John Michael G. Adams

John Michael G. Adams

John Michael Geoffrey Manningham "Tom" Adams (born September 24, 1931 in Spooners Hill, Barbados , † March 11, 1985 in Bridgetown ) was a politician from Barbados.

biography

The son of Sir Grantley Herbert Adams , founder of the Barbados Labor Party (BLP) and Premier from 1954 to 1958, studied the after school attendance law . After the death of his father he became chairman of the BLP in 1971 and began to rebuild the party after the loss of votes in the election to the House of Assembly in the same year.

In the general election of 1976, the BLP was the strongest party with 17 of the 24 seats, so that on September 7, 1976, he became Prime Minister himself as the successor to Errol Walton Barrow . At the same time he took over the office of Minister for Finance and Planning. His economic austerity program proved successful, so that the BLP also won the 1981 elections.

As a moderate politician, he focused on expanding education and social services, building new roads, and developing industry. He was one of the politicians within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) who expressed concern about the radicalization in Grenada in 1979 after the inauguration of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and his New Jewel Movement (NJM). In October 1983 he won opposition approval for his request to the US and Jamaica for assistance in maintaining security in the region. As a result, he was also one of the supporters of a US invasion of Grenada . On October 25, 1983, just a few days after the Bishop himself was murdered by radical opponents, US troops landed in Grenada along with a few hundred soldiers from other Caribbean countries.

After Adams passed away during his tenure, Harold Bernard St. John succeeded Prime Minister on March 11th.

Web links

• rulers.org
• Tom Adams in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)