A number of developments in the aftermath of the United States-led intervention in Grenada have shed favorable light on the “rescue invasion” as well as pointing up future challenges. Sir Paul Scoon, Grenada’s governor general, has apointed a nine-member advisory council to serve as a provisional govemment and prepare for elections in reestablishing a democratic system. No elections have been held since a revolutionary govemment seized power 4 ve years ago. The invasion to protect American citizens in Grenada and restore rule by law followed a bloody coup that had allowed tightening of communist influence on the strategically located island nation. In the coup, Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and his close aides were slain. Although disagreeing on how long U.S. troops should remain, two fact-finding delegations of congressmen who visited Grenada generally have asreed that Americans on the island were in danger and that President Reagan was right in responding to the request of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States to intervene. Troops of six Caribbean nations also participated. Meantime. skeptics about Cuba’s intentions to turn Grenada into a “major armed camp in Americas own hackyard” had an opportunity to become believers. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger announced that a large cache of weapons and munitions, seized in the invasion. was being displayed at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. Some of the arms were Soviet-made. More than 700 Cubans taken prisoner have been returned to Havana, completing that phase of the operation. The move against Cuba’s puppet regime in Grenada already is paying dividends in the Caribbean region, according to Edward Lynch, Heritage Foundation’s Latin American policy analyst. In a studv relmsed bv the Washington-baseu tninir tank,” Lynch said the tiny country of Suriname on the north coast of South America is reassessing its close ties with Havana as a result of the intervention. Indeed Suriname has expelled Oscar Osvaldo Cardenas, head of the Cuban mission there, in a move seen as highly significant because of the powerful influence Cardenas wielded for Cuba. Last June, in raising questions about U.S. inaction in Suriname’s leftward drift, the Wall Street Journal was prompted to ask “whether we are willing to draw a line anywhere against the spread of communist influence in this hemisphere.” The Grenada intervention has answered that question. The Heritage Foundation believes the action sent strong signals (1) that the U.S. no longer will tolerate having its citizens endangered abroad by extremist regimes; (Zi that it will respond “with help to rutere order in its backyard” when requested bv peaceful. democratlc nations. and (3) that Moscow and Havana are now on notice that the day is past when Washington will watch idly while Western Hemisphere nations are subverted. Besides Grenada and Suriname, the communists have attempted to establish a South American beachhead in Guyana. Lynch says Cuban and Soviet interest in South America’s “Northem Tier”. (the nations of the conti-nent’s Caribbean coastline) has ominous implications for U.S. security. More than 45 percent of our oil imports tranaits the Caribbean. And in the event of an emergency in Europe. 75 percent of the men and material needed to reinforce our NATO allies would go through the Caribbean. The intervention in Grenada has lessened the threat td the Northern Tier for now; But it also has opened to fuller view the present and future challenges in preserving hemispheric solidarity including the perpetual problem of leftist designs in the region