Colonel Timothy Geraghty waved away his aide.
The Marine commander was too busy for a phone call on September 8, 1983. He was in a crisis meeting at the Beirut Ministry of Defense. Whistling artillery and mortar rounds exploded nearby. His Marines in Lebanon—Task Force 62—had come under fire once again. Two had been killed last night for a total of four, along with 29 wounded, in the past week. Geraghty’s Atlantic Fleet commander, a three-star general, was in from Norfolk, Virginia. His division commander from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, a two-star, was also at the table. Their earlier inspection of the Marine front line was cut short by a spray of shrapnel from big, 122 mm Russian-made Katyusha rockets. A fiery fragment could sever an artery. The Marine assignment had become keeping the peace in a madhouse. Peace was being shot away by an ancient Mideast feud between Jews, Muslims, and Christians that confounded Geraghty. Angered by the attack on the visiting brass, Geraghty ordered his 155 mm howitzers and—for the first time—5-inch shells from the USS Bowen, a warship in Beirut harbor. They silenced the offending Shuf Mountain battery.
The men in the meeting were listening to the commander of the Lebanese army, a three-star, about resumption of a century-old Shuf Mountain war. The aide sidled up once more to pull Geraghty aside. He hunched over and whispered in Geraghty’s ear.
“Sir, you have to take this call,” his aide said.
The Marines were deployed on the worst possible low ground around Beirut International Airport. To keep Israeli forces away from Lebanon’s only airport, the US embassy rejected pleas from at least three commanders for a base on higher ground. To the Marines’ backs were airport runways and then the shore of the blue Mediterranean. The Marines were sitting ducks for artillery, rocket, mortar, and sniper fire from the looming Shuf Mountains. Their mission was to be a neutral buffer between factions with unsettled ancient vendettas. Geraghty limited his infantry to a self-defense Condition 4: No bullets in rifle chambers. Withhold fire unless directly threatened. The Rules of Engagement were becoming meaningless. Peacekeeping had become a bloody joke. Geraghty was restricting use of his artillery and mortars to tit-for-tat: Fire on the Marines and—after a warning—the Marines will shoot back. But he was determined to avoid using offshore fighter-bombers and warship guns that could destroy everything in the mountains above.
The Marines were under attack by different Arab factions. Ragheads, his Marines called them. On that day, Geraghty was being bombarded by Shiite Muslims who wore the lacy, filigreed white skullcaps of the Druse mountain tribe. For 100 years, the Druse exchanged massacres with the Maronite Christians, and the blood feud was under way once more. The Druse leader—the bey—was Walid Jumblatt. In leather jacket, boots, and blue jeans, Jumblatt prowled the mountain battlefield aboard a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Once inside Christian mountain villages that day, the Druse favored knives for the slaughter. The Christian leader was Amin Gemayel, who had replaced his assassinated brother, Bashir, as president of Lebanon. That title and pressure from Israel resulted in US political and military support for Gemayel’s Christians. Confident of support from American warships in Beirut harbor, Gemayel’s Christian militia had initiated attacks on Jumblatt and his Druse mountain villages a week earlier. Almost every Shuf village had an outdoor restaurant where blue smoke from the grill mixed with the perfume of cedars and eucalyptus. Now, many smelled of cordite and blood.
While Geraghty tried to cling to his role as an even-handed, independent, and neutral peacekeeper, Walid Jumblatt saw the Marines as part and parcel of the Christian attacks that fell on Druse villages in the Shuf Moutains that overlooked Beirut. Jumblatt’s artillery and ammunition bombarding the Marines came by mountain road from Syria and its astute president, Hafez al-Assad. Assad had just been rearmed by his military patron, the Soviet Union. And the Syrian leader was in league with Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the black-eyed Shia leader of extremist Islam.
