At 10:40 on June 16, 1976, in Beirut, Meloy, the incoming U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, accompanied by Robert O. Waring, the U.S. Economic Counselor, was on his way to present his credentials to the new Lebanese President-elect Elias Sarkis. Meloy, Waring and their driver, Zuhair Mohammed Moghrabi, were kidnapped by Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine members as they crossed the Green Line, the division between Beirut's Christian and Muslim sectors. Meloy had been in the country a month but not presented his credentials to the old president Suleiman Franjieh who had taken refuge outside Beirut and refused to step down.