is being monitored by American journalists on the island
of Barbados, and it was from there that the invasion was launched.
We have standing by now in Barbados, Dennis Murphy, who has been following all of this
very carefully.
Dennis?
Tom, I'm at the Barbados airport where a lot of the air operations have been coordinated
out of.
There were at least 10 U.S. large military transport aircraft here of the C-130, C-140
class.
About half of those have departed in the last 15 minutes.
We don't know where they're headed, though we understand that the Cuban-built 9,000-foot
runway on Grenada is open, and that apparently is where these airplanes are headed.
We have reports from Kanae from Caribbean news organizations that that's where the
planes are headed.
Reports coming in from the island monitor here on local broadcasts are that the Cubans
put up the heaviest resistance on the island.
There are reports coming here unconfirmed that three Cubans were killed and 21 were
captured in the assault.
The forces, the multinational forces, are under the command of the Jamaican Defense
Forces, who have the largest standing army of the Caribbean islands here.
Fort Rupert, the central fort in Grenada with the garrison, came under mortar fire this
morning.
We understand from reports.
But as Jack Reynolds said, the reports coming in here are sketchy as well, Tom.
People are following this with great interest.
Here at the airport there are hundreds of Barbadins standing on the observation deck
with radios looking out at the tarmac where the American military aircraft are poised.
Dennis, there's also a naval task force involved in all of this as well, isn't there?
It includes the aircraft carrier, the Independence.
And what did you say?
A British couple that had come off Grenada last night indicated that they saw the lights
of that task force just offshore.
Dennis Murphy, can you hear me?
Well I gather he cannot, but at any rate, in an earlier report Dennis Murphy did tell
us that a British couple coming off the island of Grenada last night indicated that they
did see the lights of a naval task force off the island and the Grenadians on the island
thought that an invasion may be imminent.
And according to the British couple, that caused great joy on that island, which has
just a population of about 100,000 people.
Incidentally it is a very small place, only about 21 miles by 12 miles altogether.
It has been ruled by people very close to Cuba for about four years now.
And last week the Marxist Prime Minister of Grenada, Maurice Bishop, a relatively popular
figure on the island, was killed in a military coup by Marxist hardliners.
And even Fidel Castro of Cuba was moved to express great outrage over the killing of
Maurice Bishop.
Nonetheless, the Cuban construction workers continued to work on that 9,000 foot runway
at the southern tip of the island.
That is a runway that President Reagan has pointed out in the past as a potential threat
to the United States because he says it could be used for Soviet military planes.
We have been hearing as well from some American medical students who are on the island of
Grenada.
There is a medical school there, St. George's, and we have now this report from one of them.
His name is Mark Baratella.
He's from Ridgeville, New Jersey, and he's been talking on his ham radio.
Let's hear what he had to say about the situation.
We have a report just approximately two, three minutes ago.
That was Mark Baratella who is a medical student at the St. George's Medical School, and that
is located, by the way, near that 9,000 foot runway where apparently the heaviest fighting
did take place.
Cuba is now confirming that some of its construction workers, as they're called, did take casualties
as they engaged in apparently a heavy fight with some airborne troopers from the United
States who landed there today as well.
Congress at this time, for the most part, holding fire on President Reagan.
President O'Neill said it is no time for the press of America or we in public life to criticize
our country when our troops are being committed.
Five congressional leaders were briefed on all of this last night before the invasion
took place.
We'll have further details as they become available for now.
I'm Tom Brokaw, NBC News, New York.
This has been an NBC News.
A regularly scheduled program to bring you an NBC News report.
Grenada invasion, late report.
Here is NBC News correspondent Tom Brokaw.
Good afternoon, continuing our coverage now of the military invasion of the island of
Grenada where about 1,800 American troops were involved.
We have late word from the Pentagon that there is confirmation that those American troops,
Marines and Rangers, those are airborne forces, that they did engage some Cuban troops or
construction workers as they're identified as well during the course of this invasion,
most likely at the southern end of the island where a 9,000 foot runway was being constructed
by the Cubans.
The earlier said that its construction workers as they continue to identify them fought heroically
against powerful American forces.
We did have word earlier as well that three Cubans were killed, a number were captured.
Now a source at the White House is saying that 30 Soviet advisors and up to 600 Cubans
have been secured in the words of the White House and that they will be transported out
of Grenada.
The Cubans on a Cuban ship, how they'll dispose of the Soviets, we're not sure.
Chris Wallace has just completed a White House press briefing on all of this.
Let's hear what he has to say.
Chris, what's the latest there?
Chris Wallace, U.S. Secretary of State for the United States of America
Tom, an administration official just told me that the fighting continues in Grenada,
that U.S. forces have achieved a number of their objectives but that a few remain.
As for the number of U.S. casualties, all they'll say here at the White House and at
the Pentagon is that U.S. casualties are minimal.
They also say that a U.S. helicopter has been downed but they won't say whether it was shot
down or whether it was simply disabled by some electrical malfunction.
In all, they're now talking about 1,900 U.S. troops on the ground in Grenada, about 400
to 500 Marines up in the northern part of the country around the Pearls Airport and
then another around 1,000 airborne Army troops down in the south around the big international
airport with that 9,000 foot runway and that's where they apparently have engaged those Cubans.
There's also a growing controversy about the motivation for the U.S. action.
We were told early in the day that one of the main reasons was because of fear for the
safety of those 1,000 Americans on the island, many of them, about 600 of the medical students.
But in answer to questions, Larry Speaks said there had been no specific threats against
the Americans, no incidents of any abuse of the Americans.
It was simply a general 24-hour curfew with orders to shoot to kill anyone who broke that
and that was against all people on the island, not against the Americans.
So I think we are already beginning to see the beginnings of a controversy as to just
what the Americans are doing in Grenada.
One other point I'd like to make and that is that we were told that the President will
give Congress an official notification of the U.S. role in Grenada under the War Powers
Act within the next 24 hours or rather 48 hours.
That's official notification.
During the last 24 hours, the President has briefed Congressmen last night in the residence
and this morning in the cabinet room on the west wing of the White House.
Tom?
Thank you very much.
Chris Wallace at the White House.
The President actually outlined three reasons for this invasion.
He said we want to protect those innocent lives, referring to the medical students.
Also want to forestall further chaos on the island where a bloody Marxist coup took place
last week against the Marxist Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and we want to restore law
and order and democracy.
John Dancy now on the Hill.
Is that washing with members of Congress, John?
Well, with some of them of course it is, Tom.
It's splitting pretty much along ideological lines here.
Conservatives support the President.
Trent Lott, for example, over in the House said we're in the world other than the shores
of our own country.
Do we have a vital interest anymore?
But among some of the liberals here, there's a real question.
Moynihan of New York flatly saying that this amounted to an act of war as far as he was
concerned, Tom.
Thank you very much, John Dancy.
On Capitol Hill, we'll have additional details at 3 o'clock Eastern time this afternoon
when Secretary of State Schultz is expected to give a lengthy briefing.
And then of course tonight on NBC's Nightly News.
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