I READ the biography of Forbes Burnham by Professor Linden Lewis and Moses Nagamootoo’s autobiography on the seawall and had to constantly glance at my dog while she preyed on mongoose that she never seems to catch. But with this book currently under review, it was different.

I read the Assassination of Maurice Bishop by Bahamian author, Godfrey Smith on the same spot on the seawall with my dog on Thursday afternoon, but I was not disturbed. My dog just sat silently when I was reading so I didn’t have to be distracted
I would recommend this book to Caribbean people and scholars around the world who specialise in political philosophy because it contains materials previously unpublished. But the book lacks the application of academic analysis and this may have come about because Smith is not a practising academic and does not function in academia.

The volume is 220 pages and encompasses materials already in the public domain. Previously unpublished material lies in the interviews Smith secured with the physical perpetrators of Bishop’s murder and the intellectual authors. The list includes the chief detractor of Bishop, Bernard Coard and the man who gave the order to shoot Bishop.

A large portion of this text is a repetition of the dispute between Coard and Bishop over joint leadership of the ruling party. It borders on boredom and it would have been best to devote two extensive chapters on the subject and leave the other chapters to more fascinating analyses of political behaviour of the key players.

I worked, in a somewhat secret mode, as an international relations adviser to the Bishop Government and was in Grenada at the time of the implosion. My duties brought me more in contact with the Foreign Minister, Unison Whiteman. My analysis of the foreign policy of Grenada during my time as adviser is described in my manuscript which I wrote in 1986 when I became a UG lecturer. It is titled, “The small state in a big world: The foreign policy behaviour of the PRG in Grenada.” It is only available in the Caribbean Research Section of UG library.

I hardly met Bishop but I can tell you that his murder robbed the entire world of one of the “coolest dudes” in world politics. My days with Bishop remind me of Irfaan Ali. I will attempt a comparison in a forthcoming column. Maurice Bishop was the leader of a small unknown country but as the head of a government, there were and are few like him in the world.

Maurice was someone that related to people in a way that was simple and based on pure straightforwardness. I do not accept everything Smith wrote about the dispute between Coard and Bishop and that is because Smith wrote his book 37 years after the Grenada disaster.

There were nuances Smith will never have access to because those nuances died literally days after the revolution and no research can bring them alive for the researcher to see and understand. You had to be there to internalise the moment of implosion.

Smith’s two faults are: One- he omitted analysis of events which could provide a better understanding on what happened in Grenada in 1983. Secondly, he did not make much use of the material he got from the people he interviewed. Smith had access to most of the people who were directly and indirectly involved in Bishop’s death. But here is where you see the academic background lacking.

I think he failed to apply rigorous analysis to the material. The book has two strong points. It is clear from the research Smith brought out that Bernard Coard was the main destroyer of the Grenada Revolution. Secondly, the text makes for good reading in understanding the way Russia (the USSR at the time) approached the Cold War.

Smith’s notes on the way the USSR saw the factional fighting are very brief. But while there at the time of the impending disaster, I got the distinct impression that Russia was not interested in what was taking place and could not have been bothered if the Grenada revolution exploded. In my short time serving the government, I got the distinct impression that Russia wanted a hands-off policy. Maybe Russia did not want to see Grenada get hurt from US vindictiveness.

Smith has a third strength. His book brings out the attitude of Cuba towards the fight between Coard and Bishop. This is something Western scholars and Western leaders will never understand. The Cubans could have saved the Grenada Revolution but Cuba felt it was best the Grenadians sought it out themselves. In the end, they couldn’t and the revolution committed suicide.

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