Karsten Prager has been TIME'S Beirut bureau chief since August 1973. After returning to New York, he filed this assessment of a tragic, fratricidal conflict:
For most of the 14 months since Lebanon has been at war with itself, Beirut managed to deal quite resiliently with its misfortunes. Even as the war grew ever more ferocious, the structures of state collapsed one after the other, and artillery pounded away, some services continued to work almost normally. Until the very end, gutsy P.T.T. (Post, Telegraph and Telephone) officials kept telex and telephones alive, while Middle...
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