When Reagan Sent In the Marines

August 1, 2019
A look back at the massacre of 241 Marines at their barracks in Beirut in 1983 and how the fallout from that tragedy still influences American foreign policy today. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sloyan (The Politics of Deception: JFK's Secret Decisions on Vietnam, Civil Rights, and Cuba, 2015)--who covered international affairs since 1960 and died in February 2019 after finishing this book--succinctly chronicles the decades of hostility toward the American government before the suicide truck bombing, with much of that ill will related to U.S. support of Israel. Some of the author's research occurred in recent years and some during the 1980s during his postings in Washington, D.C., Jerusalem, Beirut, and Cairo. The targeting of the Marine barracks had been foreshadowed six months earlier by a terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, which killed 63 individuals, including 17 Americans. Sloyan portrays the president at the time, Ronald Reagan, as an uninformed chief executive who shared the viewpoints of his hawkish military and civilian aides. As the author shows, the administration failed to protect Americans in Lebanon partly because they never properly grasped the dynamics of the Middle East. Part of Sloyan's exposé, which also offers parallels to contemporary history, focuses on how Reagan refused to accept blame for the fatal mistakes, instead using Marine Col. Timothy Geraghty as an undeserving scapegoat. At the end of the book, the author includes an anecdote suggesting that despite Reagan's scapegoating of Geraghty, he remained a loyal Marine who refused to lash out at his commander in chief. Throughout the book, Sloyan points out "misleading statements and downright lies by both the American and Israeli governments." The Beirut attacks proved not to be an isolated incident; they inspired Osama bin Laden to spread the word that terrorism against the U.S. was effective, a message that reached its horrible apotheosis on 9/11. Readers who believe Reagan deserves a positive ranking as president will find Sloyan's exposé disturbing.

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November 1, 2019
On October 23, 1983, a suicide bomber killed 241 American service members in Beirut. This attack still resonates in the foreign policy circles that focus on Israel, the Arab world, and terrorism. The late Pulitzer Prize?winner Sloyan draws on his eyewitness reporting, declassified government documents, and interviews with people involved to create a larger context in which to ask why American marines were sent to Lebanon by the Reagan administration. The picture he paints is not pretty. Sloyan argues that infighting, ignorance, and incompetence among the cabinet members and White House staff?led by a president who frequently confused movie roles with real life and waffled at crucial decision points?turned a multinational peacekeeping mission into a geopolitical and military disaster. The largest one-day loss of marine lives led to cover-ups, distractions, blame-shifting down to the commander on the ground, and such further foreign policy disasters as arms for hostages. Sloyan's remarkably even-handed look at American involvement in the Middle East really digs deep and belongs in every American military history collection.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

October 11, 2019

The devastating explosion of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut on October 23, 1983, resulted in the deaths of 241 American soldiers. Here, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sloyan, who died in early 2019, crafts a smartly written account of America's military involvement in Lebanon in the early 1980s after Israel invaded the country in June 1982. President Ronald Reagan sent American troops to help secure the area, but the barracks in which they were housed were not well secured; the main entrance was protected by barbed wire, not hard barriers. The bombers used trucks to drive into the compound where they set off 21,000 pounds of TNT, leveling the area. Sloyan details the decision-making by American government officials that led to military engagement in Lebanon, along with the divisions among the administration's leading figures as to how to respond to the attack. VERDICT Complementary to Benis Frank's thoroughly researched U.S. Marines in Lebanon, 1982-1984 and John Laffin's The War of Desperation: Lebanon 1982-1984, this smoothly written assessment of a modern American military disaster will be a worthwhile addition to most history collections.--Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 11, 2019

Pulitzer Prize- and George Polk Award-winning journalist Sloyan, who passed away after completing this book, relied on his own reporting of the 1983 Marines barracks bombing in Beirut to explain the causes and consequences of the unprecedented terrorist attack, which cost 241 American lives. He supplemented his reporting with recently declassified documents and interviews with key players to consider the actions of former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig and the fate of Marine Colonel Timothy Geraghty, who foresaw catastrophe and was then blamed for it.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.