The World - News from June 5, 1989

A former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon says he met 35 times with representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization, including PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s top aide, during years when government policy banned diplomatic contact with the group. John Gunther Dean, in an account published in the Washington Post, said the PLO had a major role in protecting him while he was in war-torn Lebanon. He said he would inform the PLO of his plans to travel within the country and “they’d advise whether this was safe or not and send an armed escort.” Dean, who said he was going public to show there is “another side” to the PLO, said he had State Department authorization for the meetings, which took place between October, 1978, and June, 1981.