Probing a State of Mind

By Evan Thomas

A TIME correspondent testifies in the Sharon libel case

The reporter told of hearing young Phalangists dancing in the streets and shouting "Revenge! Revenge!" the day after their leader, Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel, had been assassinated. He told of a conversation with an Israeli soldier who warned him "something ugly is happening in the city" just as Phalangist militiamen were killing 700 Arabs in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in West Beirut. He told of an agitated Israeli general knocking on his door in Tel Aviv late one night to express his concern that Israeli officers had known of the atrocities but remained silent.

For seven days during the past two weeks, TIME Correspondent David Halevy took the stand in a federal courtroom in Manhattan to recount in vivid detail what he saw and heard-and felt and believed-while he covered the ravaged precincts of Beirut and the troubled ruling circles of Israel before and after the 1982 massacre. Halevy's highly personal account was required because his credibility and state of mind are principal issues in a $50 million libel suit brought by former Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon against TIME.

Sharon sued after the magazine published a February 1983 cover story about the findings of an official Israeli commission, headed by Supreme Court President Yitzhak Kahan, which concluded that Sharon as well as other Israeli officials bore "indirect" responsibility for the massacre. Sharon subsequently stepped down as Defense Minister, though he remained in the Cabinet and is now Israel's Minister of Industry and Trade. Sharon's suit is aimed at a paragraph in the story describing a condolence call Sharon paid to the Gemayel family the day after the assassination of the Lebanese President-elect. The passage, based on Halevy's reporting, stated that Sharon "reportedly discussed with the Gemayels the need for the Phalangists to take revenge" for Bashir's assassination, adding that "the details of the. conversation are not known." Calling the story a "blood libel" on Israel, Sharon claims that TIME accused him of instigating the massacre and injured his reputation.

According to the TIME story, a secret appendix to the Kahan report contains information about Sharon's visit with the Gemayel family. Under questioning by Judge Abraham Sofaer and Sharon's lawyer Milton Gould, Halevy conceded that he had not been told directly by a source what the appendix contained, but that he had inferred it from strong hints from Israeli officials and other circumstantial evidence.

The appendix remains shrouded in Israel's secrecy laws. Judge Sofaer, at the request of both TIME's and Sharon's lawyers, has asked the Israeli government to allow both parties in the suit to examine the appendix as well as notes taken by Israeli officials at the meetings between Sharon and the Gemayel family. The Israeli government has agreed to allow Sofaer to submit written questions about the contents of these documents, but only to Kahan. At week's end the matter remained unresolved.

Halevy recounted last week how he had learned about conversations that were held between Sharon and Phalangist leaders. He stated that he had four knowledgeable sources, including an Israeli general who had access to notes taken at one of the meetings. One source told Halevy that during a meeting attended by Sharon and Pierre Gemayel, the family patriarch, Gemayel said that the death of Bashir "should be revenged," and that Sharon made no effort to dissuade him.

To win his suit, Sharon must show not only that TIME's story was wrong but, as in the Westmoreland case, that it was published with "actual malice," which means that TIME knew that the story was false or recklessly disregarded whether it was. Sharon Lawyer Gould has tried to show that Halevy has a personal bias against the former Defense Minister. Under questioning by TIME Lawyer Thomas Barr, Halevy testified that he was not hostile to Sharon but rather a patriotic citizen of Israel anxious about his country.

With the conclusion of Halevy's testimony, the focus of the trial will now shift to TIME's editorial headquarters in New York. Gould plans to call a series of staffers and editors to the stand in an attempt to show, as he has claimed to the jury, that either "TIME's process for verification is defective" or that "the procedure was ignored." -By Evan Thomas. Reported by Kenneth W. Banta/New York

With reporting by Kenneth W. Banta/New York