OCR Text |
Show Weekly Speenafl lyZXcrsoa UMMJNmmmmwjmvmmmmj i.uu,um i-MnMunjnninwimiiuu i u..iij.uau.j ' Personal feud may have aided overthrow of government Washington There's an untold story behind the dramatic events on the Caribbean island of Grenada. It is the tale of two women, both of them fiery, left-wing radicals. Their personal feud helped to bring down the Marxist government of Grenada. It was a classic Stalinist purge that led Grenada's neighbors to collaborate with the United States in forming a six-nation invasion force. The chain of events that culminated in the invasion may have started with a bitter battle between Prime Minister Maurice Bishop's mistress, Jacqueline Creft, and Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard's wife, Phyllis. Intelligence Intelli-gence sources say that ideological and personal differences between the two women stirred up tension between the two leaders. Bishop was a popular figure, particularly with the island's youth and its women. He formed a "National Institute for Women" and also appointed ap-pointed his mistress as the education minister. Phyllis Coard was jealous and reportedly urged her husband to depose the prime minister. Our sources say she was definitely involved in plotting Bishop's overthrow. According to intelligence reports, Bishop and his mistress were last seen with their hands in the air as they were being led away by revolutionary guards. Both were reportedly ex-' ex-' ecuted, though a government statement state-ment claimed the prime minister was shot in an exchange of gunfire with army troops. What happened to Phyllis Coard and her husband? They were captured in a hideout by American soldiers and taken to the USS Guam for interrogation. interroga-tion. Pentagon spokesmen would not say where they will be taken next, but other sources said they would be handed over to the interim government of Grenada and eventually put on trial. The invasion of Grenada, meanwhile, mean-while, may be an ominous sign of the direction the Reagan administration wants to take in Latin America. Another ominous sign is a sketch that was included in a secret briefing paper prepared for the commission on Central America, headed by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The drawing shows Gulliver tied down by Lilliputians. But the Gulliver in the sketch isn't the hapless character who was the hero of Jonathan Swift's biting 18th century satire. This Gulliver represents the United States, and the ropes that tie the pitiful, helpless giant down are the restrictions Congress has put on the president and the Pentagon in matters of foreign policy. The ropes are identified as various parts of three laws: The War Powers Act, the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act. The drawing is labeled "Obstacles to Policy Implementation." The Reagan administration apparently ap-parently wants to cut all these legal ropes and let Gulliver loose to go crashing around the world without having to bother with the Lilliputians on Capitol Hill. Undiplomatic discrimination: Last month, we reported that the State Department had tried to hush up a sex discrimination scandal. The department depart-ment had settled a discrimination suit out of court to avoid publicity. As the negotiations were being concluded, another sex scandal bubbled bub-bled up. This one involves widespread sexual harassment in the foreign service. A cable from the State Department to all U.S. diplomatic posts states that "sexual harassment continues to be a pervasive problem." The cable says that 42 percent of the women and 15 percent of the men who work for the U.S. government have been the victims of some sort of sexual harassment. The cable points out that sexual harassment covers a wide range of unwelcome behavior. The "most severe" category consists of "actual or attempted sexual assault." "Severe" includes "pressure for sexual favors, touching, phone calls and letters." "Less severe" harassment means "suggestive looks or gestures, uninvited un-invited sexual teasing, jokes, remarks or questions." The State Department's research shows that only 3 percent of the diplomatic personnel who had been sexually harassed filed an official complaint. Paper tiger?: With the invasion of Grenada, the United States put on a show of strength. But the Navy was ill-prepared to back it up. We have seen a secret General Accounting Office report which discloses dis-closes that naval readiness is dangerously danger-ously less than it should be. Aircraft carriers, for example, are critically short of munitions and spare parts. The auditors report, however, that the Navy's figures have been fudged so that forward forces can claim battle readiness. Our sources suspect the numbers have been doctored so that allocated funds can be used for the construction of new ships rather than the purchase of needed parts and arms. 1983 United Feature Syndicate, Inc. |