Exodus, Economy-Class

When the fighting erupted, U.S. officialdom in the Middle East carried out a mini-exodus worthy of a latter-day Moses. In the face of the most widespread and violent anti-American outbursts in history, more than 20,000 U.S. civilians fled the area by cab and cattle boat, cruise ship and jetliner. About 35,000 Americans--mostly oil-company employees, military personnel and foreign service officers--remained behind, but U.S. consulates and embassies were ready to evacuate them as well should Arab hysteria continue to rise.

The fever was high enough already. Cascading around the U.S. embassies and cultural centers in Cairo, Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus, Benghazi, Tunis, Algiers, Amman and Khartoum, the ever-ready Arab mobs screamed obscenities. Windows were shattered in the Lebanese and Syrian U.S. embassies, and official cars--ignited by the mobs--burned fiercely in embassy compounds.

U.S. Marines in the Libyan consulate fought off rioters with pickax handles, then retreated to the security vault until British soldiers could rescue them.

The American University in Beirut was hit by Molotov cocktails, and Americans were insulted openly in the streets --in many cases for show. In Beirut, cabled TIME Bureau Chief Lee Griggs, "an Arab friend accosted me on the street, mumbled, 'I have to do this or my friends won't respect me,' and spat literally in my face."

Pay Later. Few Americans faced real physical peril. One exception was U.S. Consul General John R. Barrow, who, with his British counterpart, was trapped by howling crowds on the upper floors of the U.S. consulate in the Syrian city of Aleppo. When the mobs set fire to the building, they escaped by sliding down ropes dropped from the back windows. With the help of Syrian security cops, they were able to hire taxis and, with six other Americans and Britons, made it safely to the Turkish border.

In no country did the U.S. Government do more than "advise" its citizens to leave; civilian departees were expected to buy their own economy-class air tickets--and pay later if necessary. One major evacuation point was Beirut, where hundreds of Americans straggled in from Syria to join 3,000 Lebanon-based U.S. civilians, half of whom clustered on the campus of the American University. Each carried only one 44-Ib. bag, plus two blankets and 24 hours' worth of food. Many women showed up carrying small dogs in large handbags. With the city in blackout, there was a moment of near panic when saboteurs blew up a Shell Oil storage tank several miles away. In the guttering glare of flames that shot hundreds of feet into the air, there was fear that Israeli bombers might strike, but husbands calmed wives, wives calmed children and children calmed dogs. Teen-agers hauled out guitars and sang folk songs until Lebanese buses arrived to haul the evacuees to the Beirut airport.

Continental Breakfast. Escorted by tough riot police of Beirut's red-bereted "Squad 16," the Americans boarded Pan American and Middle East Airlines charter jets, soon were winging for Rome, Athens, Frankfurt, Istanbul, Ankara, and Nicosia on Cyprus. Others made it aboard the American Export Isbrandtsen freighter Exilona for a leisurely, sun-drenched cruise to the Cypriot port of Famagusta.

Barring any swift return to normalcy in the Middle East, most of the Americans will end their exodus in the U.S. Meanwhile, they made the most of their vacations. U.S. officials found accommodations for 2,000 Americans in Milan, more than 1,000 in Rome and 700 in Naples--in double rooms with Continental breakfast for as little as $12 a day. There was a lot of swift sorting out among husbands and wives who had been separated along the way. Finally, many evacuees ended the week around hotel terraces sipping Campari sodas, dunking in pools or strolling the Via Veneto in the mild breezes of a Roman spring. "If this is being a refugee," said one American, "I never knew what I was missing."

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