Nicaragua and Grenada are the most importantrnevents in Latin America sincern1959.” Eheu fugaces, indeed. The newrn”revolutionary” Grenadian government,rnestablished by a 1979 coup and to berneliminated by a bloody massacre in 1983,rnset up embassies in Cuba, Libya, Algeria,rnNorth Korea, Syria, and (later) Russia.rnEverything seemed to be running theirrnway. The appeal sent to the British governmentrnby neighboring St. Lucia’s JohnrnCompton was ignored by Whitehall,rnpooh-poohed in fact, while in DominicarnPatrick John (lately let out of prison) wasrndoing his best to overthrow the eminentlyrnsensible Eugenia Charles. DanielrnOrtega had brought Nicaragua intornthe fold; Trinidad and Venezuela andrneven Mexico were uncovering Cubanrnespionage rings trained (“studied”) atrnMoscow’s Patrice Lumumba Universityrnor at Pyongyang’s terrorist-training camprnin North Korea.rnI often wonder what has happened tornall the mercenaries of this mistaken ideology,rnnow that Russia has left centerrnstage. Have they, in the Caribbean,rnall vanished into the thin air shadowingrnJamaica’s Michael Manley, whom IrnDispatches fromrnThe Last DitchrnAnarcho-pessimists,rncrypto-Copperheads,rnpost-neo-Objectivists,rnand other enemies of thernpennanent regimernopining monthly, fromrnindividualist and European-rnAmerican perspectives, onrnthe end of civilizationrnWrite for free issuernTrial subscription (4 issues), $15rn12 issues, $42 24 issues, $77rnWTM EnterprisesrnP.O. Box 224 DeptCHrnRoanoke, IN 46783-0224rnsaw shrieking “Viva la revolucionl”rnat a Non-Aligned Movement meetingrnand promising to construct “a newrnCaribbean”? Have they taken heartrnfrom the elected victory in Guyana ofrnthe Chicago-educated Marxist dentistrnCheddi Jagan, more of a realist than allrnof them put together? The old comradesrnare still around, all right, like St.rnLucia’s pro-Rasta George Odium, Dominica’srnOliver Seraphin, Alan Louisy,rnand many others. In Grenada, the heartrnof the Castroite movement itself, therernare a few dispersed relics, like the MBPMrn(Maurice Bishop Patriotic Movement),rnfeebly trying to retain some hold on thernyoung, while Bishop’s assassins are stillrnheld in prison. An irony prevails, however,rnin that Cuba’s incumbency left arncertain legacy in medical training on thernisland. I am told that a Cuban-trainedrndentist is quite excellent, and I do knowrnthat my wife and I prefer a similarlyrntrained vet for our pedigree GermanrnShepherds. He is truly skilled and caringrnin an enclave devoid of like people andrnseems uninterested in ideology despiternhaving spent six months in Moscow’srnelite Vystrel Academy.rnStill, 1 wonder where the intellectualrngiants of the era are today, truly imbuedrnmen like Osvaldo Dorticos of Cuba’srnPolitburo or its Foreign Minister IsidoriornPeoli (“The revolutionary awakening inrnLatin America and the Caribbean is anrnirreversible fact that is shaking the foundationsrnof U.S. Imperialism”). What ofrnthe DGl honchos across the road fromrnus, one the sophisticated second son ofrnan Irish mother, who kept on trying tornpersuade me to visit Cuba? When I saidrn1 could not, being American, they guaranteedrnthat nothing would appear in myrnpassport. It was precisely against thisrnenticement of their youth to “study” inrnthe notorious Isle of Pines that Trinidadrnand Guyana had been complaining.rnIn the last year of Cuban Grenada,rnwhen the military nature of the airportrnbecame clear and the caudillo was showingrnhis Stalinist filiation, my wife and Irnbecame a tad depressed. A high-rankingrngeneral in the GRU (or military intelligencernof the KGB), Gennadi Sazhenev,rnwas sent up to tiny Grenada fromrnMoscow’s South American desk, in thernArgentine no less. Him, too, I met, arnhandsome man with a full head of whiternhair and accentless English. He downstagedrnthe Cuban ambassador (Rizo) onrnthe island, rumored to have since beenrnexecuted, and clearly came to apply thernwhip to the dragging airport construction,rnscheduled to be completed byrnMarch 1984, ten years after independence.rnLittle mentioned in the press,rnSazhenev brought with him a couple ofrnhundred bullet-headed Spetsnaz commandos;rnthe term abbreviates Spetsaznacheniya,rngroups dispatched to targetrncountries under embassy cover. One ofrntheir missions had been to determinernhow to flood the London Underground.rnIn Grenada they were rudely dealt withrnby the 82nd Airborne on intervention,rnand it was from that force that we obtainedrnthe list of houses to be taken over,rnours preeminent among them as thernfuture Russian embassy. Instead, it wasrnused to shelter the Governor-GeneralrnSir Paul Scoon and his wife during thernOctober 1983 hostilities.rnAgainst this bleak background it wasrnhard not to feel some sympathy for thernrank-and-file Cubans we got to know inrnthose days. One might want to sell us arnfish he had caught, but the transactionrnwould have to take place clandestinely,rnin the bush, and when the Russians camernthe secrecy intensified. Plus, the camprnopposite us sprouted a multidecibelrnspeaker system, blaring Castro’s speechesrn{colonialistas… imperialistas) to thernsnores of the companeros.rnAmid these memories, I especiallyrntreasure one of Pablo, a paunchy oldrnbulldozer operator who used to puffrnup to our house for water. When hernlearned that I had been a literature professor,rnhis eyes lit up and he began tornproduce grimy slips of paper from hisrnpants pockets and to read me his poemsrnthereon, all filled with alma and corazon.rnAfter one recitation he looked up at mernwith hope in his face and said, “So yournsee. Professor, I’m not a bulldozer operator.rnI’m a poet and you’re going torntake me back with you to America whenrnyou go.”rnSuch, alas, was not to be. But whereverrnold Pablo may be today, I’d like himrnto know that the poems he pressed onrnme, together with that list bequeathingrnthe house in which mv wife and I still livernto Mother Russia, are safely lodged alongrnwith other Grenadian memorabilia inrnthe Ronald Reagan Library in California.rnGeoffrey Wagner is an emeritus professorrnof English at the City University of NewrnYork and author of among other works,rnRed Calypso (Regnery), which dealsrnwith Cuban adventurism in the southernrnCaribbean.rn40/CHRONICLESrnrnrn