Remembering Grenada

The walls of Maurice Bishop’s prime ministerial office are still blackened from the flames that swept through Butler House during the U.S. invasion in 1983. Some Grenadians say the fire that engulfed the government compound high upon the bluff at the mouth of St. George’s harbor was ignited by the strafing of Cobra helicopter gunships. Others believe it was set deliberately to keep the Marines from seizing official records. No one knows for sure, just as nobody knows what happened to the body of Bishop, murdered six days earlier by rivals in the New Jewel Movement (NJM) as the Grenadian Revolution devoured itself. Now, more than a decade and a half later, Butler House is slated for demolition. A giant hotel and marina complex will be constructed in its place, financed by an East European tycoon whose influence on this tiny island may in the end rival that of Fidel Castro and Ronald Reagan.

Bishop’s headquarters were named for Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler, a...