INTRODUCTION
The will to risk is as fundamental to success as in the fight for a just cause.
The events in the Middle East continue to have a profound effect upon us all. In 1973 I visited Beirut, Lebanon, for the first time. For the previous five years, ever since leaving the job security of IBM, I had worked for an international cosmetic company as an independent distributor and later as an executive for that company in Canada, Greece and West Germany. It was during my post in Greece that I first visited Beirut, the Lebanese capital. Its strategic location serving the Middle East marketplace made a lasting impression on me. With numerous international banks represented in Lebanon and the availability of secret accounts, Beirut was known as the Switzerland of the Middle East.
The congeniality of the Lebanese people and their eagerness to entertain new ideas or business concepts was exhilarating, and after my second visit to Beirut, I resolved that one day I would go there to conduct business.
A year later I was ready to embark on a new venture. The death of the founder of the company, for whom I worked, placed the company in chaos; it began to slide into financial difficulties and eventually wound up in bankruptcy. I was now free to make my own way and made the decision to open a business in Lebanon. I secured the funding by liquidating all personal assets. Either this venture would succeed or I would be financially ruined.
In preparation, I traveled to the State Department in Washington, D.C. to obtain the certification I would need to prove the validity of my USA Corporation. I then negotiated an exclusive agreement with a Canadian cosmetic company, placed an order for product and arranged for its immediate shipment to Beirut. Full of optimism and the vitality of youth, I departed for Beirut in January 1974. The events that occurred during the next several years: the oil embargo, the tension between Israel and her Arab neighbors and the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon, affected my attitude toward the participants in the Middle East struggle.
When the twenty-seventh cease-fire in the Lebanese civil war failed to hold; the prospects for salvaging my business became hopeless and the safety of my family was in jeopardy, I was compelled to leave Lebanon.
I returned to Beirut one year later and witnessed the civil war's devastation. A British journalist portrayed my presence in Lebanon with a headline article, "The First American Back," describing the optimism of this entrepreneur looking to recover past losses by early bird tactics.
This book's story bears witness to the risks of the entrepreneur in a foreign land with the hazards of unpredictable events. It also provides a look at the customs and life of the Arabs, their mentality and their business practices.
To Beirut and Back is a true account of that experience. Although this episode is in the past, we still remember the excitement of the risks we took together with the joy and sorrow of our triumphs and disaster.