Hanf puts the cabinet's formation at the end of June and its announcement some two weeks before the 15 July confidence vote (83 for, none against, 16 Jumblatt supporters abstaining); Traboulsi's chronology gives 6 July. Neither the Kataeb nor Jumblatt was included. A cease-fire followed, which Traboulsi says was reached with Syrian mediators' help.

Formed in September 1975 through Syria's foreign minister Abdel Halim Khaddam, the National Dialogue Committee of some twenty leaders debated secularism and ending sectarian quotas; Hanf says it broke up empty-handed.

Parliament used the truce to amend Article 73 of the constitution so that Frangieh's successor could be elected early: on 9 April according to Hanf, 10 April according to Yara El Khoury. The truce had coincided with the arrival on 31 March of the US envoy Dean Brown.

Accounts differ. Hanf has Raymond Eddé stand 'on principle', protesting at outside manipulation, and so become the Left's candidate; Traboulsi and de Clerck and Malsagne have him boycott the vote, Traboulsi because it could not be free.

Hanf and Ménargues count 66 votes for Sarkis out of 69 cast; de Clerck and Malsagne give 70. National Movement and PLO mortars fired as deputies, escorted by Saiqa, PLA or Syrian troops, met at the Villa Mansour on the demarcation line. Votes were reportedly bought, by Syria (de Clerck and Malsagne) or with Saudi and CIA money (Traboulsi). Sarkis was sworn in only on 23 September.

Historians date the entry of Syrian regular troops to 1 June 1976 (Ménargues gives 9 June). President Assad announced it in the presence of the visiting Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin, citing appeals from the Akkar villages of Qubayat and Andaqit, besieged since January and attacked by the Lebanese Arab Army on 27 May. Columns moved towards Akkar and Tripoli, Zahleh and the Bekaa, and Sidon by way of Jezzine. Estimates of the force range from 6,000 men at the start (with 260 armoured vehicles, according to Ménargues) to 12,000-15,000 within weeks, with 250-300 tanks (de Clerck and Malsagne).

Hanf dates Lebanese Front forces' capture of the Jisr al-Basha camp to this day; de Clerck and Malsagne give 29 June, Picard August.

Hanf has the Syrian army moving again only once Tal al-Za'tar had fallen, increasing pressure on the encircled Palestinian and leftist forces in the Upper Metn; these were expelled at the end of September.

Hanf writes that Damascus thought the Christian side had won ground enough over the summer, so Syrian guns blocked the Lebanese Front's bid to cross the Beirut-Damascus road and take Aley. Kataeb fighters who had lost comrades at Aley the day before then killed Druze civilians at Salima (de Clerck and Malsagne).

Ratified by an Arab summit in Cairo on 25 October, the Riyadh decisions required all parties to surrender heavy weapons and the Palestinians to return to the zones granted by the 1969 Cairo Agreement, and created a 30,000-man Arab Deterrent Force under President Sarkis, its largest contingent by far, 25,000-27,000 men, being the Syrian troops already in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia had sent the invitations on 15 October; the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon met the PLO chairman in Riyadh on 16, 17 or 18 October, depending on the historian. The cease-fire's start is dated 16 October (Hanf), 21 October (Traboulsi) or 15 November (de Clerck and Malsagne).

Colonel Jean Germain Salvan was badly hurt in both legs in early May, Fisk writes, when dissident PLO gunmen fired on the Fatah jeep carrying him, killing a French soldier and his Palestinian driver; Arafat called it a crime. Hanf adds that such losses made the French unit much more careful.

Hanf writes that the Lebanese Front was left with an enclave of roughly a tenth of Lebanon once Syrian troops had moved into the northern Christian mountains, Koura, Batroun and the coast as far as the Madfoun bridge. Frangieh gave Kataeb members in the north until the month's end to give up their weapons and quit the party, or else leave.

Hanf has Syrian guns shelling Ain el-Remmaneh on the day of mourning called after the Qaa killings, and the Syrian troops ignoring Sarkis's order to cease fire. Ménargues puts Bashir Gemayel's brief detention at a Syrian checkpoint at the end of July.

De Clerck and Malsagne date the end of the shelling to 7 October. On that day President Sarkis asked in public for the Arab Deterrent Force's mandate, due to lapse on 28 October, to be extended, and Syria maintained its blockade until the renewal.

In February 1978 Achkar had led the Lebanese soldiers in the clash with Syrian troops at Fayadiyeh; in October he left the army with about twenty men and founded a 'Revolutionary Lebanese Army Movement'. Boutros was due to fly with the president to the Arab summit in Baghdad when the Lebanese Forces, avenging Achkar, ambushed him on the way to the airport. Lieutenant Qozhaya Chamoun, who led the convoy, was abducted and later murdered; Boutros himself got away.

Ménargues writes that when the Moukafaha, Johnny Abdo's own intervention unit, arrested Elie Hobeika for allegedly having the Saudi ambassador's helicopter fired on, Bashir Gemayel had about a hundred army officers abducted; they were traded for Hobeika three weeks later.