President to Visit Grenada, Meet With Region’s Leaders

WASHINGTON —  President Reagan will visit Grenada next month to confer with the island’s pro-American leaders and to commemorate the 1983 U.S. invasion that toppled the tiny nation’s Marxist regime, the White House announced Friday.

In addition to his talks with Prime Minister Herbert Blaize and Gov. Gen. Paul Scoon, Reagan plans to meet the chiefs of other Caribbean nations. The White House said it does not know how many other governments will be represented because not all have replied to the invitation.

“If you want to call it a Caribbean summit, you may,” spokesman Larry Speakes told reporters.

During his four-hour stay on the eastern Caribbean island Feb. 20, Reagan also plans to deliver a speech and participate in a ceremony at the monument to the 19 U.S. troops who died in the October, 1983, invasion.

At the time, Reagan said he sent about 6,000 Marines and paratroopers to the island to rescue American medical students after a radical political faction took control of the island and murdered Marxist Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. Several pro-Western Caribbean islands also sent forces.