ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the evolution of the Ronald Reagan administration's public rationale for "Urgent Fury" — from President Ronald W. Reagan's first disclosure of the operation on Tuesday morning, October 25, 1983, until the publication of State Department Legal Adviser Davis R. Robinson's letter to Professor Edward Gordon, dated February 10, 1984. It deals with a discussion of the contemporary international law relating to the recourse to force, the jus ad bellum. Given the widespread international criticism that was heaped upon the United States for the Grenada invasion, it is not surprising that the Reagan administration spent a great deal of time attempting to justify its commission of American military forces to the operation. Finally, a careful examination of the Reagan administration's public rationale will allow a testing of its consistency over time, and indirectly, may suggest the degree to which law played a role in the decisionmaking process.
