n057  1424  05 Nov 83
BC-GRENADA-POLL Undated
By ADAM CLYMER
c.1983 N.Y. Times News Service
    An overwhelming majority of the people of Grenada welcomed the
United States invasion of their island, according to a poll conducted
Thursday by CBS News. They felt that American troops had come to free
them from the Cubans and prevent the construction of a military base.
    The poll showed that a smaller but solid majority said they had felt
in danger under the government of Gen. Hudson Austin, who seized
power last month. Another solid majority said they believed that
Cubans were building the island's new airport for Cuban and Soviet
military purposes, not for economic development or tourism.
    The poll of 304 people was conducted by 15 Grenadian interviewers,
in 30 sectors of the island. Each interviewer read questions to and
took down answers from about 20 people, saying he or she was
conducting a ''public opinion poll'' but not saying who was
sponsoring the survey.
    Warren J. Mitofsky, director of the Election and Survey Unit for CBS
News, supervised the polling. He said Saturday in a telephone
interview from Barbados, ''While a poll of this sort carries a margin
of error higher than that of a standard probability sample, we are
very confident of the thrust of our findings as a measurement of
Grenadian opinion.'' In a standard probability sample, the margin of
error for a survey of this size would be plus or minus 6 percentage
points.
    Ninety-one percent of those polled said they were ''glad the United
States troops came to Grenada,'' while only 8 percent said they
wished they had never come. A similar majority of 85 percent said
they felt they or their family were in danger while Austin was in
power, while 11 percent said they were not.
    When asked about how they felt under Austin's predecessor, Maurice
Bishop, 33 percent said they believed they were in danger then, while
48 percent said they were not.
    The Grenadians' attitudes toward the Cubans were strongly hostile.
Seventy-six percent said they believed Cuba wanted to take control of
the Grenadian government, and 65 percent said they believed the
airport was being built for Cuban and Soviet military purposes. Only
17 percent said they had seen Cubans carrying weapons before the
Americans arrived.
    The attitudes toward Austin and the Cubans appeared to carry over
into a warm welcome for the American troops, the CBS News Poll
showed. Eighty-five percent said they felt the American purpose in
invading was to ''free the people of Grenada from the Cubans,'' and
81 percent said American troops were ''courteous and considerate.''
    A smaller share of those interviewed, 62 percent, said they felt the
American troops had come ''to save the lives of Americans living
here.'' But only 21 percent said they believed that the troops had
been sent ''for the United States' own military purposes rather than
to help the people of Grenada.''
    
nyt-11-05-83 1721est
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