cover image Caribbean Time Bomb: The United States' Complicity in the Corruption of Antigua

Caribbean Time Bomb: The United States' Complicity in the Corruption of Antigua

Robert Coram. William Morrow & Company, $25 (278pp) ISBN 978-0-688-11543-2

According to Coram, a former reporter for the Atlanta Constitution who has been dubbed ``the institutional memory of Antigua,'' that tiny island nation (nine by 12 miles; population, 62,000) was originally viewed by the U.S. as a potential bulwark against communism in the Caribbean. In his shocking expose, he maintains that the U.S. has spent nearly $200 million since 1979 to support the corrupt government of Prime Minister V. C. Bird, a leading force in Antiguan politics since the early 1940s. Coram documents arrangements between the U.S. and Antigua that allow for continued U.S. military presence on the island, with little required for the privilege other than a continuing influx of money. Antigua allows U.S. government planes to land at any time without notice or Customs requirements; until 1991, the Navy used the island's undersea reefs as test-bombing sites. Coram charges that the Antiguan government, with the complicity of the U.S., has run guns for South Africa, supported the largest brothel in the Caribbean, harbored Wall Street fugitive Robert Vesco and hugely enriched Bird family members and other politicians at the expense of the island's population. Photos. (Aug.)