Episode 5: “An ugly, dirty job”

Why would the U.S. government have an interest in hiding the remains of an assassinated revolutionary leader? In this episode of “The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop,” Martine Powers puts this question to Americans who served in Grenada after the invasion 40 years ago, including alumni of the U.S. State Department and a former CIA analyst.

“I don’t follow the logic of Maurice Bishop as a symbol for communism or anti-Americanism,” said Lino Gutierrez, a former ambassador who worked as a foreign service officer in Grenada. According to Guy Farmer, a spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Grenada, “It would have been good for us if we had found Maurice Bishop’s body, showing how violent and terrible the Bernard Coard-Hudson Austin faction was. That would have been good for us.”

But when The Post’s reporting turns to the role of the U.S. military – and in particular, a battalion of Army rangers who conducted an attack on a Grenadian military training camp – the picture gets more complicated, raising new theories about when and how the United States might have discovered a critical piece of evidence.

You can find photos and documents from the investigation in our special episode guide here. 

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