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A Martyr. Who were the killers? The P.L.O., which has long accused the U.S. of complicity in the Lebanon conflict (though armed units under its control have actually been guarding the U.S. embassy), expressed shock. "He is a martyr too," said one Palestinian of Meloy. "I'm sorry." While Kissinger asserted that a "Palestinian splinter group trying to prevent moderation" in the Middle East was thought to be behind the killings, the joint command of the Lebanese left and the fedayeen announced that Palestinian security officers had arrested three men who were said to have confessed to involvement in the killings; they would be handed over to a Pan-Arab peace-keeping force that is to take up positions in Lebanon this week. According to some sources, the men belonged to the extremist Lebanese Socialist Revolutionary Front; the group, a tiny urban guerrilla outfit, gained notoriety in 1973 when it took over a Bank of America branch in Beirut, seized 56 hostages and eventually killed an American and four Lebanese before being overwhelmed by police.
Though the killings were a blunt reminder that Beirut remained as bloodily unpredictable as ever (see box), they came at a time when the crisis in Lebanon appeared to have toned down slightly. In the wake of Syria's massive and much maligned intervention (TIME, June 21), Arab League Secretary-General Mahmoud Riad consulted with President Franjieh and persuaded him to accept the presence of the Arab peace-keeping force alongside Syrian units, a proposal the Christian right-wing factions had at first rejected. Riad said the force would eventually comprise between 6,000 and 10,000 troops and would only be used to apply and supervise a ceasefire. At the same time Libyan Premier Abdul Salam Jalloud reported progress in separate mediation efforts between the warring factions. A call by P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat for Arab and African "volunteers" to fight the Syrian invasion appeared to have fallen on deaf ears.
Stabilizing Positions. Indeed, the situation looked stable enough to Syrian President Hafez Assad to embark on a two-day state visit to France, a long-planned journey that was postponed in March because of the Lebanon crisis. By now Assad's troops in Lebanon numbered more than 15,000 men, and while they were not engaged in much fighting during the week, they consolidated positions, tightening their hold, specifically on the approaches to Beirut. A Syrian armored thrust overran the strategic town of Rachaya, about 15 miles from the Israeli frontier and the gateway to "Fatah land," the rugged southeastern part of the country that has long been a staging area for fedayeen raids against Israel. The Israelis reacted coolly: Defense Minister Shimon Peres said that "the Syrian intervention does not endanger Israel's security."