Focus 580; Beirut Outtakes: A TV Correspondents Portrait of Americas Encounter With Terror

And our guest this morning is Larry Pentex. He spent five years covering the Middle East for CBS News from bases in Beirut Cairo and Amman Jordan. He won an Emmy nomination and an Overseas Press Club citation for his coverage of the Iran Iraq war. He was nominated for a second Emmy for his coverage of the September 1994 bombing of the U.S. embassy in East Beirut. And he won another Overseas Press Club Award for overall reporting from Lebanon of that same year. Right now he is working as an independent journalist in the area of the Middle East and he is the author of a recently published book about Beirut. The title of his book is Beirut outtakes a TV correspondence a portrait of America's encounter with terror and it's published by Lexington books. And as we talk this morning if you'd like to call in perhaps you have questions. You're invited to call in. The telephone number here again is 3 3 3 W I L L and the toll free line is eight hundred two to two wy yellow bus to Pentax. Good morning. Good morning David. Thank you very much for being with us and thanks for having me. I think it's a fine

book and I'm pleased that you could be of us to talk about. I think that the placed to start out is with your your analogy between Lebanon and Connecticut. Now some people might find it sort of strange to be talking about it in those terms and it takes it takes some time so to describe it you devote several several pages to it so perhaps you can do it in a thumbnail kind of version but I think it it brings home to people here in the United States what is going on in Lebanon and makes it I think a little bit easier to approach that way. Maybe you can you can do that. Sure I ask the reader to try to imagine. Medic it divided up amongst many many factions. Imagine the city of Hartford with say Christian fundamentalists in charge of East Hartford and Protestants in charge of West Hartford imagine say a liberation group from Long Island occupying Fairfield County. Maybe the Army of the

country of Massachusetts has invaded in the north in occupied northern sections of the state. New York has moved into the south. They're big rivals with Massachusetts and the state is divided up amongst these various factions and countries and each of them jockeying for position the Christian fundamentalists are training young men fresh out of school and how to fight. The city of Hartford's divided people are being killed in the streets. Anarchy reigns. And the reason I ask the reader to imagine this is to put. Will Lebanon in the context that they can begin to understand what we're talking about a country that is one hundred twenty miles long about 30 miles wide. It's about the size of the state of Connecticut and you have two major foreign armies there. You have dozens of other foreign armies in either as antagonists or as opposed to peacekeepers. You have scores and scores of factions fighting each other. It's a place like no other in the world.

I think that I noted down here that you talk about the size of the place that they're in this country there are ninety thousand troops from 16 countries at one point there were that many. That's right there are Syrian troops of course Syria has a huge army of tens of thousands of men in Lebanon. Then there are the Israelis. They still maintain a presence in south Lebanon. You have U.N. peacekeeping troops. People like you're going to have to bear with me one second this noise in the back OK that's our right. There are U.N. peacekeeping troops made up of European forces and various others of Erin Lebanon trying to keep borders standing watching is the various factions run back and forth over them and ignore their presence. There are others who have come and gone like of course the Americans the British the French. Each of whom came to Lebanon trying to help. But of course we're unable to do much of anything. What seems to be the case with Lebanon. Beirut in

particular is that if if you this is a bit flowery but it's the way that I had been thinking about it that in a sense that Lebanon is the stage where plays written elsewhere in the Middle East are performed exactly on the streets of Lebanon. The Wars of the Middle East are fought and two countries have a beef. They don't want to get into an all out war they'll take it out on each other in Lebanon. We see it happening again right now. You've of course heard about the fighting in Lebanon over the last three months between the Christians and the Syrians. Now what's happened there is that the Iraqis have gotten involved in Lebanon. They ended their war with Iran. They hate the Syrians traditionally and it's especially because during the war with Iran Iraq Syria supported Iran against Iraq. So now the Iraqis are decided they're going to cause trouble for the Syrians. They're sending weapons and ammunition into the Christians and egging the Christians

on in their fight against the Syrians. And so yet again we have another Middle Eastern war being fought on Beirut streets. How how did it happen that Beirut was the place where all of these conflicts were. Were displaced to unlucky geography is part of it. The other part of it is the traditional rivalry and bitterness among the Lebanese factions. Lebanon isn't as many countries in the Third World are it's an artificial country it was created by the European powers after World War One as they carved up the middle east into their little areas of control and influence and they tossed a bunch of people together who didn't particularly like each other. The Christians in the Druses had fought through the centuries. Hundreds of years ago they were battling it out. They had come to an uneasy truce. But then when Lebanon was created others were thrown into the mix. Sunni's who considered Sunni

