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After a rebel "council of war," Beirut Insurgent Leader Saeb Salam, ex-Prime Minister and graduate of the American University of Beirut, issued a ringing pronunciamento to his men: "Repulse the enemy with your breasts! Fight them with your spears! Kill them with your bullets!" Salam promised a fight in "every block, every house, every room."
Salam, who had not done much fighting so far, might be talking only for the record. But if the marines (and the later arriving Army paratroopers) seemed to have the military situation in hand, as much could not be said for the political front. In the delicately balanced half-Christian, half-Moslem Arab nation, the Moslems began to solidify their opposition to Maronite Christian President Chamoun. Adel Osseyran, Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, protested to the U.N. against Chamoun's failure to consult Deputies before calling for U.S. help. One pro-Western Deputy said that 40 of the 66 members of parliament were opposed to the U.S. landing. Chamoun's opponents threatened to boycott the parliamentary election of his successor, scheduled for this week.
Into Beirut flew the U.S.'s five-star Ambassador Robert Murphy, after a record eleven-hour nonstop flight from the U.S. To make certain that Chamoun does not use U.S. marines to keep himself in power. Murphy had behind him President Eisenhower's explicit statement that the U.S. accepts Chamoun's declaration that he will not try for a second term. It was Murphy's delicate, difficult mission to try to "orchestrate" a new solution among the squabbling Lebanese, so that the marines can go back to their ships.