Who was the enemy? Iran? The Soviet Union? Syria? Jumblatt? There was even a splinter of the Palestinian Liberation Organization taking potshots at the Marines. It was a lethal mix. In addition, nine other militias in Beirut would throw up roadblocks. Teenagers with AK-47 machine guns extracted tolls. One militia unit stole all the Volvos from the Swedish embassy. Another invaded high-rise buildings to pitch their enemies from the rooftops.
Geraghty and his Marines were caught up in Israel’s ambition to wrest Syria’s de facto control of Lebanon and humiliate its Soviet patron. President Ronald Reagan had signed on to Israel’s strategy. To him, it was part of his global anti-Soviet crusade that included both Kremlin clients, Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organization. That Israeli-American goal vanished in bomb blasts, the assassination of Bashir Gemayel, and the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps that shocked the world.
Geraghty, a Marine infantry officer, knew little of this a few months earlier. His view of the world barely extended beyond the training, care, and feeding of his 2,100 men detached from the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune. The 1,200 Marine infantry troops under fire were supported by Marine warplanes and helicopters units offshore. Geraghty was struggling to avoid being drawn deeper into this viper’s den of Levant bloodletting. It would jeopardize his troops and his role as commander of the Marines and French, British, and Italian troops that made up a multinational peacekeeping force of 5,000. His ground forces were badly outgunned. The Americans’ deployment in sandbag-protected foxholes scattered on the hateful low ground made them particularly vulnerable. Statistically, artillery was the biggest killer on the battlefield. An unstoppable direct hit left bloody bits and pieces. Geraghty’s determined neutrality for the multinational force was being eroded—blown away—almost daily. The colonel was on the spot.
Once more, the aide pleaded with him to pick up the phone: Silver Screen Six was calling.
“Who is that?” Geraghty demanded. He had never heard of Silver Screen Six.
It was Marine code for Ronald Wilson Reagan, POTUS—president of the United States—and CINC: commander in chief of all US military forces, including Geraghty’s bloodied 24th Marine Amphibious Unit. In Washington, the Secret Service code name for Reagan was Rawhide. The cowboy touch pleased Reagan. In Beirut that day, his Marine code name reflected Hollywood with a military flair. The Six added to Silver Screen was the infantry radio designation for the commander in chief of all Marine forces deployed around the globe. The Six designation originated with the US infantry in World War II. The commander of a regiment was usually a full bird colonel such as Geraghty, a grade OS-6 in US officer rankings. Soon, every commander down to the platoon level was designated as the Six. For example, the commander of Charlie Company would answer “Charlie Six” on the radio net.
The Marines in Beirut were Silver Screen Six’s first command of troops under fire. The killing and wounding of Marine infantry was also drawing political blood from the president. What to do? Reagan’s military judgment was based heavily on celluloid bravura.
Dogfighting the Nazis with his Royal Air Force Spitfire, well, that was all make-believe in the movie International Squadron. Reagan’s other warfare experience came from making training films for the War Department during World War II. In 1943 he was sent to the Provisional Task Force Show Unit producing the morale-boosting This Is the Army, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. It was the closest Reagan came to the Oscar coveted by all Hollywood. But Reagan was a soldier with more time in grade than bogus studio colonels. He had enlisted in the Army in 1937 as a private following completion of 14 home-study courses. His degree from Eureka College elevated him one month later to 2nd lieutenant in the Calvary Reserves in Des Moines, Iowa. One attraction was the uniform. In that day it was the Sam Browne belt over the tunic and the flared breeches—the British jodhpurs—tucked into high leather boots with spurs.
Ordered to active duty in 1942, Reagan was first the liaison officer organizing truck transport for troops to be loaded on ships at the San Francisco Port of Embarkation. Terrible eyesight made him unsuited for overseas deployment. By then, he was a veteran of 30 movies and was soon transferred to the 1st Motion Picture Unit in Culver City. More conventional khaki with captain bars was worn at Hollywood parties during the war years. Roles including a P-40 Warhawk fighter ace turned instructor and a chaplain who would be killed by Japanese artillery were part of distinctive and effective training films. The hitch left him with an abiding admiration for the military and its capabilities. He was the first modern president to return salutes with military vigor: bring the up slow like honey and then bring it down sharp. Saluting Marines at the bottom of his helicopter stairs always got a snappy return. The military bearing was familiar to the nation from footage of his return from Camp David or global trips.
