CIA BLAMED FOR LEBANON TERRORISM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-01601R000700080001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 16, 2001
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 20, 1999
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2007/10/23: CIA-RDP80-01601 R000700080001-8 -INTL
,i h,
DAILY WORLD
2 AUG 1972
CIA blacaed for ,cbav:ton terrorism -
BEIRUT-The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the Israeli
secret service were blamed for "systematically carrying out crimi-
nal acts of terrorism against the leaders of the Arab national-libera-
tion movement, including the' Palestinian resistance movement," in
a statement issued on Tuesday by 38 major political parties and
groups in Lebanon. The statement said the-acts of terrorism in re-
cent weeks include the assassination of Ghassan Kanafani, Beirut
spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the serious
wounding of Anis Sayeh, Director of the Palestinian Research Cen-
ter in Beirut, and Bassain Abu Sharif, editor of al-Hadaf magazine.
The statement by the 38 parties and organizations demanded that all
necessary steps be taken by Lebanon to cut short these activities. of
the CIA and the Israeli secret service.
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STATINTL eNicY'ra 5W0 - i ....... _
V
vl~_
complicity, and CIA guilt cannot always be pinpointed. In fact,` encroaching on
Cambodia's independence and sovereignty,
it may we]1 be that not all these conspiracies were directly trying to bring it under its influence and dragoon it into its
I anglcy. _. .. , , the CIA technique. _
1'--'One of them, in Cambodia,, culminated in a coup d'etat. Thousands of kilometers separate Phnom Penh front
Information filtering into the Press suggests that all the plots can Khartoum and Beirut, but in Cambodia too, the aim was to
be traced to the US Central Intelligence Agency headquarters at stttipoit the aggressive forces. It was to be achieved by use of
been the scene of reactionary plots in the first half of 1970. Behind the Cambodian Cot
l r Seri ah5~' ws~` L - ftr t r?; ~ STATINTL
EVERAL areas in Asia, Africa and Latin America have
instigated and organised by imperialist secret services--in some,
cases they may have joined at a later stage. But this much is
certain: everywhere the cloak-and-dagger operators have been
at work.
interests. In Cyprus, the pro-fascist National Front which, the
press says, operates with the encouragement of the Greek and diplomatic tour abroad was chosen as the opportune moment
? for the CIA's "quiet Americans" to put through the plan.
Supporting Israeli aggression
The first three months of 1970 saw plots in Iraq, Sudan,
Lebanon and Cyprus. Some of the details have cone to light.
The Lebanese Interior Minister, for instance, announced that LIS
Intelligence had a hand in provoking armed clashes between the
.Ultra-Right Katacb party and the Palestinian commandos. The
Lebanese army and security forces were involved in the fighting.
The Sudanese press points to tl~ 'ink between the CIA and the
latest unsuccessful coup of the Ansar reli .;.1a sect and the
Al-Umrna party, which speaks for Sudan's capitalist and landed
US secret services, engineered an attempt on the life of Presr- Power in Phnom Penh is now in the, hands of men who have rilly dent akario vi1Th1 nigia authorities arrested preparing a coup a cup of t T ht joined forces with the imperialists to halt the country's pro-
officers
press says they had the assistance of CIA and Zionist agents. gressive development and suppress the Indochina liberation
movement. The first steps in that direction were made immedi.
political distinctive nito featuresiately after the coup. General Lon Nol's conservative regime has
.But . All oof these f them had one attempted and coups had its
13 instal d
pro imperialist regimes and thereby strengthen the imperialist agree to co-operate with the US and accept military "aid'
positions in the Middle East and, more specifically, in the from it. With the consent and approval of that regime, Saigon
Eastern Mediterranean. forces, supported by. American aircraft, have invaded Cambodia
That airs, doubtlessly, follows from the alignment of forces in an attempt to outflank the NLF forces and suppress popular
in this strategic area. The imperialists banked on the Israeli support for Prince Sihanouk, whose followers are fighting tc
Blitzkrieg. They thought it would write finis to the progressive overthrow the conservative government and keep Cambodia i
regimes in the United Arab Republic and Syria. That hope did peaceful and neutral state.