Muslims this is who considered themselves Syrians because after all Lebanon was historically part of greater Syria others Shiites in south Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. They were all thrown into the mix and then making it even more more problematic. They created a constitution that gave the Christians the majority of control. The presidency would belong to the Christians the head of the Army all of the key positions would be Christian controlled. And while at that point back in the mid mid 40s Christians were a majority that soon changed. But they never allowed another census so as the Muslims became the majority they wanted their fair share of the pie and the Christians wouldn't give it to them and others because of the Arab-Israeli conflict got involved. The Israelis the Syrians all were concerned about Lebanon because of its geo political significance. You can see it in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon and lob shells into Damascus. That makes the Syrians concerned. So they are naturally concerned about who who is in Lebanon in that part of the country.

And so each each of the countries bordering on Lebanon felt that their security concerns were involved. Countries that even didn't border on Lebanon were you were somehow using it as a place to settle scores and. The Lebanese people that themselves had had plenty of old scores to settle as well so that in a sense I think you you right here at the time that in 1083 at the time when the US Marines went in that there were at least four definable conflicts in Lebanon. What what would those four be. That would have been the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The conflict between the Syrians and the Israelis. The conflict within Lebanon between the Muslims and the Christians and then conflicts between the many factions. And one thing one of the things you note in your book is that apparently the Lebanese people. Have this way of saying you know if everybody else would just get out of here and

let us alone we would be fine. There would be no no struggle no warfare nobody would be being killed. We are a peaceful people and when you keep hearing over and over and over again and would that be the case now it's not. Can you go back to the fact that back in the 1840s for example the Christians and the Druzes were slaughtering each other. There's a wonderful old book written by a man called Colonel Charles Churchill and he was a British diplomat in Lebanon back in the 1840s and he chronicles the conflict between the Christians and the bruises and the parallels to today are uncanny especially paralleling the early 80s when the U.S. was involved at that point in the 1840s Christians were fighting for Rosa's the head of the Druze faction was a man called Youngblood. Well the head of the Christian faction now is sort of into the Druze faction now is a man called Jim blood. His top aide was a man called comedy while the Jim Lotz top aide is now a man called Marwan Hamadi. The French were on the ground trying to keep

peace. Unable to of course but they were standing there watching the blood flow. Of course back in the early 80s the Americans and the French and the British and the Italians were all in Lebanon trying to keep peace. Back in the 1840s there was a European four fleet sitting off the coast. Same thing in the 80s. European diplomats were running back and forth between Beirut and Damascus trying to bring about peace as Robert McFarlane and and various other American diplomats did. So you see the parallels I mean nothing has changed really in that hundred years one hundred fifty years. And while all those other foreign forces the Syrians the Iraqis the Israelis whoever it may be on a given day are stirring up the mix. The mix is there for them to stir up those hatreds and those bitterness and that that penchant for violence exists. They only exploit it. Our guest this morning on focus five videos Larry Pentax. He's the author of the book Beirut outtakes for five years he covered the Middle East for CBS. And as we talk this morning

about Lebanon if you have questions you're welcome to call in. Locally 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5 1 he is what he's amazing is that in in the midst of all of this violence and destruction and a death that life in anything like a normal form manages to go on. And yet it it does seem to be in in a way certainly the signs of stress show on these people. And yet. They they continue to go about their business and try to live their lives in as normal away as possible. How how how is that possible and and what is the what is the price that people have to pay the emotional price. Well first of all it's it's not only possible but it's necessary. If you are in that situation if for whatever reason you can't leave because most of those with the ability to leave already done so if you are there you have to adapt

you have to learn to adapt and to survive otherwise you die you wither on the vine. And so I think the thing that impressed me the most about Lebanon was the ability of human beings to adapt to a given situation no matter how bad it was it could always get worse. Your house was blown up wow your children are all right. Your wife was killed Well at least the kids are still there to help you. Your car was blown up well you can always walk toward always with no matter what it was it could always get worse when we first arrived in Lebanon. We had to get upset at street battles. People were shooting on the streets in front of our house. Well you learn to live with that you learn that no big deal you just stay away from the windows. It will go away. Then the artillery came along and my God the shelling the neighborhood Well you learn to adapt you learn that you don't stay and build in rooms that are near the street you don't stay on the top floor. Otherwise you're all right. Then the car bombs came along and that brought a whole new level of horror.

