The Marines Have Landed

Beirut was dozing in the midday sun, its odd little civil war out to lunch, when the unbelievable word raced across the city: "There's a fleet off the airport!" Curious crowds gathered on the sandy knobs along Lebanon's shore line; bikini-clad lasses turned over on the beach to peer out across the blue-green sea. Silhouetted against the sun that danced hazily on the choppy waters were three transports and two LSTs, flanked by two destroyers that moved in 500 yards from shore. In the classic pattern that precedes an amphibious assault, the beetlelike small craft that carry men to the beach were already circling their mother ships.

"They're coming in!" shouted the crowds on shore, still uncertain at that historic moment whether "they" were British or Americans. At 3:04 p.m. on a Tuesday, a small scout craft from LST 1164 churned past a welcoming party of three Arab youngsters, ground ashore. The mouth of the landing craft flew open, disgorging U.S. Marines in battle gear.

Marines in Wonderland. On "Red Beach" at Khalde, five miles south of Beirut, began one of the strangest of all Marine operations since the first leathernecks landed in the Bahamas back in 1776. As planes of the U.S. Sixth Fleet whizzed overhead, amphibious tracked vehicles mounting twin-turreted machine guns, their armored sides tightly buttoned, the drivers steering by periscope, lurched from the sea like hippopotamuses. Tension written on their young faces, sweat dripping from their brows in the 90DEG heat, marines in full 90-lb. battle pack, lugging an awesome array of Tommy guns, Garands, bazookas, mortars, machine guns and grenades, pounded waist-deep into the surf, regrouped at water's edge and pushed up the hill toward Beirut International Airport. Above the roar of the boat engines came the first historic growl of a Marine sergeant: "Come on, you bastards, get going up that beach!" A red-mustached sergeant waved his men on, shouted: "They're supposed to have mortars, and you're all bunched up. You don't want to live long."

The "they" to whom the sergeant referred were the pro-Nasser rebels who had been resisting for 60 days the legally elected pro-Western government of President Camille Chamoun. The marines--and their commanders--had no way of knowing when their operation began, whether U.S. forces would be opposed or not. All the normal precautions had to be taken, but Alice arriving in Wonderland could hardly have found the situation more confusing. The marines were met not by rebel fire but by ice-cream vendors selling Eskimo pies, and the renowned traders of Lebanon pushing soda pop at 50-c- a bottle, triple the morning price.

"Watch out for the kids swimming in the water," a U.S. naval officer warned his landing-craft coxswain. "How do you tell a rebel from a good guy?" asked a Marine corporal.

No sooner had tall, weathered. 38-year-old Lieut. Colonel Harry Hadd of St. Paul set up his command post (code name: "Sick Leave") and identified his unit as the 2nd Battalion of the 2nd Marine Regiment than one of his men appeared with a "Lebanese officer" in tow. Barked Colonel Hadd: "If he's not armed, let him loose." Thereupon the "officer" nervously identified his uniform as that of the Arab Airways and asked in English, "I know you're busy, sir, but could you tell us how long this will last? We have a lot of planes tied up."

"The General Says." No one, of course, had the slightest idea "how long it will last." The marines grimly took over the airport, and on the first night all was quiet. Next morning, when the marines planned to move into Beirut proper, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Robert McClintock plunged into conference with handsome, stubborn President Chamoun, and elusive General Fuad Shehab, 56-year-old chief of Lebanon's armed forces. True to form, Shehab, who had steadfastly refused to commit bis forces to an all-out assault against the pro-Nasser rebels, refused to commit himself firmly to cooperation with the Americans. President Chamoun reproached the general for this, and for stationing 23 tanks on the approaches to the city, as if to guard it against the marines. "Where did these tanks come from?" Chamoun asked Shehab, who had in the past pleaded that he was powerless to chase the rebels to their lair. There was no answer.

At the airport a half hour later, McClintock and Shehab linked up with the U.S. special commander in the Middle East, Admiral James L. ("Lord Jim") Holloway, newly arrived. McClintock interpreted Shehab's French for Lord Jim:

"The general says he is afraid his army will disintegrate or that some of his troops will open fire if the entire column advances in one body . . . The general says he is willing to cooperate, but he wants you to proceed in small groups."

Admiral Holloway agreed to this odd request, shook Shehab's hand, and then added, to Shehab's puzzlement: "Lord Mountbatten [Britain's First Sea Lord] asked me to send his best wishes to you."

Breasts, Spears, Bullets. With that quaint ritual out of the way, the marines, led by Ambassador McClintock in a black Cadillac, marched (in small groups) into the capital, their arms as inconspicuous as possible, and took up posts around the city. Some Lebanese cheered, but most looked on expressionless. On the second night, marines stationed at an outpost two miles south of the airport returned small-arms fire from four rebels, with no casualties on either side. Two marines who took a wrong turn in their jeep were seized by rebels, questioned by a man who identified himself as a "schoolmaster," and after steadfastly saying "I don't know" to all questions about why they were there, were released three hours later. The impressive presence of nearly 10.000 U.S. troops, and the accessibility of 70 ships, three carriers and 25,000 men of the Sixth Fleet might make even the itchiest-fingered of Lebanese rebels hesitate. But the possibility of ambushes and stray shots remained.

After a rebel "council of war," Beirut Insurgent Leader Saeb Salam, ex-Prime Minister and graduate of the American University of Beirut, issued a ringing pronunciamento to his men: "Repulse the enemy with your breasts! Fight them with your spears! Kill them with your bullets!" Salam promised a fight in "every block, every house, every room."

Salam, who had not done much fighting so far, might be talking only for the record. But if the marines (and the later arriving Army paratroopers) seemed to have the military situation in hand, as much could not be said for the political front. In the delicately balanced half-Christian, half-Moslem Arab nation, the Moslems began to solidify their opposition to Maronite Christian President Chamoun. Adel Osseyran, Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, protested to the U.N. against Chamoun's failure to consult Deputies before calling for U.S. help. One pro-Western Deputy said that 40 of the 66 members of parliament were opposed to the U.S. landing. Chamoun's opponents threatened to boycott the parliamentary election of his successor, scheduled for this week.

Into Beirut flew the U.S.'s five-star Ambassador Robert Murphy, after a record eleven-hour nonstop flight from the U.S. To make certain that Chamoun does not use U.S. marines to keep himself in power. Murphy had behind him President Eisenhower's explicit statement that the U.S. accepts Chamoun's declaration that he will not try for a second term. It was Murphy's delicate, difficult mission to try to "orchestrate" a new solution among the squabbling Lebanese, so that the marines can go back to their ships.

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