The
not materialist. Nor have Israel's subsequent aggressive actions . world was shocked by the news of America's outrigli
produced the desired results. They have not weakened the pro- intervention in Cambodia where, as in South Vietnam and Laos
US troops are applying scorched earth tactics against the peace
gressive regimes of these two countries. On the contrary, both fill population. This fresh aggression by Washington brings ou
in the UAR and Syria the government has been strengthened by more saliently th clink between the. coup d'c'tat in Phnom
the patriotism of the people, the assistance of the Soviet Union even Penh and imperialism's far-reaching neo-colonialist plans it
and other socialist countries and the support of the. world South east Asia. To all practical purposes, Cambodia is beint
Communist, workers' and national liberation movements. turned into a "`third Vietnam", the second being Laos, when
White giving the Israeli aggressors every assistance--modern more than 12,000 American military "advisors" are involved ii
arinanments, generous loans-the US and other imperialists are the war against the patriotic forces.
relying more and more on their espionage and subversion it can be safely said that neither the Saigon puppets nor thi
mach ~e. The events in Iraq, Suclan and Lebanon show that Laos and Cambodian reactionaries provide America with any
they are using it to hamper the growing unity of the Arab states thing like a firm support base for its reactionary war in Indo
in the fight to liquidate the consequences of the Israeli aggres china. And certainly they cannot fight that war with their owl
sion. The idea, obviously, is to generate more friction, distrust armies, even if given the . latest American weapons. Conse
and antagonism. That was the purpose of the CIA in Lebanon:
quently, the neo-colonialists will have to rely mainly on thei
armed conflicts were to provoke a major political crisis that own troops and extend their operations to the, whole of Indo
would isolate the country from the progressive Arab states, china. But the experience of heroic Vietnam has shown tha
place it under a police regime and impede, if not halt altogether,
Palestinian commando action. half a million interventionist troops, armed to the teeth, canno
The aint was very much the same in Iraq and Sudan. But theiimpose imperialism's will on a people determined to uphold it
imperialists were also out to undermine the rear areas of the ndependence, sovereignty and freedom; a people, ntoreovcr
Arab slates directly confronting Israel. Coups in Baghdad and that enjoys wide international support.
Khartoum would greatly complicate the UAR's and Syria's.
strategic and political position. To a certain extent the same
aim was pursued in the Nicosia plot. There have been many
press reports that the imperialists are anxious to overthrow the
Makarios government as part of their plan to divide the country
and turn it into a NATO war base spearheaded against the
Indochina gamble. One pressure technique was constant harass-
ment by US forces operating from neighbouring South Vietnam.
They bombed and shelled Cambodian border regions and
several times CIA agents tried to overthrow Prince Sihanoul:
and set up a reactionary regime that would abandon the
country's traditional neutrality and its solidarity with the Vietna-
mese in their fight to repel the aggressor.
With the US army facing increasing difficulties in Vietnam
the Pentagon decided to step up its activities in Cambodia. The
plan, according to press reports, was to use Cambodian territory
for operations against the South. Vietnam National Liberation
Front. in what was conceived ? as a gigantic pincer manoeuvre
Apparently, the US military command began to press for actior
in Cambodia when it found that the Victnamisation plan was no
working out the way it had expected. And apparently Sihanouk';
New tactical elements
Has anything substantially new been added to the technolog
of imperialist plots and their political orientation, compared witt
say, the 1950's? There is not enough information-the bulk c
it, naturally, is kept secret--for it categorical affirmative answer
Arab states ; Approved For Release 2007/10/23: CIA-RDP80-01601 R000700080001-8 e i nix,rialist subversion ic;:
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I,OS I, ~\Y1:,f-1. ; TINES
19 APR 1970
v uaenV~
Ss Slone Beirut
Embassy, Bun Flag
the tennis court chanting
slogans, reading Arabic
poetry, and lobbing rocks
at the embassy. Some of
the rocks were propelled
by large slings.
