126. Telegram From the Embassy in Lebanon to the Department of State1
1014. I saw President Chamoun by appointment yesterday. He was disposed to discuss at length the Lebanese request to purchase arms, arguing Lebanon’s correct behavior vis-à-vis Israel, his anxiety over Syria’s attitude toward Lebanon and Syria’s policy of attempting to squeeze Lebanon economically. He also argued that the sale of American arms would tend to convince Lebanese opinion that the policy of friendship toward the West, and specifically towards the United States, was a paying one. There was, he asserted, a growing current of opinion in Lebanon that countries such as Egypt which created difficulties got more favors from the United States in the form of loans and credits than countries which were sincerely friendly and cooperative.
[Page 187]I suggested that he could well understand that, at the moment when we are resisting very considerable pressure to provide Israel with arms, it was not politically advisable to add to that pressure by selling arms to states directly bordering Israel. I suggested a little patience might be in the interest of both Lebanon and the U.S. I remarked that military equipment and weapons were undergoing steady and rapid improvement and observed that while the arms purchased by Egypt from Czechoslovakia were perhaps modern for this area, they were not the newest types, but obsolescent.
The President discussed with some foreboding the Soviet attempts at economic penetration of the area. As it was, Lebanon was exporting most of her citrus crop, now almost as large as that of Israel, to central Europe and was having increasing trouble in disposing of surpluses. If Lebanon became increasingly dependent on Communist markets, it would be very difficult for his or any other government to follow a resolute anti-Communist policy. He realized that the U.S. could obviously not itself import Lebanese fruit any more than it could take Egyptian cotton, but he urged intensive study be given to the possibility of American aid programs providing for triangular trade which would take care of some of these surpluses. He remarked that the Communist bloc’s ability to take almost any amount of excess products was a most dangerous weapon against the free world.
President went on to say that, frankly as an undoubted friend of the U.S., he wondered at times, particularly in view of our support of Israel, whether we had a definite, coherent policy in this region. I said our policy was quite clear: it included friendship to Lebanon and, in the interest of all the states concerned, a just settlement of the Arab-Israeli problem. Chamoun said that it was inconceivable there would ever be truly friendly relations between Israel and the Arab states since Israel would never act in a friendly or Christian manner. It was possible, however, that relations might become officially tolerable. Since U.S. policy was to support Lebanon as friend, he assumed Lebanon was of importance to U.S. and free world. Country was small and its importance obviously not that of Turkey but nevertheless geographical location gave it certain undoubted strategic value. In requesting arms President had in mind not only immediate defense needs against outside aggression but Lebanese role in defense of free world. Such association with West, particularly with U.S., might at some future time take form larger defense arrangement.
Chamoun said the repatriation or resettlement elsewhere of the 118,000 Palestine refugees in Lebanon was absolutely vital to Lebanon…. He avoided answering my question whether Lebanon [Page 188] would not be willing to make a separate peace with Israel if the refugees were taken off her hands.
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 783A.56/3–156. Confidential. Pouched to Amman, Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus, Judda, Tel Aviv, London, Ankara, and Paris.↩