Tragedy of Lebanon by Randal Jonathan

Author:Randal, Jonathan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Just World Books
Published: 2012-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

5. The Offhand Americans

“The dogs, the dogs,” she said, her voice abruptly rising and choked with all the outrage, humiliation, and resentment now remembered with near-total recall. The former President of Lebanon’s middle daughter, Sonia Racy, drew herself up.

“Do you realize? President Franjieh arrives at Kennedy airport in 1974 to speak on behalf of the Arab League, to introduce the Palestinian cause and Yasser Arafat to the United Nations. What happens?”

She bridled with anger. Innocently, I had asked her to delve into the past, to recall her father’s relations with the United States. “What happens? The presidential party’s luggage is sniffed at by dogs. Not once, not twice, but three times.” The voice rose again. “When the President found out, he was fit to be tied, I tell you. Imagine! Accompanied by two former presidents, three former speakers of parliament, four former prime ministers—all of Lebanon’s political elite representing the leadership of the nineteen members of the Arab League. The dogs, the dogs!” She did not have to explain, but Arabs consider dogs disgusting, and on this score, Lebanese Maronites feel themselves Arab.

There was no calming or stopping Sonia Racy as she recounted that November day in New York. Overzealous narcotics agents had used dogs to check the Franjieh party’s bags for hashish, Lebanon’s illicit but major export, estimated even then to be worth more than $300 million a year to the President’s son Tony, among many, many others. Narcotics specialists at the American embassy in Beirut had been tipped off about a purported scheme to smuggle hashish aboard the presidential aircraft, and they had routinely informed the Bureau of Dangerous Drugs in Washington. Ambassador Godley had alerted Franjieh’s personal secretary, Boutros Dib, who promised him that Lebanese security people would monitor the party’s luggage before it was loaded aboard the presidential flight. In fact, U.S. embassy representatives were present to verify these proceedings, unbeknownst to Franjieh. The embassy thereafter sent the State Department a cease-and-desist cable, but the Lebanon desk officer in Washington was asleep at the switch and forgot to inform the BDD. “The narcs were not clever,” an embassy staffer remarked years later, “for a greater insult could not have been imagined.”

Franjieh refused President Ford’s proffered excuses. He made Ambassador Godley’s reappearance in Beirut conditional on a formal, written apology, and became more convinced than ever that the U.S. government was out to get him.

“Don’t tell me it was fate or a mistake,” Sonia intoned. “Why blame it on some little guy?” she demanded, peremptorily indicating her disdain for such evasion of responsibility.

Errors did occur, I protested. Only foreigners, I suggested brightly, were convinced that everything in the United States functioned like clockwork.

Her husband, Abdullah Racy, sought to come to my rescue. “Even if hashish had been aboard the plane,” he said, “they shouldn’t have done anything about it—raison d’etat.”

That set Sonia off, enumerating other American “errors.” “Godley sent daily reports to Washington making believe that the Christians in Lebanon were a decadent lot, like Madame Nhu

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