Reagan first dispatched the Marines to Beirut in August 1982. Geraghty was the fourth commander of the rotating Marine units. His Marine Amphibious Unit was a self-contained MAU supported by artillery, helicopters, and warplanes aboard ships in Beirut harbor. None of the offshore warships or Marine rifles were needed for the first 13 months. But in the first week of September 1983, things quickly fell apart. A big reason was Israel’s retreat from Beirut despite Reagan’s pleas to hold fast at Shuf Mountain checkpoints. In a phone call to Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 3, Reagan asked for more time. It would give Lebanese army troops—a government force independent of Christian militias—a chance to take over Israeli positions and halt Druse attacks. They were American trained and equipped with US artillery and tanks.
“I’m sure you are aware of the massacre that has taken place there,” Reagan told the Israeli prime minister. “The men, women, and children in that Christian village that were massacred. Could you delay a few more days in that withdrawal until the Lebanese army can free itself from Beirut and move into the [Shuf]?”
Begin said Israel had delayed long enough. “I know that the evacuation had to start tonight,” he told Reagan. Begin’s refusal of Reagan’s request was just one more in a series of rejections over the past two years. Begin and his minister of defense, Ariel Sharon, had induced Reagan to support the old but dubious Jerusalem goal: a peace treaty with Beirut Christians that would break Syria’s control of Lebanon. For two years, Begin and Sharon had duped, misled, and lied to Reagan. Now, the American president was as bloodstained as the rest of the political players. His personal emissary had secretly promised US protection for undefended Palestinian women and children who were later massacred by Christian militias. Sharon’s use of Israeli troops to support the Sabra and Shatila slaughter ignited global outrage and revulsion in the Oval Office. Israeli voters angry over their army’s actions in Beirut pressured the Jerusalem government to leave. Now the grand ambition in Lebanon was ending in a bloody fiasco. Reagan and his Marines were left holding the Beirut bag.
Hundreds of Israeli tanks and trucks roared away September 4. Unhindered by the Israel Defense Forces in the Shuf, Christian militia troops from East Beirut quickly attacked their ancient enemy, the Druse. President Gemayel was confident of support from Colonel Geraghty’s Marines and naval power just offshore. With weapons supplied by Syria, the Druse fought back and also fired on the American positions below. American support for the Christian Lebanese government made the troops legitimate targets for Walid Jumblatt and Druse artillery.
Silver Screen Six’s command was under fire, and political shrapnel had reached the Oval Office. Some Democrats in Congress demanded Reagan invoke the War Powers Act now that the Marines were embattled. That would give Congress a veto over Reagan’s decision to put US forces in harm’s way. Some Democrats called the deployment a blunder and threatened a withdrawal order, humiliating the Republican president. Only Congress was empowered by the Constitution to declare war. But the president, with command of the military, usurped that authority, as did John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson in launching the Vietnam War. Congress was left with Hobson’s choice: approve a resolution of support or vote against American boys in combat. It was after the humiliating defeat in Vietnam that Congress had passed the War Powers Act, which dictates that once the act is invoked, US forces must be withdrawn after 60 days unless Congress approves continued operations. The politics of the deployment in Lebanon unnerved White House advisers. American voters would decide Reagan’s reelection in the coming year. The New Hampshire primary was six months away. White House polls were a red flag.