Major Clash
Sisco Leaves Impression of Gaining Few A few American stu-
Arab Friends for U.S. From Mideast Tour dents who chatted with
reporters were screamed
at by the Arab students
BY WILLIAM TUGHY who warned over loud-
Tlmn staff WrI,"r speakers: "What are you
BEIRUT -- Nearly 200 visit to Lebanon. doing with those CIA1
students bombarded the On Sisco's departure for, agents?"
stud
stud Embassy with rocks the Tehran to attend a region- The Lebanese police ap-
Y al meeting.of U.S. ambas- parently wished to avoid a
Saturday and burned an sailors, he said the put*- major clash with the stu-
American Flag to protest pose of his Middle Eastern dents a n d r e m a i n e d
the visit of U.S. Asst. trip was "to have a direct huddles'l under a wall dur-
Secretary of State Joseph px' it'ttti'`'' "f vicwa of mat- ini, the rock-throwing.
ter:i~ of niuutal concern, i The university, supported
J. Sisco. rams: to li;?ten to Ii,;lcn to i partly by American funds,
Sisco wound up his con- all the voi-,,, of all the his about 3,500 students,
troversial swing through' pi ui,lc of the Middle 14141.3 mostly Arab.
the Middle East In Leban- fri"."'1ly I'll" critical'" -
- r
leaving behind the Sisco's visit to Lebanon In his informal state did not make use. of an
gimpression that he triggered the attack on the rnent, Sisco said that "the American plane which
general e embassY, just as his in. traditional warm friend- would have given him
friends or influence any tended trip to Jordan ship between Lebanon much more flexibility in
leaders In the Arab world. prompted commando and the United States Is his scheduling and permit-
He .??ent several hours groups to burn the U.S- constantly renewed by the fed him to visit Israel after
In Lebanon Saturday con- information Service Libra-
_ A ____ -...a .,?..,I... _., n 1 n s a nprsnnal tips (inn- the Arab Countries.
Charles Helou and Pre-
mier Rashid Karami
against a backdrop of anti-
American demonstrations
here.
STATI NTL
was apparently not wisely
though out in advance.
They cite the fact that he
visited Israel before going
to Jordan.
These diplomatic obser-
vers further say that pic-
tures taken of Sisco and
Defense Minister Moshe
Dayan and the armed
forces chief, Gen. Haim
Bar-Lev, were made to
order for anti-American
use by Arab propagan-
dists.
Then, too, sources say,
what was apparently in-
tended initially as a
sample "orientation" visit
rapidly assumed the pro-
portions of a full-scale
peace mission which was
misunderstood by much of
the Arab press.
abortive assault on the rishing between Lebanese- "e ", ` All orro "'
an
embassy itself. Americans and their for- to Beirut, , h he borrowed an
The Amman ' attack led mer homeland and by the Israeli air force transport
to the cancellation of Sis- many educational, cultur- plane.
co's visit to Jordan which al and commercial ties Sisco is said to believe
th
t th
1liddl
f
t
f
a
a
e
a
e o
e
in turn caused the Jorda- which have made of Le-
East settlement lies in the
nian government to ask banon a meeting place for ,
for the immediate recall of East and West" hands of the Big Four
U.S. Ambassador Harrison He added that the Unit- cally, and more f-
Russia. Two, Amenmeri-
Symmes, ed States was "fervently caand the
King Hussein is repor- seeking a just and peace- I But this view is not
tedly furious at the United ful solution to the fun widely shared in the
States for the cancellation damental problems in the Middle East-either by while U.S. diplomats In Middle East." - . ! the Israelis or the Arabs
Amman' and Beirut are , Diplomatic observers all of whom reject any.
angered at the host Nfire suspect that Sisco's thing that smacks of an
governments for allowing trip to the Middle East,'; vimposed" settlement.
the ,, re trInf ad attacks nn ' -' --" ? l? ????- ---?
s
On Saturday morning, as
,,I-,n was flying from Is-
r,. ?, Cyprus aboard an
Israeli air force plane,
the students at the Ameri-
can University of Beirut,
tossed rocks from the uni-
versity's tennis court near
the r e a r of the big em-
bassy building.
