Sand, Oil & Dollars

In 1958 the President of Lebanon was Camille Chamoun, who later became one of the “warlords” during the Lebanese civil war.   The Constitution forbade him to be re-elected as President but he was desperate to hold on to power and started intriguing to get the Constitution changed.   This enraged the Muslim community in which they were encouraged by Gamal Abdul Nasser, who, after staging a coup in Egypt which deposed King Farouk, had recently been elected the President of Egypt.   Nasser was generally viewed as a “bogeyman” by the West and Chamoun appealed to President Eisenhower to support him claiming that the people opposing his re-election were communists and intent on overthrowing the legitimate government of Lebanon.  Bearing in mind that the pro-western monarchy in Iraq had been overthrown in a coup only a few weeks earlier, Eisenhower despatched the US Sixth Fleet and, on 15 July 1958, 1,800 US Marines landed on a beach in Beirut.   The British Officers in the Bank had been sent home by the Manager following a message from the British Embassy and told to stay there until further notice.  We were not told the reason but we all had a pretty good idea what was about to happen.  

The American Marines had obviously not been properly briefed as to what to expect and they came ashore in a classic landing - among bikini-clad sunbathers, so it was said - and dug themselves into fox holes on the beach.   They were watched from the promenade by the population of Beirut and were helped by Lebanese youths clamouring to help the Marines with their heavy equipment as the civilian observers waved and cheered.  After a few moments the Pepsi Cola boys were also out on the beach trying to sell Pepsi Cola to the Marines in their fox holes. The Marines secured the airport with no opposition and in the three months they were there they were not involved in any ground fighting at all.   Indeed it is said that a couple of US Marines at one point made a wrong turn and drove into Muslim territory.  They were disarmed and asked why they were in Lebanon and the Marines said they did not know.   They were then given a lecture on imperialism and allowed to return from whence they had come.

On 31 July 1958, elections were held and Lebanon’s parliament elected General Fuad Shehab as President. and in October the US forces withdrew having basically achieved little or nothing.

During this period, both sides were very keen to let the foreigners resident in Lebanon know that this was a strictly local dispute and foreigners were in no danger and were not involved in any way.   During the first part of the dispute, when the Muslims were against Chamoun, they barricaded the Muslim quarters.  While the elections were being held and for a short time afterwards, the barricades came down, but the with the election of Fuad Shehab, the Christians became upset and started to barricade the Christian quarters. 

In this interim period when the elections were being held, I decided to go and visit a Lebanese friend of mine on the other side of Beirut.   I went on my scooter thr ough the main square known as the Place des Canons and then up a dual carriage way called the Rue Fuad Awwal.  I went up this dual carriage way for a short distance and then noticed that there was little or no traffic coming from the other direction.  In those days this was always a bad sign and so I slowed down and was about to turn around when a well dressed young man waved me to a stop and jumped on the back of my scooter saying “Ruh” (“Go”).   I carried on talking all the time in English (in this sort of situation, as a foreigner it was always considered advisable not to use Arabic so as to emphasise that one was a foreigner).  

Eventually the guy on the back told me to stop and the inevitable crowd gathered and I heard him talking to the crowd and telling them that I was an “ajnabi” (“foreigner