Research Catalog

The St George Hotel bar

Title
The St George Hotel bar / Saïd K. Aburish.
Author
Aburish, Saïd K., 1935-2012
Publication
London : Bloomsbury, 1989.

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Details

Description
213 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations; 24 cm
Summary
Since World War II, Beirut has been the international centre of the Middle East. Until it was blown up in 1975, the luxurious St George Hotel on the picturesque waterfront was the cosmopolitan centre of the city. Spies, politicians, businessmen, journalists, diplomats and oil sheikhs treated the bar at the hotel as an informal club and information exchange. Kim Philby drank there almost every morning during his time in Beirut. CIA men Miles Copeland, Wilbur Crane Eveland and James Russell Barracks were habitués. Spies and diplomats from every Middle Eastern country congregated there. Much of the Middle East's complex post-war history was made and unmade in the St George Hotel bar. From his privileged position as a long-time denizen of this extraordinary milieu, Saïd Aburish reveals the intrigues and conspiracies, stretching over a quarter of a century, that shaped contemporary Middle Eastern -- and indeed world -- politics. The name of the game was reporting, exploiting, manipulating and controlling events, and the intricacy of the plots and counterplots hatched in the bar surpassed any thriller writer's most improbable invention. From an attempt to overthrow King Hussein to the assassination of a Syrian president, The St George Hotel Bar uncovers the mysteries and lays bare the truth behind the newspaper headlines. The general manager of the St George Hotel in the sixties now speaks nostalgically of the bar as 'a unique, once-a-century happening. I felt as if my clients were running the Middle East, occasionally the world.' This book illustrates just why there has never been -- and never will be -- any other place like it. -- Dust jacket flap.
Alternative Title
Saint George Hotel bar
Subject
  • St. George Hotel (Beirut, Lebanon)
  • Espionage > Middle East
  • Espionage
  • Beirut (Lebanon) > History > Anecdotes
  • Lebanon > Beirut
  • Middle East
Genre/Form
  • Anecdotes
  • History
ISBN
  • 0747502218
  • 9780747502210
OCLC
  • ocm20915598
  • 20915598
  • SCSB-14417490
Owning Institutions
Princeton University Library