●Gemayel flies to Larnaca to meet Secretary of State Shultz

On 8 April 1988 President Amine Gemayel flew to Cyprus to meet the American secretary of state George Shultz at Larnaca airport, in a stop not announced in advance during Shultz's return from a failed Middle East tour to launch Arab–Israeli negotiations. Shultz did not come to Beirut; the meeting lasted about 90 minutes and he called it "fruitful" without details. Its aim, according to the Associated Press, was to complete a deal arranged by Syria around a new Lebanese constitution. It was a sign that Washington was now handling the Lebanese file through Damascus, as became clear five months later in Murphy's formula "Mikhael Daher or chaos". The meeting closes a course that began with the 17 May 1983 Agreement: Gemayel had bet on American support in exchange for signing the agreement under Washington's sponsorship, but the United States withdrew the Marines in February 1984 and gave no guarantees for its implementation, so he had to annul it on 5 March 1984; four years later he had to meet the American secretary at an airport outside his country while the settlement was arranged in Damascus.