The students, most of
them Arabs, carried ban- .
ners which read "Sisco go
home" and they displayed 7.
the Palestinian flag along
with the Lebanese stan-
dard. They carried an
American Flag which they
proceeded to burn.
A couple of dozen steel-
helmeted Lebanese police.:-
men were on hand to keep
the students from storm-
Ing the embassy-but they
made no effort to stop the `
rock-throwing at the
building.
Later Saturday, an esti-
mated 5,004 demonstrators
y
a
--mostly Palestinians
tS.CA Oft ahnnt nn hour and a
? Israeli Plane
the U.S. facilities to take
place.
Lebanon and J o r d a n
have traditionally main-
tained the closest ties to
the United States among
the Arab nations of the
Middle East.
Sisco managed to see
President Carnal A b d e I
Nasser in Cairo but
Lgypt's Vice President
? Anwar S a d a t has been
quoted as saying that the
talks there produced no
positive results.
In Beirut, the Saturday
ttack on the' embass
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x APR 1970
Lebanese Interior Minister blames U.S. for clashes '
BEIRUT-Kemal Jumblatt, Lebanese Interior Minister, blamed
U.S. agents for continued tension in his country.
The Beirut newspaper, "A1-Sha'b" (The People) reported that on
Monday. Palestinian resistance group leaders. in Lebanon met with
Jumblatt and other Interior Ministry officials. After the meeting,
Jumblatt held a news conference in which he stated that the U.S.
CIA was actively involved in preparing the armed clashes which
have created another serious political crisis in the Middle Eastern
country. With this aim in view, Jumblatt stressed to reporters, "a
number of American coup experts arrived in Lebanon, and some of
them are staying In Beirut to this day."
More than 20, people have been killed in Lebanon since late
March, when armed right-wing followers of Pierre Gemayel, head
of the Christian Phalange Party, provoked a confrontation with Pa-
lestinian resistance forces in Beirut. Gemayel, usually described as
a fascist, is known to have close ties with pro-U.S. elements in'Le- ,
banon.
The Beirut newspaper "Al-Akhbar" (The News) commented that},
the imperialist conspiracy In Lebanon was designed to provoke
bloodshed and thus to stir up religious-communal differences in our
country."
'"It is no accident that the conspiracy began right after a num-
ber of secret and official visits were paid to Lebanon by CIA
agents and espionage specialists," the Arab newspaper wrote.
I.
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j 9 JAN 1970 STATINTL
J
By William Tuohy
Los Angeles Times
BEIRUT, Jan. 18-Author
Miles Copeland says that the
American diplomatic bum-
bling he describes in his book,
"The Game of Nations," re-
stilted more from inexperience
than incompetence.
speak Arabic and we didn't
know anything about this part
of the world right after the
war" Copeland said here.
"The Game of Nations" Is
the hottest-selling book In the
Middle East, sold out in most
book stores. It is published in
London and is due to be re-
leased in the United States in
April.
It tells In fascinating and
sometimes humorous detail
what Is described as the Inside
ory of various State Depart?
meat and Central Intelligence
;Agency operations In Syria,
..Lebanon and Egypt.
