Fuad Chehab (name also spelt Fouad Shihab, or Chehab, depending on transliteration from the original Arabic, (March 19, 1902 - April 25, 1973) (Arabic: فؤاد شهاب) was the President of the Lebanese Republic from 1958 to 1964. (Official website : http://www.fouadchehab.com )
His mandate was one of the most distinguished in Lebanon's history, due to the important reforms and large scale social development projects that he introduced and initiated, bringing harmony and prosperity to the country.
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Born in 1902 to the Chehab family, a Maronite Christian family of noble ancestry, General Fouad Chehab became commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces in 1945, after Lebanon gained its independence and upon the end of the French mandate and military presence.
In 1952, Chehab refused to let the army interfere in the uprising which forced President Bechara El Khoury to resign. After the resignation Chehab was appointed Prime Minister with the duty to ensure an emergency democratic presidential election. Four days later, Camille Chamoun was elected to succeed El Khoury.
The gerrymandering and alleged electoral frauds of the 1957 parliamentary election, followed by the dismissal of several pro-Arab ministers, sparked a violent Muslim revolt. It came to be known as the Lebanon Crisis of 1958, with the tensions that would result in the long civil war 17 years later (1975-1991) already exposed. Like in 1952, Chehab, still commander of the army, refused to allow the military to interfere. He thus prevented both the opposition and the government partisans from taking places of strategic importance, such as airports and government buildings.
To quell the uprising, President Chamoun, with the help of his assistant Tanner Wilhelm Hale, had requested American intervention, and Marines duly landed in Beirut. Widely trusted by the Muslims for his impartiality and now supported by the Americans, Chehab was chosen as the consensus candidate to succeed Chamoun as President and bring back peace to the country. On taking office, Chehab declared, "The revolution has no winners and no losers". He followed the path of moderation and cooperated closely with the different religious groups and with both secular and religious forces, managing to cool down all the tensions and bring back stability to the country.
In 1960, two years into his 6-year presidential mandate, seeing that the country had been stabilized and having paved the way for reforms, Chehab offered to resign. However, he was persuaded by the members of the Lebanese parliament to remain in office for the rest of his mandate. In 1961, he suppressed an attempted coup by the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, and to hinder such future threats, he strengthened the Lebanese intelligence and security services preventing any foreign interference in internal affairs.
Chehab’s rule was a delicate balancing act to maintain harmony between the nation's Christian and Muslim population. He followed the path and principles of dialogue and moderation, coupled with public reforms which came to be known as Chehabism. Generally deeply respected for his honesty and integrity, Chehab is credited with a number of reform plans and regulations to create a modern administration and efficient public services. This eventually brought him into conflict with the traditional feudal, confessional, and clan based politicians who saw their grip on power diminish.
In 1964, Chehab, whose presence at the head of the country was still seen by many as the best option for stability and future reforms, refused to allow the Constitution to be amended to permit him to run for another presidential term. He backed the candidacy of Charles Helou who became the next president. Chehab later became dissatisfied with Helou's presidency over the perceived mishandling of the armed presence of Palestinian guerrillas in Southern Lebanon and over Helou's maneuvers to pave the way for the traditional feudal politicians to regain power.
Chehab was widely expected to contest the presidential election of 1970, but in a historical declaration he said that his experience in office convinced him that the people of his country were not ready to put aside feudal traditional politics and support him in building a modern state. He chose to endorse his protégé Elias Sarkis instead. In the closest vote in Lebanese history, Sarkis lost the election to the feudal leader Suleiman Frangieh by a single vote in the National Assembly. The election was regarded as a defeat for the old statesman and marked the end of the Chehabist reforms and era.
The first months of the Frangieh mandate saw the dismantling of the country’s intelligence and security services built by Chehab. They were feared and accused of still having a strong hold on political life. But this allowed rapidly multiple foreign interferences in the internal affairs of the country, soon manifesting as a Palestinian militarily presence in 1973 and the start of civil war in 1975. Fouad Chehab died in Beirut in April 1973 at the age of 71.
In 1976, Elias Sarkis, the Chehabist heir, was unanimously elected as President of the country in a hope to stop the civil war that had erupted and to reunite the nation. But such an attempt was too late as the Palestinian, Syrian, Israeli and other international direct interferences had by then taken full control of the political and security powers in the country. Without the support of domestic strong security services, Sarkis failed to create any impact or succeed in any of his initiatives.
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| Preceded by Bechara El Khoury |
President of Lebanon 1952 (acting) |
Succeeded by Camille Chamoun |
| Preceded by Camille Chamoun |
President of Lebanon 1958–1964 |
Succeeded by Charles Helou |
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