You'd walk to the store and as as you mentioned life does go on the stores are fully stocked. You can buy at least a few years ago you could buy a French champagne you could buy a salmon just flown in from from Sweden you could buy Iranian caviar. But on the way home you may be blown up by a car bomb. Well you learn to adapt to that. Israeli jets come along you learn to adapt to that no matter what happened you always adapted. But there was a psychological and a physical toll being taken. The Lebanese when you listen to them you realize that they will be affected for years to come. Children who have grown up with nothing but war 14 years this round of war's been going on there are kids who know nothing but killing and death. Many Lebanese children for example have hearing problems because when they lay in their cribs during the fighting the rumbling from the artillery damage their inner ear. Other kids are frightened whenever they hear the rain we had one friend to the kid whenever there was shelling would run

into his bedroom and hide in tears and eventually his parents helped him to adapt the concept of shelling. But then when there was thunder and lightning you'd run and hide in the room. And they explained to him Well that's thunder without death. Thunder without shells and so then he'd hear the thunder and say Is that thunder with shells or without shells. And very very said another friend had a daughter who one night she walked out into the hall when the daughter was laying on the floor with her blanket in her pillow. The hallway is always the first line of defense when there's fighting outside there was a lot of shooting going on but it was a holiday and the Lebanese use any excuse to shoot in the air and fire off their weapons. And the mother explained to the daughter no it's alright it's just a holiday they're only celebrating. And this 4 year old girl looked up at her mother and she said mommy if you want to go in your bed and sleep and die. Go ahead. But I'm going to live I'm going to stay in the hallway. I remember one story that sticks in my mind with the two little boys playing with toy

cars and one of them drives up to the toy car in front of an imaginary building. Pull something out of his pocket puts in a nice the car and the car explodes and flies up into the air and they were playing car bomb. It's just it's just staggering and in the book is full of so many stories like that. I think it almost I can almost numb one the way it's something close to to being there must must be to it at times. The problem with when you're put in a situation like that for such a long time you begin to see how devastating it is. You don't realize what it's doing to you and people around you until you leave and suddenly you're off on a vacation in Europe and a plane goes over and your car backfires and you run behind a wall and then you realize that it's taking a toll. Something else though that I think is worth talking about when you

look at a conflict like this the obvious things are the political divisions and ethnic divisions and religious divisions and it could it could seem on the surface as if mostly what this is about is politics. But that's not the only thing it's about. And sometimes one wonders if that isn't that may not be the chief thing it's about part at least in part what this conflict is about is power and making money. Good very good point. That is the root of it all. The conflict is many layers. It's a political struggle it's a struggle of Arab nationalist against Lebanese nationalist Muslim versus Christian pro-Syrian versus pro-Israeli et cetera et cetera et cetera. But yes at the heart it's a struggle over power we see it again right now with. Michelle I own the Christian leader who has declared himself prime minister and declared war on the Christians to declare war on the Syrians. It's just another example of a little man who wants power who has provoked

a conflict does not care how many thousands of his people are killed because he has been led to believe that if he takes on the Syrians the Iraqis will back him up and maybe somebody else will come to his rescue and he'll be made president of Lebanon and that's all he cares about he doesn't care about the tens of thousands of people who died in the conflict over the years or the thousands who have died since he's provoked this latest clash. It's a very very sad situation. You do get the impression and I hesitate to say it I don't want to do an injustice to the Lebanese people but you do get the impression that there are awful lot of people there who are purely out for themselves the the the motivating factor is self-interest. It's a culture without trying to generalize too much but the culture is very me oriented very. I come first whether you're standing in a line to get a plane ticket and everyone else is charging forward elbowing you out of the way

or you are trying to get off the plane and everybody leaps out of their seats and elbows their way to the front. It's. It's me that counts that nobody else counts so if we're talking about a choice between me gaining something or a lot of people dying well I want to gain something. A good example was a while back all the families of the kidnapped got together and formed an organization. Hundreds of people if not thousands have been kidnapped over the years in Lebanon by the various factions and the families finally got together and said we want to know what happened to these people and families from Christian East Beirut and families from Muslim West Beirut all marched to the Green Line and discussed among themselves and the bottom line became well we'll put pressure on our people to release your guys when you put pressure on your guys to release our people. It was you I I come first I want my family out first and so the whole thing fell apart. Typical The other factor which you touched on a moment ago is the people that are making money from the conflict. The same guys that own the glass factories

