Camille Nimr Chamoun (Arabic: كميل نمر شمعون, romanized: Kamīl Nimr Shamʿūn, pronounced [kaˈmiːl ʃamˈʕuːn]; 3 April 1900 – 7 August 1987) was a Lebanese politician and statesman who served as the 2nd president of Lebanon from 1952 to 1958. He was one of the country's main Christian leaders during most of the Lebanese Civil War and considered a za'im (political hegemon) in Lebanon.
Born in Deir al-Qamar, into the Maronite Chamoun family, Camille Chamoun was a nephew of Lebanese Prime Minister Auguste Adib Pacha. He studied at Saint Joseph University and initially pursued a career in law and journalism before being elected to the Parliament of Lebanon. He served as finance minister in 1938 and then as interior minister and minister of telegraph and post from 1943 to 1944 during Lebanon's first post-independence government. Chamoun was elected to the presidency of Lebanon in 1952.
During his presidency, Lebanon experienced an economic boom, with Chamoun promoting the banking and tourism sectors and pursuing trade deals with Arab neighbors and the United States. He initially sought to balance relations with the West and the Arab states, but sectarian divides increased during his rule, and he concentrated power around the presidency. He attempted to seek an unconstitutional second term, which culminated in the 1958 Lebanon crisis between Chamoun's supporters and Muslim-dominated Nasserites, during which Chamoun attained American military intervention. American mediation ended the crisis, with Chamoun finishing his term and being succeeded by General Fouad Chehab.
Chamoun remained politically active following the end of his presidency, forming the National Liberal Party, and continuing to serve in parliament and several future cabinets. During the Lebanese Civil War, he was one of the country's main Christian leaders, helping to create and lead the Lebanese Front. He initially supported the Syrian occupation of Lebanon but later switched to endorsing a tactical alliance with Israel instead. During the war, he survived several assassination attempts, finally dying in Beirut of a heart attack in 1987. He founded a political dynasty, which includes his sons Dory and Dany, as well as his grandchildren Camille and Tracy.
Camille Nimr Chamoun was born in Deir al-Qamar on 3 April 1900. He was the son of the civil servant Nimr Chamoun and Antoinette Adib, with the former hailing from a peasant family in Deir al-Qamar, while the latter was the younger sister of Auguste Adib Pacha, who served as Prime Minister of Lebanon during the French Mandate and was one of the creators of the modern Lebanese state. The Chamoun family was Maronite Christian and middle-class.
Chamoun was first educated at a Sisters of St. Joseph school, then at a Marist Brothers school, and then at the College of the Sacred Heart of the Brothers of the Christian Schools in Beirut. As all of the schools were run by French missionaries, they closed upon the beginning of World War I, and so Chamoun continued his studies at the Saint-Antoine school in Baabda.
Nimr Chamoun was, due to his pro-French sympathies, expelled to a village in Anatolia near Ankara in 1916 by the Ottoman government. In 1919, the Chamoun family was allowed to return to Lebanon. Chamoun briefly worked in the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, before being admitted to Saint Joseph University in 1920. In 1923, he graduated with a law degree. Chamounn worked at Lebanese National Library, but left in 1924 when he was admitted to the Beirut bar. He trained at the law firm of Émile Eddé, then proceeded to open his own practice. He also began contributing to the newspaper Le Reveil around this time, with law and journalism being his introduction to politics. Chamoun took on important clients and forged political connections with associates of his father and uncle.
In 1926, the Lebanese Republic was declared under the French Mandate. In 1929, Chamoun participated in the legislative elections, securing his first electoral victory. Chamoun was first elected to the Parliament of Lebanon in 1934, and was reelected in 1937 and 1943. Chamoun was a Lebanese nationalist and an opponent of continued French rule of Lebanon. In September of 1934, with fellow politician Bechara El Khoury and others, he helped found the Constitutional Bloc, which sought to establish constitutional rule and end the French Mandate.
Chamoun served as finance minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Khaled Chehab from 21 March to 1 November 1938. In the 1943 parliamentary election, Chamoun was the only prominent Maronite leader to win in the first round. Also in 1943, the Maronite El Khoury and the Sunni politician Riad Al Solh forged the verbal agreement known as the National Pact, which balanced the power of Lebanon's Christians and Muslims. According to the pact, the parliament would have a 6:5 ratio of Christians to Muslims, and the president would be a Maronite, the prime minister a Sunni, and the speaker of parliament a Shia. The pact also mandated that Muslims not attempt to unify with other Arab states and the Christians would cooperate with said states and not ally with France.
In the 1943 presidential election, the two candidates were El Khoury and Eddé. When the latter realized that he would not win, he proposed Chamoun as a candidate to the British Levant envoy, Edward Spears. El Khoury accepted and briefly dropped out of the election, but the French, fearing Chamoun, then supported El Khoury. He won the election held on 21 September, became president, and then appointed his ally Al Solh to the post of prime minister. Chamoun was then made interior minister and minister of telegraph and post on 25 September in the Al Solh's cabinet.
As a result of the Lebanese government amending Lebanon's constitution to end the French Mandate, on 11 November, French authorities arrested Chamoun, President El Khoury, Prime Minister Al Solh, and other ministers. They were imprisoned in the castle of Rashayya for eleven days. Massive public protests and foreign pressure from Arab monarchs and the British led to their release on 22 November, while the French officially declared an end to the mandate. 22 November has since been celebrated as the Lebanese Independence Day.
Chamoun continued to serve in parliament after independence, and his term in Al Solh's cabinet ended on 3 July 1944. He left the post to become the country's first ambassador to the United Kingdom. In the post, he made the Lebanese embassy the location wherein Arab delegates discussed unfolding events in British Mandatory Palestine. He attended the International Conference on Civil Aviation in Chicago in November 1944, and represented Lebanon at the founding of UNESCO in November 1945 in London. He returned to Lebanon in 1946, and again served as the finance minister from 14 December 1946 to 7 June 1947 and then as minister of health until 26 July 1948, both under Al Solh.
Chamoun was the ambassador to the United Nations (UN) at the 1947 and 1948 sessions. At the 1947 session, he rejected the UN Partition Plan for Palestine, arguing that Palestinians should control the whole territory. Chamoun suffered a heart attack in January 1948 while defending the Palestinian cause at the UN. This led to him getting the nickname "The glorious young man of Arabism" (Arabic: فتى العروبة الأغر) and increased his reputation among the Arabs, Americans and British. Chamoun's diplomatic efforts increased his profile among Arab nationalists abroad and his time out of the country allowed him to distance himself from the corruption in El Khoury's administration.
"White revolution" and 1952 presidential election
Chamoun was re-elected to parliament in 1947. El Khoury, with the support of Al Solh, amended the constitution to allow for his reelection in 1948. In late May, following the amendment of the constitution, Chamoun joined the opposition. In early 1950, various opposition forces, including Chamoun, Kamal Jumblatt's Progressive Socialist Party, Raymond Eddé's National Bloc, Pierre Gemayel's Kataeb Party, the Najjadeh Party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party in Lebanon, and the Lebanese Communist Party formed the Patriotic Socialist Front (PSF). Chamoun and Jumblatt were the leaders of the coalition.