Word: gaddafi
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...especially dismaying aspect of all these reports is the prospect that either former agents of the CIA or onetime Green Berets may be involved in the plots. Gaddafi has openly hired ex-employees of those organizations to further his causes. Two notorious former CIA agents now living in Libya, Edwin Wilson and Frank Terpil (both wanted in the U.S. on charges of conspiring to sell explosives and to commit murder), are known to have supplied military and terrorist technology to Libya. More than a dozen onetime Green Berets, recruited by Wilson, have trained Libyan troops. Federal investigators...
Even some U.S. intelligence sources admitted they had doubts about the reliability of their informants. Said one official: "Gaddafi has been a bastard for ten years. He's been making threats against the President and the U.S. for ten years. Is he serious now? There's a lot of loose talk and allegations out there. Separating that from the truth is the problem." Others believed Gaddafi's long record of making threats was reason enough to take the reports seriously. They pointed out that the unpredictable Gaddafi, faced with an increasingly unfriendly U.S. Administration, might feel he has no choice...
...skeptical view in Washington is that the CIA might have wanted much of the story to become public. The motive: by portraying Gaddafi as the madman behind a presidential assassination attempt, they could justify covert action aimed at toppling the Libyan leader. Even if that theory were true, however, it did not in itself undermine the credibility of the evidence...
Whatever the source of the leaks and the motives behind them, many felt that the publicity could be dangerously counterproductive. "There are always rumors of that sort of thing," said former President Jimmy Carter. "I always felt it was better not to broadcast these things." "It could just encourage Gaddafi," argued Democratic Senator John Glenn of Ohio. "You feed his ego and make him want to do something that shows he's macho." Others feared that the publicity would build up Gaddafi's importance and win him friends among Arab nations already unfriendly to the U.S. Said Roger Fisher, professor...
...their references to the Libyan leader, U.S. officials seemed to strike a ritualistic note of scorn and horror: Muammar Gaddafi* is not only a menace and a promoter of terrorism but a lunatic as well. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat used to call him "that crazy boy," but the consensus of most Middle East analysts is that Gaddafi is as crazy as a fox. To be sure, he is an erratic and irascible revolutionary, convinced of his own genius and wholly committed to spreading his own political gospel, an eccentric mix of Islam and socialism that is summed...