and the cement factories are the guys that run the militias. So they send their boys out to spark a round of fighting in a given neighborhood and destroy that neighborhood and then they send their other guys in to rebuild that neighborhood. I make out both ways and in addition to the fact that who you know whoever is in control of whatever government there is. There are also great possibilities there to be made through through various sorts of legal and illegal means. Absolutely. I mean sure Miles the president of Lebanon during the US involvement came to be known as Mr. Ten Percent. Let's not. I would like to talk a little bit about about the city of Beirut which is actually two actually two cities. The west in the east one controlled by the Muslims one controlled by the Christians West Beirut. This is the city that is controlled by Muslim factions although it seems that there are many that

and they they perhaps spend as much time fighting amongst themselves as they do with the Christians what kind of a place is West Beirut. Well West Beirut is a very yeah. It's a place that really gets your blood running. There's always something new is always something different. The center of West Beirut is a city street called Harmer Street which is essentially the Fifth Avenue West Beirut you go down there and the shops are full of the French cloves and European goods and shop owners have been blown out of their shops in other parts of the city have set up on the sidewalk. So you see it. Box is covered with the Gucci shoes or car with its trunk open full of Chanel Number 5 and amidst all this is the blare of guys walking by with carts selling cassettes with Arabic music to music blaring out. There are generators running creating an enormous den because there's rarely power in the city.

It's a city so full of life vendors standing with their carts covered with tomatoes and lettuce shouting out the prices. A real vibrant place. But then five minutes later the shells may start coming in and suddenly everybody clears the streets the metal shutters come crashing down. And for a little while everyone hides in the basement. And then the moment the shelling stops the shutters come winding back up again everybody is back out on the street life goes on. This city the western part of the city is divided up amongst numerous factions. At the moment the Shiite Muslims are in terms of power are in the fore. The Syrians have pushed them out to a degree Syrian troops are in the heart of Beirut but in other areas the slums predominantly Shiite militias are in charge. Years ago that was the PLO the PLO controlled things when a matter who was in overall charge there are always dozens of other militias. They all clash one day they'll be

friends the next. And you can never be sure who's going to control which neighborhood. This morning in focus We're talking with Larry Pentax about his book Beirut outtakes a TV correspondents portrait of America's encounter with terror. This is focused 580 it's our telephone talk program my name is David Inge and this morning we're talking with Larry Pentax for five years he covered the Middle East for CBS and has written a book recently published about Lebanon His book is Beirut outtakes and Lexington books is the publisher. If you have questions we welcome those here in Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 and toll free anywhere that you hear us. 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. Well we talked a moment ago about west Beirut and what kind of a place that that is. Let's talk about the other part of the city east Beirut. This is the part that is controlled by the Christian forces. What sort of places East Beirut East Beirut is a very different place.

Much more consul Paula. Much more European. The streets are clean because there are foreign workers that keep them clean. There are traffic cops because the Christian is in control there. Put them on the streets where West Beirut is divided up among scores of factions East Beirut is basically controlled by one major faction occasionally there are some clashes but basically there's a card organization called the Lebanese Forces commonly called the Phalange and they run the place very much a little fascist mini state they call the shots nobody questions them nobody questions what they're doing. They collect taxes from people the government does not. They put a surcharge on every movie ticket that sold every meal that sold in restaurants and they take those profits and they funnel them into their militia and they funnel them into keeping order in what spirit a very orderly society. There may be no trains muzzling to keep the trains running on time but the Phalangists get the buses going

and you go up to a place called Jouni which is up in the northern end of the Christian. Enclave and it's their major port and it looks like a little Miami Beach. It's all the high rise buildings glitzy hotels beach clubs all along this crescent moon of the harbor and you can forget for a while that you're in love and you can go to the casino do on and Gamble the night away there you can go to a wonderful restaurant you can go to a theater you can go to a movie and it's very much unlike being in Lebanon. Of course there is violence there they are still subject to the whims and the ebb and flow of Lebanon's wars lately in this latest round uni has been shelled a lot by the Syrians. But you don't have the same kind of street violence you don't have the same kind of thugs running around holding you up that you do in one spirit. It is a place where you can if you can't get in a sense get away from the conflict as much as you can and still be. In Lebanon.

