Helf Alliance, a grouping which included former President Camille Chamoun's National Liberal Party and Pierre Gemayel's Kataeb Party. In the parliamentary election held that year, the Helf Alliance won 30 seats in the 99 member National Assembly – the best result to date for any organized electoral force in Lebanon's notoriously fractured legislature. The alliance was not to last, however: he took his party out of the alliance in 1969 following the Cairo Agreement between the Lebanese government and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which allowed the latter to establish bases in Southern Lebanon from which to launch commando raids against Israel. Eddé was, and remained, implacably opposed to permitting any non-Lebanese armed force to operate on Lebanese soil. He also opposed diverting the tributaries of the Jordan river, an Arab League proposal floated in 1964 and again in 1968, with a view to cutting off Israel's water supply. He warned that it would make Lebanon a target for Israeli raids, and cited the Israeli attack on Beirut Airport on 28 December 1968 as evidence of this. His consistent position of avoiding a military confrontation with Israel was rare in Lebanese politics. Convinced that the dozen years of Chehabist rule had not been in Lebanon's best interests, Eddé supported the election Suleiman Frangieh to the Presidency on 17 August 1970, against the Chehabist candidate, Elias Sarkis. His alliance with Frangieh did not last long, however. In 1974, he formed a new coalition with former Prime Ministers Saeb Salam and Rashid Karami, both Sunni Muslims. When the Lebanese Civil War broke out in 1975, Eddé was the only major Christian politician to be living in predominantly Sanyah quarter of Sunni Muslim West Beirut. Remaining on good terms with local Muslim politicians, his intervention on many occasions helped bring about the release of Christians who had been kidnapped by Muslim militias. A believer in coexistence between Christians and Muslim, Eddé opposed plans to partition Lebanon into ethnic and sectarian statelets, plans which he accused the United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger of conspiring to foist on Lebanon, and visited France and the Vatican in an attempt to rally opposition to the purported conspiracy. In 1976, Eddé stood as a candidate for the Presidency; his failure to win a single vote in the National Assembly led to allegations of electoral misconduct. On 22 December of that year, following three attempts on his