Marine Barracks, Beirut (1983)

Suicide bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps headquarters at Beirut International Airport on October 23, 1983. The worst single-day military death toll for the United States since World War II occurred in the suicide bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps headquarters at Beirut International Airport on October 23, 1983. The disaster curtailed the American peacekeeping efforts in Lebanon and caused a ripple of military reorganizations in the U.S. defense establishment.

U.S. Marines were dispatched to Lebanon twice in the early 1980s, in the aftermath of the Israeli invasion of that country in 1982. The first episode was a brief operation to secure the evacuation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization leaders and combatants that had been trapped in the problematic siege of Beirut by the Israelis. However, after the September 1982 massacre in two Beirut refugee camps, which signaled a deepening civil war, the Marine Corps units, composed of the usual 1,600-man Marine Expeditionary [Page 446]Unit (MEU) assigned to the U.S. Sixth Fleet, returned for peacekeeping duties as part of an international operation.

The first three rotations of MEU landed at Beirut Airport under benign administrative conditions, not even landing artillery and tanks until the second rotation. The third relief unit used its armor to render aid to civilians caught in a severe snowstorm in the Lebanese mountains. However, the fourth rotation in Beirut, the 24th MEU, began taking part in the conflict on orders of the national security adviser, Robert MacFarland—first with artillery support for the Lebanese troops and then exchanging fire with opposition groups on the airport perimeter. On October 16, the U.S. Marine ground commander moved his tanks to a more visible position, hoping to discourage other attempts to harass the Marine Corps lines. Quite unexpectedly, the next strike by the rebels came early on October 23 in the form of a terrorist suicide attack with a large truck bomb that flattened the ground unit headquarters building in the resulting explosion. Hundreds of people were trapped in the wreckage, and 241 U.S. servicemen died, as well as 58 French troops, when their contingent in the city was similarly struck a few seconds later.

Several terrorist groups claimed credit for the attacks, but the true actors remain unknown to this day. Despite U.S. and French remonstrations that nothing would change their policies, the days were numbered for the International Peacekeeping Force.

Into this fray came the replacement 26th MEU, fresh from its combat initiation in Granada. Fighting broke out between the marines and Lebanese rebel groups on several occasions in December, and this time all arms came into use, with a vengeance, with U.S. tanks and antitank missiles scoring several hits on rebel centers of resistance. However, the American withdrawal from Lebanon came all too quickly four months later—and with a bitter taste of disaster. The original mission remained unfulfilled, and the international communities seemingly lacked resolve to launch a major stabilization mission to save Lebanon.

In the resulting investigations, complaints arose over the civilian and military chains of command the Marine Corps unit had to serve simultaneously, the perplexing array of intelligence material that confused the tactical picture for the U.S. troops on the ground, and the preparation and training of U.S. troops for operations in the Middle East in the presence of terrorist organizations. The Goldwater-Nichols Act (Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986) formed part of the institutional response to the disaster, specifically in its reform of the national command structure and chain of command.

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