A Vote for Peace

After living with senseless death and unresolved bickering for three months, few in Beirut believed that the election of President Camille Chamoun's successor would be held on schedule last week. But the U.S. troop landings had shocked all Lebanese into a new sense of urgency. Under the implied threat that troops might otherwise stay indefinitely, U.S. five-star Ambassador Robert Murphy, Ike's special envoy, performed his good offices among the warring factions with characteristically persuasive art (and then tactfully left town on polling day). All knew, and had long known, that there was only one possible figure on whom government and rebel forces alike could agree. Early in the week Patriarch Paul Meouchi of the Maronite Roman Catholic Church helped persuade Army Chief Fuad Chehab that he was the man.

On the appointed day Lebanese troops, tanks and barbed wire surrounded Beirut's Parliament; soldiers frisked all comers except Deputies and diplomats, even examined newsmen's pencils to make sure they were not bombs. Men for whom the government had long since put out arrest warrants showed up under special safe-conduct, and there were some curious confrontations. The eagle-beaked boss of Baalbek's rebels strode up to Foreign Minister Charles Malik, target of the most savage opposition attacks, and with a big smile, shook hands. In trooped other rebels, all wanted by the cops, to be greeted with handshakes, wisecracks and even embraces by some of their erstwhile bitter enemies. Of the 66 members, only ten were missing.

Army Salute. Voting began without debate. On the first ballot, with the rebels as well as most of Chamoun's men voting solidly for him. General Chehab received 42 votes--just two short of the necessary two-thirds majority. Beirut's Independent Raymond Edde polled a surprising ten votes from Lebanese Christians who had begun to suspect that Chehab's election now would amount to a rebel victory. Edde, respected son of a former President, had himself proposed Chehab's name early in the revolt, but insisted that his own withdrawal now would be "to surrender our democracy to the Sixth Fleet." On the second ballot, with only a simple majority now required, Chehab got 48 votes and was elected. Suddenly the crowded parliament chamber tensed to the muffled sound of a nearby heavy explosion. Then another explosion followed, and another. It was only the army firing a 21-gun salute.

At the palace Chamoun quickly announced--with President-elect Chehab's evident concurrence--that he would stay in office until his term ends in September, and that Chehab would meanwhile remain army commander. The opposition repeated its demands that U.S. forces withdraw and that Chamoun resign at once, and cynically backed up its threats to continue the rebellion until these demands are met, by setting off a pair of bombs near Parliament next afternoon. Score: 2 dead, 15 wounded.

Some Lebanese Christians feared that the rebels might get their way, and Premier Sami Solh, who narrowly escaped assassination earlier in the week (see below), angrily threatened to resign. Yet in the face of popular pressure for peace, and the fact that President Nasser seemed willing to settle for Chehab, the opposition probably could not keep up resistance much longer.

Half & Half. Acknowledging, "I'm half military, half political now, I guess," General Chehab admitted that he was not happy about changing professions: "It's not in my character." But with a distinct new self-confidence, he let it be known that he intended to clean up the nest of resistance in Beirut's Moslem quarter, by negotiation if possible but by force if necessary, and at week's end went to a private home to dicker with ex-Premier Saeb Sala/n.

Though peace was far from assured in Lebanon, Chehab's decisive and orderly election was unquestionably a step toward ending the crisis. The U.S. had been able to use the immediate presence of its armed forces for a diplomatic victory on the beachhead. If the situation continued to improve, and if the U.N. beefed up its border guard, the U.S. might be able to withdraw its 12,000 men soon, leaving a Lebanon intact, independent, Western-oriented--but probably neutral in Arab and world affairs.

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