Exactly. There's another thing about the Christians that might point out is they are very French oriented. So you go to a place like like Germany and it's likely that you'll hear as much if not more French spoken than you will Lebanese because the upper class Lebanese like to deny the fact that they're even Arabs they talk about today they descend from the Phoenicians and various other Misty folks but way back when they don't like to talk about that the fact that they really emigrated from the Arab hinterlands one hundred thousand to hundreds of years ago. And so they maintain this facade of Francophile dress Francophile movies etc. etc. and especially in that situation you can forget again that you're in Lebanon. And well one thing too that one might mention it we talked about the fact that there are a number of factions

at work in the West Beirut Muslim factions that while they the Phalange controls East Beirut there are a number of different Christian sects as well. There are I think 10 different kinds of Christianity. Yes Christianity itself but not in terms of militias each of those sects the Roman Catholics for example don't have their own militia. What what has happened though there is there are several Christian armies. There is one run by a front who was at one point the president of Lebanon. He's up in northern Lebanon. He is very much Syrian allied. He has a blood feud with as you know Miles the traditional rulers of East Beirut because they killed his son. So he is split off but he's off in his own little fiefdom within the major Christian on clay of the Lebanese forces really are the powers that be. AK There have been internal fights within that organization.

But since the 1976 when Bashir Gemayel unified the Christian factions by wiping out most of his rivals that has been the primary force in East Beirut. And yet there still is a great reservoir of bad feeling because of that. And. And then problems problems with unity among all those parties. Oh certainly I mean again we had there had been a lot of internal conflicts. The the show Moon family another man who was president see Lebanon's made up especially on the cross on the Christian side made up of mafia like families. There is the godfather who has served at some point as president probably or is an icon of the Christians. And then there is a son or two who will inherit the mantle of power. So that's the case with your miles of Pierre's your mile is The Godfather he essentially unified the Christians he is the one that created the Lebanese forces the

Phalange. He is looked up to. He is now dead but he looked up to by all the christians his sons Bashir who was the fighter Amine who eventually became president. Then there is the sheer Moon's communal Shimoon was president his sons were both in line to take over the mantle of power. They were ultimately crushed by a mile. The frenzy is frenzy it was President at one point his sons were ready to take over the mantel of power one of the them was assassinated by Bashir. So you see the pattern there. These FIF like. Family's feudal families that are controlling things the sons who are in line to take over power the sons who are jockeying for power and ultimately consolidated power in his family's hands and handed it down to his brother I mean when he was assassinated and after I mean past I mean it was not as strong as his brother so there was internal squabbling among the

Christians but again it never. There has been occasional street fighting but it's never fallen to the level of East Bay of West Beirut. They they fight among brothers so to speak they never end up dividing up the territory amongst themselves. We have a caller here would like to talk with other people are welcome to call in locally 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5 and there's callers on the toll free line. Hello. I don't know how to approach. We simply published and I believe the author is British and it's about the Middle East and I think you mean there. Which you know I don't at all. OK but it's he came close anyway. But he called tribalism doesn't allow for like a democratic form of government and he think he would fight

and he would talk about other countries throughout the Middle East that they really are not in any way democratic and mad. There are a lot of people are pointed to Iran or you know and I wasn't aware you know I'm not enough. I don't know enough about the league. I have a future rapper and an afternoon to relieve terror creeping over her back. Yeah I think you're talking about a book called Closed Circle by Pryce-Jones right around here. Yeah he makes a lot of generalizations in the book. Certainly Arab society is traditionally a tribal feudal society with with one family in control. And certainly that remains the case throughout most of the Arab world and you need only look at Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or or the Gulf to see that the families control power this is not democracy. But I don't think the concept of tribalism and the concept of peace are

necessarily mutually exclusive. You can have a tribal society like again in Saudi Arabia that is peaceful a tribal society that is controlled by a powerful family with certain freedoms to its people that basically they call the shots. That doesn't necessarily mean that things are going to fall apart. In Lebanon Yes it's partly tribals partly futile but there are a lot of other factors involved as well. Do I see peace in Lebanon No absolutely not. I don't know how Lebanon will ever solve its problems because the bitterness is so deeply ingrained the hatred the centuries of bloodshed the the Hatfield-McCoy time blood feuds. I don't know how even if you eliminate the outside power influence. I'm not sure that you're ever going to get these people to actually get along with each other and I think sometimes there are parts of the world where we have to accept that they are insoluble they're all problems that the United States and the Western powers

