The story of how Gregory Smith came into Walter Rodney’s life

Jul 10, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – When the circumstances of Walter Rodney’s assassination became clarified, immediately after his death, Caribbean intellectual giant, CLR James, later wrote that what Rodney did does not happen in the real world. A leader of that stature does not go out and meet a person like Gregory Smith who is giving him an item, whatever the item is.
Donald Rodney, Walter’s brother who went with Walter to test the transmission device that Smith was offering told me that when Walter told him about the meeting, he volunteered to accompany Walter. But even if Donald agreed, why did Walter not take one or two high-ranking WPA cadres or the WPA rank that was responsible for security?
Walter Rodney accepted his brother’s suggestion and off they went to meet Smith. CLR James is deadly right. In the real world, a party leader will not do such things. What are the answers then? What follows is my interpretation.
First, even if Walter remarked to Donald that he was meeting Smith, because Donald at the time was not a politically active person and was not involved with the WPA, Walter should have declined Donald’s invitation and settled for a known WPA cadre.
I believe Walter accepted Donald’s offer because he felt he could more trust his brother to remain tight-lipped about meeting Smith and what Smith was giving him. He didn’t want that information to be known to any of the top-ranking WPA personnel.
So what happened then was that Smith was kept as a personal secret by Walter without any big wig in the WPA, except Moses Bhagwan, ever having the opportunity of being introduced to him. That is why to this day no one in the WPA leadership from 1976 when it was first formed as a pressure group to 2021 has ever seen or met with Smith except Walter’s brother, Donald.
What led Walter to make that decision? We will never know. I asked Donald and he doesn’t know too. But it appeared Walter was deeply disturbed at the rate of which state security were discovering covert action by the WPA. One particular incident weighed heavily on Walter’s mind – the circumstances under which Ohene Koama was assassinated.
In possession of high-powered rifles, the WPA secured from the army, in his car trunk, Koama left the WPA’s centre in Tiger Bay where all the WPA leaders except Walter were present. On reaching his home, Koama was literally ambushed in a hail of bullets. As Koama lay dead on the street, Walter drove by not knowing at the time his comrade was murdered by the police.
So why no one in the WPA hierarchy knew Smith? Here now for the first time is the story of how Gregory Smith came to Walter and why Walter never showed him to any WPA leader except Moses Bhagwan. At the time one of the most famous GDF commanders, who later became equally famous in politics, organised to plant Smith in the company of Walter using one of the WPA’s most trusted leaders. I am not going to get a libel so read between the lines. You have to guess who the former army commander and the WPA’s top name were.
Walter was told under no circumstances was Smith to be made known to anyone in the entire upper, middle and lower levels of the WPA. I don’t know how Bhagwan met Smith and it is for him to write publicly to say how he saw Smith. Walter meticulously followed the instruction of his trusted WPA friend. So Smith was virtually an unknown in the WPA.
Convicted fraudster, Robert Gates, was transported from the Camp Street jail to testify at the Rodney Commission. He said he saw Smith at a gathering at Walter’s home. I doubt this very, very deeply. I read Gates’ testimony and have enormous problems with it.
If Walter did not make Smith invisible, he, Walter, may still be alive today. The thinking is quite logical. Someone from the public, the army, the PPP, the WPA, the Catholic Church, UG, etc. that knew WPA personnel may have seen Smith knocking around the WPA and sounded the alert. The people who arranged to plant Smith were successful in manipulating Rodney. But in the end, Rodney’s inexperience led to his assassination.
Here is why. Walter only let his brother, Donald, know about Smith. But Donald was never involved in the politics of the time and wasn’t interested. It meant he lacked the wider association with political society so he couldn’t investigate Smith. Walter should have asked someone he trusted to probe the background of Smith. Sadly, maybe he didn’t trust a single person in the WPA.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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The story of how Gregory Smith came into Walter Rodney’s life

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