Bye-Bye, Bird

For 34 years, a onetime Salvation Army captain named Vere Cornwall Bird has dominated the Caribbean island of Antigua, first as boss of its sugarcane workers' union, later as chief minister and then, after Britain granted associate statehood in 1967, as Premier. Bird, now 63, turned Antigua into a jet-age Cannes of the Caribbean, complete with 33 hotels drawing 65,000 tourists annually, a casino, an oil refinery and such illustrious sojourners as Dean Acheson, Andre Kostelanetz and Aristotle Onassis. His reward was to hear 70,000 Antiguans sing happy calypsos praising "Papa Bird."

By last week, when Antigua staged its parliamentary elections, the tune had changed. Outside the Green House, his state residence in St. Johns, Bird was often taunted by children who poked cruel fun at his wart-pocked face. Opponent George Herbert Walter, a former Birdman who established a rival political party and labor union four years ago, coined the slogan: "Spread the word, sweep out Bird." Walter, 32, charged that Antigua's prosperity was cruelly selective. He said that the hotels and refinery hired Antiguans for menial work but reserved the best jobs for whites, that the casino collected millions but paid a mere $100,000 yearly in fees, and that the government had sold off choice beachfront property at fire-sale prices and did not even collect taxes on some of it. Meanwhile, Antiguans were beset by a 40% unemployment rate, inadequate sewers and waterlines, overcrowded classrooms, bad telephone service and a $30 million debt.

No Election. In the election, Walter's Progressive Labor Movement picked up 14 seats in Parliament, leaving only three for Bird's Antigua Labor Party. In the race in St. Johns, Papa even lost his own private perch to Walter's younger brother.

Some Antiguans saw the results as a warning to other longtime Caribbean leaders like Trinidad-Tobago's Eric Williams, Jamaica's Hugh Shearer and Robert Bradshaw of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla. Crowed the jubilant Walter: "There are no more gods in the black Caribbean."

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