Maurice Bishop

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Maurice Rupert Bishop (May 29, 1944 – October 19, 1983) was a Grenadian politician. His New Jewel Movement overthrew the Government of Sir Eric Gairy in 1979 and he became Prime Minister of Grenada. His government started grassroots democracy intiatives and workers' councils while seeking closer relationships with Fidel Castro's Cuba, the Soviet Union and other Communist bloc nations.

Bishop was educated at the London School of Economics and had an extensive background in studies of the black power movement. He was widely believed to have been cheated out of an election victory by Gairy's supporters several years before leading the revolution against Gairy, who was out of the country addressing the United Nations at the time.

In October 1983, Bishop was overthrown and executed at Fort Rupert, St. George's along with a number of his supporters after a Stalinist military coup d'état, led by Bishop's erstwhile friend and Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard. This event prompted a U.S.-led invasion of the island, "Operation Urgent Fury," to depose the pro-Soviet Coard.

Bishop had planned to build a large, controversial international airport on Grenada with Cuban assistance, which was eventually completed with U.S. assistance several years later. The airport is now Grenada's main international airport, named simply Point Saline International Airport. Many Grenadians would like to see the airport renamed after Bishop.

Bishop had a son Vladimir Kreft, whose mother, Jacqueline Kreft, was one of Bishop's ministers. Like his parents, Vladimir was himself killed in violent circumstances in Canada while still a young man.

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