Daily News from New York, New York • 77

13 Sugar. spice, but not so nice volutionary State. Bishop encouraged close ties with the Soviet Union and Cuba which sent engineers to help construct an international airport. Washington has complained that the airport would be used as a staging post by Communist forces determined to subvert the area. Last week, however, Bishop himself was overthrown and killed by Marxist militants who said he was not radical enough.

Many of his top aides also were slain. Even Havana-professed itself shocked at the brutality of the takeover and leaders of neighboring islands reacted with outrage to the bloody violence of the new regime on their doorsteps. By TONY BURTON Before radical politics germinated in Grenada, the mountainous little island dreaming in the southern Caribbean was n6f ied chiefly for the slices' that perfumed its tropical air and as a for some of the best yacht cruising in the world. iTfascovered by Columbus in 1498 It was settled and named the French in 1650. After-killing most of the Carib Indians living there, the French established sugar and spice plantations and imported as 15 Li although it retained membership in the British Commonwealth.

At this point, the island was governed in the British style by a parliament and a prime minister, Eric Gairy, whose eccentricities included a fascination with flying a subject he would address at such unlikely forums as the United Nations. But in 1979, a harsher real-. ity intruded when rebels, led by Maurice Bishop, overthrew the elected government, dissolved the parliament and proclaimed a People's Re workers African slaves, the ancestors of most of today's 110,000 population. I As the result of the Treaty of Versailles between London and Paris, the island passed into the hands of the British in 1783. IN MODERN TIMES its principal industry has been tourism and its agricultural products include bananas, cacao, nutmeg, mace, sugar and In 1974 it won.

independence to become with its 133 square miles one of the smallest nations in the Maurice Bishop overthrown and slain. wing here emvasion By MIKE SANTANGELO and RICHARD SISK With Michael Hanrahan and Franklin Fisher Grenadans of all political stripe living here said yesterday they feared that Presidents Reagan had endangered the lives of their relatives on the island by ordering an: invasion of the smallest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Their remarks contrasted with the support for the President's move expressed by local Republican f. i estimated 20,000 people of Grenadan descent, said: "I was filled with revulsion when I heard the radio this morning. I'm totally against this.

My mother, my sister, my nieces and my nephews are all on the island. You don't shed blood to bring back democracy." Denis Paul acting president of Medgar Evers College in Crown Heights, said: "This is a tragedy. I feel grateful that my immediate family is in the U.S. or Canada." PAUL, WHO HAD SERVED as an informal adviser to slain Grenadan Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, said, "If you lived in Grenada and knew the poverty there you would be sympathetic to what Bishop was, trying to do. While I didn't agree with his policy of no elections, I could not deny that he and the people around him were hard working and very sincere." Sen.

Alfonse D'Amato called Reagan's decision to send Marines to Grenada "absolutely correct He would have been severely criticized if another Iranian hostage situation had developed." D'Amato's opinion was echoed by Rep. William Carney who called Reagan's action a "bold and necessary move." Rep. Thomas Downey regretted the invasion, saying "I am very concerned about the lives of in Grenada first and foremost But I am equally concerned that the administration is one that, shoots first and asks questions later." politicians. "This whole thing makes it appear that the U.S. cares only for U.S.

said Michael Caesar, Grenada's first t. ambassador to the Unit- ed Nations under the regime of Sir Eric Gairy, who was overthrown in a coup in 1979. "Reagan said this was done to protect American lives, but what- about Grenadan lives?" Caesar, who now owns I r. s. a Michael Caesar "what about Grenadan lives?" AP Protesters demonstrating outside the Federal Building in Pittsburgh yesterday.

a catering service in Brooklyn, which is home to an FROM PAGE THREE Urge UN meeting on Grenada United Nations (Special) Marxist-ruled Nicaragua called yesterday for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the invasion of Grenada by American and Caribbean nations troops. Nkaraguan Deputy Foreign Minister Victor Tinoco denounced President Reagan's statement that the invasion by 1,900 U.S. Marines and 300 soldiers from six Caribbean countries was meant to restore democracy in the eastern Caribbean island. "The same argument President Reagan used to justify the invasion of to restore' democracy, can be used to attack Nicaragua," Tinoco said. Michael Kallenbach various directions" at 9:40 a.m.

and surrounded them, Havana's official news agency reported. It said the Cubans had instructions to defend themselves if attacked, and had suffered an unspecified number of casualties. THE GOVERNMENTS Radio Free Grenada called on Grenadans to repel the troops and began playing a reggae song called "War." The radio called on "all Grenadans to report to militia stations" to fight off the invaders and urged citizens to "block all roads and obstruct the enemy's progress." The Americans encountered some antiaircraft fire, but it was suppressed by a U.S. Air Force AC-130 Hercules, gunship. One Grenada resident said he saw a helicopter shot down, but this could net be confirmed.

SEAGA SAID IN Jamaica that his information was that Grenadan resist-. ance to the invaders was "crumbling fast" throughout the 133 square-mile island, which' is just twice the size of newEupheaval that began two weeks ago, military-led group identified by Washington as hardline Marxists took comflland, and Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and some of his ministers were slain. The new "Revolutionary Military 5 Council" was headed by Gen. Hudson Austin. A administration official 1 said Grenada's British-appointed governor-general, Paul Scoon, who had been under house arrest, has the power to form a provisional government that would plan elections.

i Prime Minister Edward told the Cable. News Network that the U.S. forces would remain on Grenada only a few days, but that the-Caribbean nations' forcea would stay up to six months, HAM RADIO reports from the'is-' land, Sofficials in Washington and Cuban reports gave this picture of the early hours of the attack: At 4:30 a.m., students at the medical school, near the Point Salines airport, heard a plane circling overhead the first sign of the invasion. Witnesses here in Bridgetown, 150 miles northeast of Grenada, counted 18 U.S. Army transport planes departing for Grenada.

A 12-ship U.S. Navy task force, led by the aircraft carrier Independence, stood off the Grenadan shore, just beyond the horizon. At about 5:45 a m. the students reported hearing gunfire near the air- Marines from the, naval force landed by helicopter at Pearls Airport, on the northeast coastand the Ran-' gers parachuted into southernmost Salines, .12 to the southwest The "powerful Yankee forces" attacked contingent "from Washington, D.C.