Early Career
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 upon the end of the French mandate and French military presence.
In 1952, Chehab refused to allow the army to interfere in the uprising which forced President Bechara El Khoury to resign. After the resignation, Chehab was appointed President 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. As in 1952, Chehab, still commander of the army, refused to allow the military to interfere. He thus prevented both the opposition and government partisans from assuming positions of strategic importance, such as airports and government buildings.
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