can't necessarily settle. American people are prepared. I think cryptic have pretty tapped Karkare. Well it's a lot harder now than it was say five or six years ago when the PLO was there and I'm not going to try and defend the PLO occupation of Lebanon by any means but while the PLO was there because the PLO is a massive bureaucracy well organized there were millions of dollars a day being poured into the Lebanese economy through the Palestinians that helped keep that economy going. Another major way the country made money is that it is the trading center for the Middle East. The Lebanese are the middlemen for the Middle East in buying and selling whether it be arms or cotton for the Gulf. Another way they made money is that they are an offshore banking center. Lebanon is very much like Switzerland in terms of its banking laws so a lot of people kept their money there. Now with

the PLO gone be the economy crumbling. Inflation running rampant. It is very difficult for people to survive. Yeah there are people who are the vendors there are people who work for the government. There are people who run shops et cetera but you're right. There's no industry there at all. There is no outside money coming in to help stir up the economy so it's in real bad shape and I think the only hope for Lebanon in fact is the fact that that economy is in such bad shape because it long as everybody was making money they could live with the war they could live with the chaos because the chaos the anarchy meant that they could make money they didn't have to pay taxes etc. etc. they could smuggle drugs Scotch whatever it may be. But now with so many people having such a tough time getting by with inflation running rampant the Lebanese pound for example has gone from 0 in say 1985 it was about 15 to 1. The latest I heard it's about

200 to 1. So you can imagine what that's doing to the cost of imported goods. So I think that's the country's one hope that people are going to turn around and say My God we have to live we have to be able to make money. Let's let's make up and be friends so we can all make a book of our grant. The proper drugs are not as much of a problem as you may think. Lebanon is a center for the drug trade. You go up to the Bekaa Valley and you drive through a career upon acre mile upon mile of hasheesh fields. Lebanon is a center for the export of hashish and hash oil wells etc. to the west. Opium a lot of the drugs from the Golden Crescent are smuggled down through Lebanon shipped out through Lebanon. But inside Lebanon drugs aren't that much of a problem ensure the hashish is everywhere and a lot of the fighters are stoned at various times but it's it's not like you know a lot of people are hooked on heroin or anything.

Now try peppermint. Sure predators because people thought that reading on would always provide because so many countries having to encrypt every trade there in an encrypted. And that although the government where the minority were is entirely bad it would be worked out but see what happened. But think well I'm not sure I subscribe to that theory to begin with. But what changed partly was in the late 1950s Lebanon. The Muslims made a grab for power as you know Nasser was was the power in Egypt. He was an inspiration to the Arab world. Nasser writes in the 50 elections looked like they were going to make some big gains the Muslims were going to get a big chunk of the power and if the Nazarite had gotten in they would have pushed for reforms that would have given the Muslims an equal share of power. What happened instead was. Camille Shimoon was president at the time he convinced the Americans that

if the NSA writes got into power it would become another pro Soviet state. The USA just seen Iraq fall into the Soviet orbit as the monarchy was overthrown. They were afraid of other revolutions across the Arab world and so we sent the American Marines in and we quashed what would have been a rebellion. We stopped the logical natural progression of change in Lebanon and we put everything on hold. So instead of slowly reforming the system and slowly bringing the Muslims in a natural way that matched their demographics we forced the Muslims to remain under the Christians for another decade and so the bitterness dwell the bitterness grew and ultimately in the early 70s it blew up the arrival of the Palestinians is what eventually set spark to the tinder. The PLO was driven out of Jordan in 1970 Black September you'll recall. They were shipped into Syria the Syrian shipped them into Lebanon

