Bashir Gemayel

He was born in Beirut, the son of Pierre Gemayel[?], founder of the Lebanese Kataeb party[?]. Bashir was educated at the Lebanese Modern Institute. In 1962, he joined the Kataeb party. He completed his formal education at St. Joseph University in Beirut after teaching for three years at the Lebanese Modern Institute, graduating in 1971 with a degree in Law and another in Political Science in 1973. A year prior to that, in 1970, he had been briefly kidnapped by Palestinian militants.

In 1971, he was appointed inspector in the para-military branch of the Kataeb party, the Kataeb Regular Forces. In 1971 he also took another law qualification from the American and International Law Academy in Dallas, Texas. Qualifying in 1972 he joined the bar association and opened an office in West Beirut. However, outside of his legal work in 1974, he founded the BG squad, a Lebanese militia, to face the PLO. In 1976, he became president of the Kataeb Military Council and formed the Unified Lebanese Forces to combat Syrian advances. In 1978 he led the Hundred Days War against Syrian forces. Bachir became a member of the Lebanese Front in 1980 and in 1981 he led the unified Christian Lebanese militias in the Battle of Zahleh. The Lebanese parliament elected him president of the republic on August 23, 1982. But he was killed along with twenty-five others in an explosion at the Kataeb headquarters in Achrafieh on September 14, 1982 before his inauguration.