“I’m up on job rating…,” Reagan noted in his diary. “But on foreign policy—Lebanon I’m way down. The people just don’t know why we’re there.” With the Marine deaths, Reagan began to reinforce American ground forces. He ordered a second Marine amphibious unit of 2,100 to stand offshore in Beirut harbor. The 31st MAU was en route. It signaled American determination to stay and fight. Reagan got a taste of voter sentiment when he called the parents of two Marines killed in Beirut September 7. They were Lance Corporal Randy Clark of Minong, Wisconsin, and Corporal Pedro Valle of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Valle’s platoon sergeant stumbled on what he thought was some broken tree limbs but turned out to be Valle, torn apart by a direct hit from a 122 mm Druse rocket. The attack also killed Clark. Reagan knew only that they were dead. “Not easy. One father asked if they were in Lebanon for anything that was worth his son’s life,” he wrote in his diary. Reagan was on the spot.
What had been a feud between the Defense and State Departments from the outset of his administration now filled the 72-year-old president’s brain with conflicting advice, often beyond his comprehension. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, opposed to deploying the Marines in the first place, now wanted them withdrawn. Secretary of State George Shultz, a World War II Marine combat officer, saw no reason to “cut and run.” Shultz appealed to Reagan’s sense of Marine heroics—stand and fight. “We needed to stand firm, showing strength that was purposeful and steady,” Shultz argued. Reagan hated their disunity. As governor of California, he simply ordered the combatants to work out an agreement. And they did. But Washington was not Sacramento. Reagan’s thought process might involve Marine Sergeant John M. Stryker—John Wayne—in Sands of Iwo Jima. Old movies were always mixed into the president’s perception of events. “He frequently conflated old movies with issues that confronted him,” said Ken Khachigian, a Reagan speechwriter.
The old Warhawk ace favored a devastating air strike on the Ragheads. “I can’t get the idea out of my head,” Reagan wrote, “that some F14s off the Eisenhower coming in at about 200 ft. over the Marines & blowing the hell out of a couple of artillery emplacements would be a tonic for the Marines & at the same time would deliver a message to those gun happy middle east terrorists.” American voters might get a whiff of victory! The romantic belief that airpower could settle a ground war seduced more than one president during the Vietnam War. Endless Hollywood warplane epics showed an enemy destroyed by aerial bombardment. But after World War II, US surveys showed that Nazi armament production continued despite almost constant aerial bombardment. In fact, the warplanes of today that come and go over the battlefield can pave the way for boots on the ground. As the planes zoom away, they leave the question: What happens next? American bombing of North Vietnam was the prelude to an endless ground war. Dead Americans—58,318 of them—and 153,303 troops hospitalized in Vietnam dominated the thinking of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Bumbling diplomats could trigger a ground war with fast-fading public support. Army General John Vessey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was dead set against aerial bombardment in Beirut.
Reagan’s wishful air-strike diary entry was on September 7, the day before Silver Screen Six decided to call Colonel Geraghty. The president’s blood was up and an air attack on the Druse was in his thoughts when he made the call.
The three generals glared as the colonel left the crisis meeting to take the call. With his aide still hovering, Geraghty finally picked up the phone and identified himself. A voice said: “Colonel, this is the White House. Stand by for the President.” It was 9:53 a.m. in Washington when Reagan connected with Geraghty. The president expressed the entire nation’s pride at the outstanding job being done against difficult odds and said he would provide “whatever support it takes to stop the attacks.” Geraghty promised that he and his men would “hang tough and carry out the mission.” After hearing the president praise the Marine effort, Geraghty told him “we truly appreciated his support and leadership. I ended with ‘Semper Fi, Mr. President.’” Geraghty would learn that Semper Fidelis—Always Faithful—was a one-way street with Reagan.
There is likely a White House recording of the conversation, but it still has a security classification at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. There is no mention of the phone call in Reagan’s diary; Geraghty’s version is sparse and he would not elaborate in an interview with me. “I don’t want to get into it,” Geraghty said.
Washington’s shifting priorities rarely bother frontline officers such as Geraghty. They take orders from the nearest superior and march on. But the commander in chief telephoned the lowly Marine colonel 5,000 miles away for one big reason: Only Geraghty could decide to shift from peacekeeping to warfare in Beirut.
