Sea Change

Lebanon's odd little sporadic war did not end last week, but some of the international tension over it abated. To the unconcealed chagrin of the Lebanese government, U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold returned from Beirut reporting "no foundation" to the government's charges of "mass infiltration" by the United Arab Republic and accordingly no need for a big U.N. police force to seal off Lebanon's frontiers, although the U.N. observers admitted that they had free access to only eleven of Lebanon's 172 miles of border with Syria. The U.S. Sixth Fleet stopped steaming off Lebanon's coast and sailed west to land its marines and sailors for July 4th weekend liberty in Athens and Nice. Handsome, white-haired President Camille Chamoun bluntly asked the U.S., British and French ambassadors if their governments had changed their policies.

Their answer was no, but next day the President began canvassing among neighbors for possible outside help. At a palace interview, Iraq's charge d'affaires reportedly offered Lebanon a defense treaty under which pro-Western Iraqi troops could be brought into the country.

Hopeful Leaning. Inside Lebanon, fighting sputtered on with just a hint that the rebels might be beginning to flag. At Tripoli, rebels led by ex-Premier Rashid Karami attacked by night to improve their supply lines toward the Syrian border, only to provoke such a heavy mortar barrage that their forces suffered an estimated 150 casualties. White flags suddenly appeared all over Tripoli's Moslem quarter and rebels in the port area negotiated a truce that represented a distinct advance for Chamoun's authority.

But as usual, the army did not follow up its advantage. At the height of the Tripoli barrage, Rebel Leader Kamal Jumblatt's Druse mountaineers launched a drive that took three villages overlooking Beirut itself. There, too, the army heaved into action with just enough heavy weapons to roll the rebels back to their old lines, prompting Chamoun to observe that the military situation was "leaning toward the government."

Bland Challenge. As Secretary Dulles remarked at his press conference, there was some evidence that the presence of the 100-man U.N. Observation Group slowed deliveries of arms and men from Syria. Half-jokingly, Jumblatt told U.N. officers that where he formerly got a mule train of supplies every night, a caravan now arrived only every second or third night "because of you people." By contrast, the government's forces had plenty of arms, and last week U.S. Ambassador Robert McClintock announced that additional U.S. shipments were due any day.

In these circumstances. Nasser, who had also sailed out of the eastern Mediterranean in search of some relaxation (see above), might accept the challenge to live up to Dag Hammarskjold's bland finding that his U.A.R.'s meddling was not major. Then it would become possible for the Lebanese government to solve the crisis with its own means, if it has the will.

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