Boston Man plays role in restoring TV to Grenada

The Boston Globe
December 7, 1985
by Desiree French
Globe Staff

Last October, when the Queen of England paid a royal visit to Grenada, David C. McCourt, a young Boston businessman, was there mingling with the dignitaries.

It was difficult for anyone to have missed him. When the Grenadian prime minister, Herber Blaize, held a press conference, it was McCourt – not Blaize’s assistants – who took questions from the press.

At a garden party for Queen Elizabeth II, McCourt, the 29-year-od president of Boston’s McCourt Cable Systems and McCourt Communications Inc., told guests that he was from a successful Watertown family, and due to his good fortune, it behooved him to give something back to those less fortunate than himself.

The station is being built with the help of McCourt’s own personal money, GOP fundraisers in Washington, and even the Armed Forces Information Service, which provided technical assistance.

In Boston, from his second-floor office on Milk Street, McCourt said in recent interview that he had been called everything from a CIA agent to KGB spy because of his interest in Grenada.

But he maintained that his involvement in the island was rooted in the philosophy, often espoused by President Reagan, that businessmen and their resources should be used to solve problems, rather than taxpayers’ money.

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