Feisal Has It Translated
Sn revealing is it, particu-
larly about Egypt and PrCsi- coup, in the 1958 Lebanon cr1-
d~nf Nasser, that Saudi Ara- sis and during the rise of Nas-
bia's King Feisal, "as well as ser.
other Arab leaders, have had
copies translated into Arabic. Money Incident
Copeland, 53, from Birming? , "I didn't want to write an.
ham, Ala? was an Office of,other stuffy memoir," Cope'
Strategic Services officer dur-' land says. "I wantd to tell
ing World War II, then vice what really goes on in the
ria 'anal later a power struggle among nations,
_
In S
nsu
y
h
t i
ll glo ed
s
a
ua
management consultant to the no
There is another reason, it
rsds
f over afterwa.'
fi
;
rm o
king for the
was learned.
CIA, wor
dur? '
eland relates how
n. He Co
ilt
H
,
p
o
am
Booz, Allen and
/now runs his own consultant ing the 1953 argument about,!, A couple of other authors
J_ ..were working on books pur=
irm in association with Ker- the amount of U.S. aid to.
to show that Nasser
ortin
p
g
mil Roosevelt, another former Egypt, he transfered $3 mil-' was a virtual captive of the
{O5S CIA operator in the Mid lion in unvouchered U.S, se- CIA during his rise to power,
idle East. agency felt it would
rret funds to be given to Nas- and the
In visits to Cairo over ser. be harmful to American inter.
- :Years, Copeland became pererI baps the closest American In counting the money, gists to have this view taken,
friend of Nasser, and the book which arrived via Beirut, with seriously.
- Nasser's aide, writes Copc-i
focuses the U.S; Nasser re-. land, "we found there wasiHence, they were willing to'
lation5hips pS. ,., re nnn onn ITossan Tnu-~ nnm, '?r, aarrot_ - film in thr
has eaten Arnof4aan diplomatist saga Copeland,; and decided it
"If there is a hero In the
book," says Copeland, "I sup-
pose it is Nasser. And if there
is a villain I suppose it is John
Foster Dulles.
"Nasser may be flawed but
he has demonstrated his abil-
Itv to play in the big leagues
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e
alive. Dulles was always sene- j was an "attempted bribe." So,
ink; out special emissaries; to spite the Americans, he de,
without letting the ambassa? cided to build an "unfunc?
dor on the spot know what tional struoture"--"something
was going on. It did not make very large, very conspicuous,
for constructive diplomacy." very enduring and very expen-
Because of his friendship sive-costing, oh, say, sonle?
with Nasser,' Copeland often thing in the neighborhood of
$3 million."
played the role of the Egyp The result was the "Tower
tian leader in the State Dc-I of Cairo," ? says Copeland,
partment "game'` "center,"; "which we American friends
where diplomats tried to fi,g= of Egypt see across the Nile
ure out what various rulers every morning as we breakfast
would do undela "various cir- on our balconies at the Nile
cumstances. "` N. . Hilton."
Thus the book, says Cope. Though the book paints
land, "is an application of Nasser as a Machiavellian op-
game theory to political anal- erator, Copeland says Nasser
ysis." As such, it shows how read it before publication and
leaders of weak nations have approved. .
been able to gain leverage far "Egyptian officials who
out of proportion to their. know the real score like the
strength because' of the way book," says Copeland. "Those
major powers have courted' who don't know the score are
them. horrified by it,"
In the book, Copeland deli- Reasons for Book
neates the behind-scenes role
played by U.S. diplomats, mili- There has been widespread
tary attaches and intelligence speculation, as to why Cope-
agents in the 1949 Syrian land, who presumably still has
hami's only comment was: 'We hope that Nasser would be
won't fuss about the missing shown to be an independent
$10; whereupon he and his se-
curity guards climbed into a rationalist trying, to use the
large, Mercedes and headed United states in what he cone,
for Nasser's residence on the delved to be the.Egyptian nay
other side of Cairo," tional interest,
;,c r:T'+Mi A..1 .. .His , ~'w/,nA1i; +~?
But Nasser received the
money with a ' mixture of -
community, revealed so much
inside material about the CIA
and diplomatic operations.
Copeland says that the Brit-
ish journalist-spy Kim Philby
was privy to most of the secret
detail and that the Russians
nay he presumed to know
about it.