THE British press competed for the most apt description of Britain's latest show of power. Among the entries: "the Bay of Piglets," "the Paper Blitzkrieg" and "War in a Teacup." I SAY CHAPS, cried a banner headline in the London Evening News, THE NATIVES ARE FRIENDLY. In the Commons, a Tory rose and, with broad irony, asked Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Secretary Michael Stewart: "Will the right honorable gentleman convey to the Prime Minister the congratulations of the House on at last taking on somebody of his own size?" Harold Wilson had not sent troops into Nigeria, or settled the Rhodesian problem by force, or even managed to dampen the nationalism of the Scots. Instead, to a cascade of laughter around the world, he had dispatched the crack "Red Devils" of the 16th Parachute Brigade to subdue the rebellious Caribbean island of Anguilla, whose 35 sq. mi. and population of 6,080 make it one of the tiniest remnants of empire.
Unceremoniously Expelled. The absurdities began two years ago, when Britain decided to create five Associated States out of its smaller Caribbean islands in an attempt to aid their move toward self-rule. In Anguilla's case, planners forgot the traditional hostility between the natives of backward Anguilla and the people of St. Kitts, which was made the dominant partner in the Archipelago. The association lasted only three months, and in May 1967 the Anguillians expelled the 15-man St. Kitts-directed police force and demanded direct links with Britain. While London dithered, an Anguillian referendum, by a vote of 1,813 to 5, voted for independence. In January 1968, the British dispatched an official, Anthony Lee, to sort things out, but he did not succeed. A year later, the Anguillians ceremoniously ushered Lee off the island. Last February a second referendum approved a new constitution by a vote of 1,739 to 4, set up an independent republic, and designated 43-year-old Ronald Webster as Acting President.
A second British emissary, William Whitlock, arrived in early March, prepared to offer Webster's Anguillians precisely what they had desired in 1967. But it was two years too late: Anguilla was by now fully committed to self-government and independence from St. Kitts. Whitlock snubbed Webster, and within five hours the Crown's agent was unceremoniously expelled from the island. Gathering up the last tattered hems of colonial majesty, Britain ordered troops to Anguilla.
The Brutish British. Anguilla was ready: a flotilla of lobster smacks, so one story went, would wake the island by blowing horns when a British ship appeared. A herd of goats was supposedly assigned to clog the airstrip, and there was desultory talk of using sharp rocks to block island beaches against infiltrators. Undaunted, the British mustered a force of about 300 men, including the Red Devils, a Royal Marine platoon and bobbies from Scotland Yard, to set up a pacification program. When the British surged ashore, automatic weapons at the ready, there were only a few children to meet them. Most Anguillians were just waking up. Not a shot was fired in anger.