PLO May Surrender, Seeks 'Honorable Retreat'

BEIRUT, Lebanon-Leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) opened intensive secret negotiations yesterday on the details of their proposed "honorable retreat" from encircled West Beirut. Lebanese officials reported.

Reliable informants and most Lebanese newspapers reported that the guerrillas, trapped by Israel's invasion army, had accepted the "principle" of their withdrawal from the embattled city.

They were said to favor an evacuation to another Arab state by passenger ships flying the PLO flag.

A key Lebanese negotiator said Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat "is ready to do it"-to leave Beirut Israel radio quoted an unidentified senior Israel government official as saying there was "good hope" an agreement would be worked out soon.

The current cease fire, engineered by special U.S. envoy Philip C Habib, is the longest yet in the Lebanese fighting.

Arafat and several of his top aides conferred until the earls hours of the morning yesterday with Prime Minister Shafink Wazzan and former Prime Minister Saeb Salam Official sources said the Lebanese negotiators later informed President Elias Sarkis and Habib of the results of the bargaining session.

The PLO nevertheless continued issuing statement defiantly pledging to fight on in Beirut "until victory or martyrdom."

The cease fire entered its fourth day with only one violation reported. The Israeli military command said Palestinian guerrillas fired mortars against Israeli troops at Damour, 11 miles south of Beirut, wounding three Israelis.

An extensive deployment of Israeli tanks, artillery, motorized troops and naval gunboats maintained a tight siege on the Palestinian-dominated western half of the Lebanese capital. The Israelis kept up their psychological pressures as well.

For the second-straight day, their planes dropped leaflets on Beirut that were calculated to undermine the morale of the 600 000 inhabitants of the besieged western sector.

An Israeli military spokesman told reporters in the southeastern Beirut suburb of Baaba that the PLO guerrillas must abandon their Beirut stronghold or face an all-out Israeli assault.

"The problem is to bring about the breaking up to the PLO as a militarily powerful organization," Col. Paul Kedar said.