and thousands of Palestinians came. And more to the point their weapons came so while the majority was already Muslim. This eliminated any doubt that the majority was now Muslim that pushed it right over the edge and they brought the weapons that enabled the Muslims to challenge the Christian order. Thank you very much. We have about 10 minutes left We're talking with Larry Pentax. He for five years covered the Mideast for CBS and has written a book about Lebanon His book is entitled Beirut out takes our numbers here locally 3 3 3 W I L L toll free 800 1:58 W. while I want to talk about the more recent involvement of the U.S. in Lebanon. People I suppose think of Iran-Contra as being the darkest days of the Reagan administration but if it hadn't been for our involvement in Lebanon there probably would not have been any Iran-Contra. We went in there supposedly as neutral peacekeepers the forces weren't supposed to be involved militarily but eventually we ended up picking a side and perhaps it was the

side that we had been supporting for a long long time. Anyway the Christian side and the Muslims saw it that way from the beginning. But somehow we managed to seemingly stumble into the middle of a civil war that we didn't understand without knowing why we were there and what would be the likely result. How is it that we've managed to go into this situation seemingly so blindly. We went in initially in the summer of 82 to helpfully help protect the PLO evacuation allow the PLO to get out of Lebanon. As you recall the Israelis had cornered the PLO in West Beirut two months siege pounding the city into dust. And so we sent the Marines in with other European forces to provide cover for the evacuation that went well. We got out. Everything was fine. Then there was a massacre in the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila. We had guaranteed that we would guarantee the safety of the Palestinians who

remained behind. We felt our words had been broken and the Reagan administration panicked. They sent the Marines charging back in and while the initial two were in Lebanon they had a clear cut mission when they went charging back and they didn't know what they were supposed to be doing. We heard over the course of the next few months that they were there as observers. We heard that they were there as peacekeepers. We heard that they were there to prop up the legitimate government of Lebanon. But all of those things are mutually exclusive. If you're an observer you stand back and you watch you take notes and you've passed the information on. If you're a peacekeeper you actively intervene in the fighting. If you are there to prop up a government you're taking sides. And so we weren't sure what we were doing the Marines sure weren't sure what they were doing. And the Reagan administration most crucially ignored the advice of the experts on the ground as things started to fall apart as the Muslims began to perceive that we were taking sides with the Christians. The embassy in Beirut warned

Washington the embassy in Damascus warned Washington but see the Reagan administration wasn't seeing a centuries old conflict among local factions. They were seeing Reds under the bed. They saw Muslim factions who were supplied by the Syrians Syrians who were supplied by the Soviets. Hence this was an East West conflict we were fighting the Russians. And it just wasn't so. The embassy in Damascus said it wasn't the embassy and Moscow said it wasn't so. The Reagan administration didn't want to listen in we were concerned about supporting the government of Amine Gemayel for the same reasons that we had had supported the previous government because they they pulled out the Soviet card and they said look if you don't back us this is going to be it. Exactly. I mean I mean Chimayo you know wave wave the Soviet threat Reagan bit. He believed it he started talking about a vital interest domino series and that sort of thing and has many many other experts who served in Lebanon as

American diplomats have said we have no vital interest in Lebanon. The tie that still binds us to this country is the Americans that are still being held. And one thing that that I wonder and I had wanted all along was what what did the groups that kidnapped these people hope to gain and why. Why did they pick these people. It is in terms of what they had to gain. There's a very simple explanation for why these people were kidnapped and it's gotten lost in the shuffle of big power politics in nineteen eighty three. The American embassy in Kuwait was blown up. A group of people were arrested for that action. Some were condemned to death 17 are in prison in Kuwait. Among those are two people who are related to the men who have kidnapped the Americans in Lebanon and in the grand old tradition of Lebanese politics. You take one of ours. We're going to take one of yours. So they kidnap some Americans to

trade and the trade never happened. The Kuwaitis certainly want trade the U.S. has stood fast against a trade. And so these people and the others who have been kidnapped subsequently have gotten tied up in the whole issue of U.S.-Iran relations. So it wasn't the case though that some of the people that were kidnapped were kidnapped purely for money someone thought that they could get a ransom. Well yeah that is obviously in a in a country as chaotic as Lebanon you've got lots of thugs running around lots of freelancers out to make a buck and. In the case of at least one of the kidnapping we're fairly certain he was kidnapped by other people and then sold for the quote bad guys. A good example of that is another friend of mine who was UPI bureau chief there at the time was at one point kidnapped by a group of guys who happen to walk into a robbery in progress in a restaurant and these guys saw this American and thought hey great so they took him and robbed his apartment etc. etc. but in the end they spent the night driving around the

