Book Reviews : Marines Endured as Policy Failed

The Root: The Marines in Beirut August 1982-February 1984 by Eric Hammel (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: $19.95)

Shortly after 6:20 on the Sunday morning of Oct. 23, 1983, a truck loaded with 12,000 pounds of high explosives wrapped in canisters of flammable gases breached the thin defensive perimeter at Beirut’s international airport and hurtled into the lobby of the Marine headquarters building. The blast that followed, perhaps the greatest non-nuclear detonation ever seen, killed 241 American servicemen. With them died all final pretenses that the American political effort in Lebanon, of which the Marine “presence” was an integral part, had or ever did have any hope of success.

President Reagan, who had sent the Marines to Beirut as part of a larger multinational force charged with trying to help stabilize and pacify Lebanon, accepted full responsibility for the airport tragedy. As commander in chief he could not do otherwise. Subsequent investigations conducted both by the Pentagon and a House committee were to find fault much lower in the chain of command. But the full story of the Beirut bombing and what led up to it is far from being known. Nearly all of the relevant official documents have been locked away. Eric Hammel writes that it may be 30 years before they are opened to public scrutiny.

Marine Memories

What has not been locked away are the experiences and the memories of the Marines who served and survived in Beirut. From hundreds of interviews with these men, Hammel has grippingly reconstructed a story that was often obscured as it unfolded. “The Root”--the Marines’ nickname for Beirut--provides a view of the American venture in Lebanon from the ground up. It has little to say, and none of that good, about what guided the views of the policy makers in Washington. But it is a vital and disturbing part of the larger story, and in telling it Hammel has performed a public service.

Hammel begins with an unsparing accusation. The bombing, he believes, “was the direct outgrowth of our leaders’ having made available a target of unprecedented magnitude in the center of a chaotic situation.” By political decision made in Washington, Beirut airport was a “permissive” environment, in and around which thousands of Lebanese daily conducted their business. Long after it became clear to the Marines that they were engaged in a steadily escalating war with a variety of Lebanese factions, the vulnerable openness of the airport continued.

Supposed to Be Neutral

The Marines were supposed to be a neutral force, a claim made essential by U.S. policy aims. But the decision to have some Marines serve as trainers of the Lebanese army fostered a much different perception in Lebanon. By becoming identified with that army, the Marines also became identified with the shaky government of President Amin Gemayel. In the eyes of that government’s many enemies, the Marines and the nation they represented thus became enemies as well.

What they endured is described in this fine account. Why they were put into an impossible situation and kept there long after it became clear that American policy in Lebanon had failed is something that still awaits satisfactory explanation.