Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Lebanon and Jordan, Volume XI

321. Telegram From the Embassy in Lebanon to the Department of State¹

Beirut, September 17, 1958—11 a.m.

1585. Admiral Holloway has received a telegram from JCS² indicating that on September 12 there was a meeting between State and DOD at which it was agreed that because of desirability of there being some US forces in Lebanon pending withdrawal of UK troops from Jordan it might be useful to leave a token US force here for some time after withdrawal of main body American troops.

Admiral Holloway with my concurrence, has informed JCS he would like to leave a very small training mission of some 11 officers and 60 enlisted men and hoped to use this as cover for a larger token force consisting of 2 infantry companies with specialist platoons of artillery, tanks, transport, signals and engineers.

In expressing my concurrence with over-all project, I made it clear to Holloway I have considerable misgiving as to ease with which we might be able to negotiate either a small training mission or a token force to remain after main body has been withdrawn. On training mission I am perhaps more aware than our own military of extreme sensitivity of Lebanese senior officers to any imputation they may not be up to modern standards, as well as of French imbued feeling that predominantly French methods used by Lebanese Army cannot be improved upon. On problem of leaving a token force we have public declarations of Chehab and of such opposition leaders as Karame, Saeb Salaam and others indicating unanimous demand for withdrawal of all US forces. With Chehab’s request to Hammarskjold for a large augmentation UNOGIL being answered affirmatively, it will be all the more difficult to secure Chehab’s and his new Government’s acquiescence to retention of a US “presence”.

In view of these considerations, would appreciate Departmental guidance on these two issues of a training mission and a token force since from Deptel 1259³ I might infer Department does not favor either possibility.⁴

McClintock

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 783A.00/9–1758. Top Secret; Limited Distribution. Received at 9:11 a.m.
2. Not found.
3. In telegram 1259 to Beirut, September 16, the Department instructed McClintock to respond to any further suggestion by Chamoun concerning the possibility of secret arrangements to station U.S. forces in Lebanon by indicating that Washington had not responded to the suggestion. (Department of State, Central Files, 783A.00/8–2858; included in the microfiche supplement)
4. On September 18, the Department responded, in telegram 1288 to Beirut, with a summary of the meeting with the JCS in which Departmental officials expressed the expectation that, if security conditions continued to improve in Lebanon, U.S. forces could be withdrawn by the end of October. If such a withdrawal had an adverse political impact on the British position in Jordan, however, it was suggested that it might be desirable to maintain a token U.S. military presence in Lebanon pending the British withdrawal from Jordan. Beyond the desire to be helpful to the British, there was neither need nor desire to maintain a token force in Lebanon, and the Department was considering the possibility of withdrawing all U.S. forces from Lebanon by October 15. (Department of State, Central Files, 783A.00/9–1758; included in the microfiche supplement)