City the Shiite slums trying to find Islam a job trying to find Hizbollah in order to sell Steve to Hizbollah. In the end they never made contact and Steve was ultimately freed. What do you think of the long term prospects for these people who are still being held one of them. Terry Anderson who is the AP correspondent there is he's starting now his fifth year in captivity right Terry was kidnapped on March 16th four years ago. And. The long term prospects. I don't know. I know there have been lots of high points and low points especially for Terry Terry. Each time others have been released Terry has been left behind and it's been tragic and it's doing bad things to his head as you can imagine. Terry parent politically is a good friend of mine a good poker buddy and Kerry has hung on through all of it. When the other Americans were freed he stayed behind with the friends she was sharing a cell with were freed he stayed behind and he held on for a

long time they've been ugly stories lately about him banging his head against a wall and that sort of thing is beginning to lose it. The only hope is that you look at American W's who spent the nine 10 years in Vietnamese. You can't so you have to hope that these guys will be will come out of it OK. I think ultimately Iran is going to need trade ties with the West and ultimately they'll move away from terrorism and I think now that Khamenei is gone is a lot of prospect for that they'll need to open up those trade ties to the west to rebuild their economy. And obviously the price for those ties has to be freedom for the hostages. The day came when you left too. This was after after the U.S. embassy had been one the embassy had been bombed. The Marines the Marines had been bombed. The new embassy that was built to replace the old one in East Beirut that had been bombed. Things seem to be getting worse and worse and at that

point a great many Americans left and only some diplomats remained and I guess the journalists too. What what finally what was it that finally got you to say to yourself it's time to go. We had lived with a kidnapping for about a year from the time Bill Buckley was taken and all through it we told ourselves and I remember having long discussions with Jerry Anderson about this when we debated whether or not we were targets and we told ourselves for a long time that well the bad guys needed us. They would want us there to report on the other atrocities they were carrying out to report on the kidnappings the bombings etc. and with the exception of Jerry Levin the CNN CORRESPONDENT No journalist were taken and that argument seemed to be holding true. Then more and more Americans left as more and more Americans were kidnapped and professors at the university began to take off relief workers began to leave businessmen had long since gone.

And eventually after the embassy was blown up again as you see it in the new embassy nice Beirut was blown up in September of 84 as the elections approach. There were more and more graphic threats saying we won't rest until every single American is left etc. and we looked around and we realized one day that they were about 10 of us left in West Beirut 10 Americans. And so even if our earlier argument had been true that we would be the last to be taken. We were the last and it got to the point where a Lebanese camera team didn't want to go on the street with me. But they will go out we're safer without you. I couldn't walk the three or four blocks between my home and the office I'd have to have my driver waiting for me every morning and take a different route. IT BIG got to a point where we were covering a story. We were the story we were waiting for. Nobody cared about weather any more the only thing we we were concerned about was the American involvement is the embassy going to be blown up again. Well we looked around and we realized that well there were two things that could be blown up. The embassy or us

and so it just didn't make sense anymore in it but ultimately our our office ordered us out. Kerry stayed one or two other Americans stayed and we were kind of commuting back in and out. We moved to Jordan when headed out often a couple of times a week. The idea of being go into a store and get out before the bad guys realize you're there. Kerry stayed and one day he went and did an interview with Mohamed Hussein father Lalo the spiritual leader of the Lebanese Shiites. And the day after he did that interview he was kidnapped and the suspicion is that they didn't even realize he was in town they went and he went and saw them they said hey this is an American. And the next day he was taken. Just as a final question what is it what do you think or or do you think we have learned anything from our involvement in Lebanon. Well I think there's two questions there what should we have learned and what do we learn. I think we should have learned that we should listen to the people that understand a country we

should pay attention to the experts. We should be aware of it. The history of a nation when we decide to get involved but not all issues are black and white not all issues are good versus bad. The Reagan administration looked at the Christian government as good guys. They were looking for guys in the white hats but in Lebanon everybody's hats were gray. And that's what we should have learned whether the administration has actually learned that is another question. We did learn from Vietnam we did learn from other similar disasters and we just don't seem to learn from history. Well we'll have to leave it at that I want to thank you very much for talking with us today. Thank you David. Our guest this morning a Larry Pentax who was for a number of years a CBS correspondent in the Middle East and he has written a book about some of his experiences in Lebanon. His book is Beirut outtakes a TV correspondents portrait of America's encounter with terror and is published by Lexington books.