Dates differ. De Clerck and Malsagne's chronology has the Lebanese Forces controlling East Beirut from 31 October 1980. Ménargues puts the LF's 48-hour assault on Ain al-Remmaneh, held by Elias Hannouche's Chamounists, ten days after the 10 November car bombs, around 20 November 1980.

After the December 1980 clashes in Zahleh, Syrian troops gave up their checkpoints inside the town but kept it under blockade (Hanf). Ménargues, however, says ADF checkpoints were still on the town's main roads when Lebanese Forces fighters seized them in the first days of April 1981.

In Ménargues's account the Saudi and Kuwaiti foreign ministers proposed Syria–Lebanese Forces talks after seeing Khaddam in Beirut on 3 September. Next day at Baabda, Bashir Gemayel accepted the opening of crossing points. The Vigilance Committee's evening statement reserved arms imports to legal forces and set up a body to police the coast and ports; Bashir and the Lebanese Front rejected it.

The 59-year-old ambassador was shot in his locked car at about 1.55 p.m., some 60 metres from a Syrian checkpoint (Malsagne), while heading home near the Résidence des Pins. Malsagne blames a pro-Syrian Shiite commando; the next ambassador, Paul-Marc Henry, saw a botched kidnapping ordered by Iranian intelligence. France was then moving closer to the PLO.

According to Picard, Hamid Frangieh negotiated Lebanon's financial agreements with France, which she places in 1943 rather than 1948.

Ménargues sets the agreement at the Vigilance Committee meeting of 11 September, where Syria's Mohammad Ghanem came out for deploying the Lebanese Army from Sodeco to the port. The Museum crossing, almost completely shut for five months, reopened on 12 September.

About 300 people died in bombings from 17 September to 2 October 1981, which de Clerck and Malsagne, citing Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, put down to the 'Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners', formed by Israeli officers against the Palestinians and their allies.