Dy­lan Ker­ri­g­an

Last week the Unit­ed King­dom's Na­tion­al Archives re­leased pre­vi­ous­ly clas­si­fied gov­ern­ment pa­pers un­der the "30-year rule." This is a law in the UK that al­lows cab­i­net pa­pers to be re­leased pub­licly 30 years af­ter they were cre­at­ed.Amongst the pa­pers are many doc­u­ments about the US in­va­sion of Grena­da in 1983, in­clud­ing let­ters be­tween Mar­garet Thatch­er and Ronald Rea­gan, as well as much cor­re­spon­dence be­tween Caribbean lead­ers at the time and the British For­eign Of­fice.

In the US-UK let­ters is the Thatch­er gov­ern­ment's po­si­tion against mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion in Grena­da. This is stat­ed most overt­ly in a "Dear Ron" let­ter the day be­fore the in­va­sion from Thatch­er, whose For­eign Min­is­ter Sir Ge­of­frey Howe, had told the House of Com­mons the same day there was "no rea­son to think that mil­i­tary in­ter­ven­tion is like­ly to take place."

Re­gan's 23:00-hour re­ply (not re­turned as Dear Mag­gie, but Dear Mar­garet, for those in­ter­est­ed) was un­equiv­o­cal: the in­va­sion would hap­pen the next day, and there was noth­ing Thatch­er or the British could say."We are al­ready at ze­ro," Rea­gan told a blind­sided Thatch­er.