The United States has sent troops into Lebanon on two occasions. Eisenhower’s plan to resist any communist aggression in the Middle East (known as the “Eisenhower Doctrine”), led to the sending of 14,000 troops there at the request of the Lebanese government, even though the threat came not from communists but from internal opposition. During Reagan’s administration, following conflict in Lebanon between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization backed by Syria, Secretary of State George Schultz brought about a peace agreement, which stipulated that the US would commit 1,500 troops as part of a multinational peacekeeping force. In late 1983, however, a Muslim terrorist drove a truck full of explosives into the unprotected US Army barracks, killing 241 soldiers. Reagan at first kept the US force in Lebanon, not wanting to surrender to terrorism, but because of the unpopularity of this decision changed his mind. Eisenhower’s involvement in Lebanon highlighted one aspect of the Cold War—the way in which the mask of anti-communism embroiled Americans in conflicts of a nationalist nature. The more recent case shaped later engagements of troops, especially as peace keepers, requiring that the US role be clearly defined, that peace actually be established and that American forces be sufficiently well-protected.