Charles Helou
The origins of PLO's presence in Lebanon goes right back to the late 1960s, following the 1967 Six-Day War. There were already large areas of Lebanon populated by Palestinian exile communities, or around 12% of the total population. Lebanese president Charles Helou was anxious about the prospect of nationalist sentiment causing turbulence in Lebanon following the war, which had ignited mass support from Arab communities of the Palestinian cause. Nevertheless, guerrilla networks were increasingly active throughout the late 1960s and were given even more freedom after the Cairo agreement in 1969, in which refugee camps in Lebanon were placed under the command of Palestinian forces, instead of the heavy-handed Deuxième Bureau.