Only he could order the 5-inchers on warships in the harbor or F-14 Tomcat squadrons and all kinds of fighters, bombers, and helicopters from two aircraft carriers. Every rifle shot had to be approved by Geraghty. No general, no admiral, no White House interloper, no American ambassador could overrule Geraghty without violating the sacrosanct chain of command. Geraghty knew his mission was increasingly in conflict with the realities of Beirut. And when he finally picked up the phone, he knew Silver Screen Six was at the top of a twisted chain of command responsible for conflicting orders in Beirut. Hanging tough, Geraghty would soon learn, was becoming impossible.
Reagan’s phone call on September 8, 1983, was no pep talk. He was the head hawk. The president’s faction of the American government—the National Security Council and Shultz—wanted Geraghty to subdue the Arabs, oust Syria from Lebanon, and even enable a peace treaty between the Jews and the Christians in Lebanon. Reagan was going to succeed where Begin and Sharon had failed. “Doing Israel’s dirty work,” complained an editorial in The New York Times. Secretary of State Shultz wanted to back the plan with US naval gunfire and fighter-bombers from the deck of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. There were 12,000 men offshore aboard six warships in the American carrier battle group. France moved its carrier Foch within striking distance. The doves, led by Defense Secretary Weinberger, worried about possible reprisals against the Marines. He reflected the perspective of the military commanders who viewed Geraghty’s light infantry as too light. Weinberger wanted Geraghty out of the vulnerable airport deployment and back to their offshore barracks, the Marine assault ship USS Iwo Jima.
Shultz and Weinberger were influenced by the April bombing of the American embassy in Beirut six months earlier, but in dramatically different ways. A military strike would redress the outrage against Shultz’s diplomats. The embassy’s location near the elegant seaside corniche in Beirut symbolized American influence and power. Now the wreckage was proof that the United States was something of a paper tiger. US reprisals—the coin of the Beirut realm—never happened. But for Weinberger, the terrorist’s ability to drive his bomb-laden van into the lobby of the embassy underscored the vulnerability of American troops in Beirut. Weinberger was backed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The top brass was unified by the lessons of Vietnam. Small clashes could suck the United States into a major land war followed by deaths, loss of domestic political support, retreat, and humiliation. The post–Vietnam Syndrome dominated the Pentagon.
Joining this clash between the biggest bulls in Washington was the national security adviser to the president, William P. Clark. He listened in as Reagan talked to Colonel Geraghty on September 8. For two years, Clark had failed in his crucial job of compromising disputes between State and Defense. He had thrown up his hands at the increasing hostility between Weinberger and Shultz.
On Beirut, Reagan and Clark supported Shultz’s game plan. Why finance this massive Pentagon budget if military force couldn’t back US diplomacy? Shultz’s bellicosity, however, was stifled by the defense secretary. Weinberger controlled Beirut through his chain-of-command control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, including the Marine Corps commandant—Geraghty’s superior. The Chiefs, afflicted with the sour aftertaste of Vietnam, wanted the Marines out of Beirut.
To bypass Weinberger and the top brass—and Geraghty—the White House inserted its own man in Beirut, carrying Reagan’s ultimate authority.
The man selected was to be the president’s special representative in the Middle East, Ambassador Robert Carl McFarlane.
Somehow, McFarlane, a master of the military and bureaucracy, could weave around Weinberger, the Chiefs, and the bird colonel, Geraghty. McFarlane could deliver on the president’s wishes. Reagan envisioned Tomcats from the Ike roaring low over embattled Marines and blasting those white skullcaps off the Druse cannoneers. McFarlane had to overcome the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs, the post–Vietnam Syndrome, and, perhaps the smallest obstacle, the boyish-looking Marine Colonel Timothy Geraghty. McFarlane had to make it happen.
Bud McFarlane was on the spot.