Scene of Foreign Policy Triumph : President to Visit Grenada Next Month

WASHINGTON —  President Reagan will visit Grenada next month to celebrate the principal foreign policy triumph of his first term and to meet with Caribbean leaders, the White House said today.

Reagan will spend four hours on the island Feb. 20 in his first visit since a U.S. military force ousted the Marxist government there in October, 1983.

He will meet with Prime Minister Herbert Blaize, Governor General Paul Scoon and other Caribbean leaders, address a public rally and pay tribute to the 19 Americans who died in the invasion by visiting a monument erected in their memory at St. George’s University School of Medicine, presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said.

The invasion of the tiny island--called to this day a “rescue mission” for 1,000 American medical students--was considered by Reagan to be his greatest foreign policy victory, the only time democratic forces have regained territory from the communists.

He mentioned the action in each of his 1984 campaign speeches.

The predawn invasion killed 45 Grenadians, 24 of whom were civilians. All but three of the civilians were residents of a mental hospital accidentally bombed by American planes.

The three-day action killed 24 Cuban construction workers who the Administration said were part of a military force and resulted in the ouster of 800 Cubans on the island.

Reagan will land at the Point Salinas airfield that he said was being built as a base for Soviet aircraft.

The United States had said the invasion was prompted by concern about the safety of American medical students on the island after a radical faction took power after the murder of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, a Marxist who was regarded as too moderate by his leftist critics.

Critics of the invasion charged that the students were never in danger and said the United States was guilty of unprovoked aggression.

The United States had 6,000 soldiers on the island at the peak of its involvement but all have since been withdrawn.