On August 31, 2026, the ISCAP released one document from the Center for Legislative Archives. This document contains the transcript of a testimony given by Major General Richard A. Scholtes on the US invasion of Grenada to the Subcommittee on Sea Power and Force Projection of the Senate Committee on Armed Services on August 5, 1986. The ISCAP declassified some portions and affirmed the classification of other portions of this originally Top Secret document. The remaining classified information relates to military plans and is protected under Executive Order 13526 section 3.3(b)(5) as 25X5.
On October 19, 1983, Grenada’s Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was overthrown and killed by members of the country’s military, the People’s Revolutionary Army, who subsequently formed a military junta. The US invaded six days later, a mission described in these documents as chaotic by Major General Scholtes, who had served as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). In his testimony, Scholtes described how the mission was plagued by difficulty in communication and misinformation from the CIA and the State Department, some of which resulted in preventable casualties. Despite this, the US successfully replaced the military junta with an interim government that helped guide the country to a parliamentary democracy, which it has remained since. Major General Scholtes’ testimony revealed structural failures within the US military, particularly when it came to special forces, leading directly to the creation of USSOCOM (Special Operations Command), which gave special operations forces their own unified command. His testimony also led to the passing of the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986, which streamlined the operational chain and aimed to solve errors in communications present during the invasion.