COLONEL MU'AMMAR MUHAMMAD AL-QADHAFI CHAIRMAN, LIBYAN REVOLUTIONARY COMMAND COUNCIL

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: Fall of the Libyan Monarchy
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06750022
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: August 20, 2019
• Document Release Date: August 30, 2019
• Publication Date: March 1, 1970

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DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence Memorandum
Colonel Mu'ammar Muhammad al-QADHAFI
Chairman, Libyan Revolutionary Command Council
-S-ecret-
CR M 70-11
March 1970
Copy No. 56
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LIBYA Mu'ammar Muhammad al-QADHAFI
Chairman of the Revolu-
tionary Command Council;
Prime Minister; Minis-
ter of Defense; and
Commander in Chief of
the Armed Forces
Col. Mu'ammar al-
Qadhafi was a leading
member of the group of
junior army officers
who overthrew the govern-
ment of King Idris on 1
September 1969. Qadhafi
has been chairman of the
Revolutionary Command
Council (RCC) since its
establishment immedi-
ately after the coup.
He has been Commander
in Chief of the Armed Forces since 8 September 1969,
and in January 1970 he assumed the additional posts
of Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. Qadhafi
is a strong exponent of Arab unity and an admirer
of UAR President Jamal 'Abd al-Nasir. One US offi-
cial describes Qadhafi as a militant idealist.
Background and Goals of the Coup
The September coup was instigated by a group
of disaffected captains and lieutenants, one of the
more influential of whom was Qadhafi. During the
regime of King Idris these officers had formed a
"free officers" clique. Most of them are radical,
puritanical and nationalistic, and look to Nasir as
their ideal.
This memorandum was produced solely by CIA. It was
prepared by the Central Reference Service and was
coordinated with the Office of Current Intelligence.
-STeR-E-T
GROUP 1
Excluded from automatic
downgrading and
declassification
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Nu Fuveto Daum
These officers moved early on the morning of 1
September to topple the monarchy and establish the
Libyan Arab Republic. Within three days they were
in control. At the time Qadhafi was a first lieu-
tenant stationed with a Signal Corps unit in
Benghazi. He rallied other officers who he believed
were loyal to him, and together they occupied the
Benghazi radio station and seized the armored cars
belonging to the police. Qadhafi acted as spokes-
man for the group in Benghazi until he left for
Tripoli.
Qadhafi and other members of the "free offi-
cers" then formed the RCC to rule as a collective
body. Initially, individual members chose to
remain anonymous, claiming they did not want to
establish a cult of personality; more likely, they
did not wish to be individually identified until
they were certain of the effectiveness of the coup.
When the names of the RCC members were released,
Qadhafi, who had been promoted to captain one day
after the coup and to full colonel a week later,
was identified as chairman. Because of his present
position, it seems likely that Qadhafi was one of
the key instigators of the coup. His followers
and admirers tend to attribute the success of the
coup to Qadhafi, but he maintains that the success
was due to the collective action of the "free
officers" group.
In a series of speeches Qadhafi has defined
the goals of the coup as freedom, socialism (which
he changed to justice in a later speech), and
unity (of all the Arabs). In advocating socialism
for Libya, Qadhafi has explained that it is not
necessary to nationalize industry but only to dis-
tribute the oil income fairly. Qadhafi has indi-
cated that the relationship between labor and the
RCC will be direct and close with no need for unions
of the traditional kind. According to Qadhafi,
there will be no need for political parties. The
RCC, however, will not discriminate against those
who might have belonged to political organizations
in the past.
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Qadhafi's appeals to Libyan and Arab nation-
alism have made him popular; he is one of the few
leaders in Libya's history who have shown an inter-
est in establishing a dialogue with the people.
He has met with both labor and student groups and
has tried to answer their questions instead of
evading them (although at times his answers have
been circumlocutory). In his speeches, Qadhafi
uses vernacular rather than classical Arabic--
another factor which further identifies him with
the common man.
Post-Coup Government
Soon after its establishment the RCC appointed
a Cabinet to handle the administrative functions of
government but retained for itself the right to
make policy decisions. The Cabinet portfolios,
with the exception of the Ministry of Defense and
the Ministry of Interior, were given to civilians.
At first the military-oriented RCC and the civil-
ian-oriented Cabinet worked well together, but both
groups soon became disenchanted with each other.
As early as mid-September, Qadhafi was dissatisfied
with the performance of the civilian Prime Minister,
Mahmud al-Maghribi. The members of the Cabinet, in
turn, were disillusioned with Qadhafi's leadership
and called him a dictator for his stringent and nar-
row policies.
In mid-December, after denigrating them in
public, Qadhafi removed Minister of Defense Aadim
Said al-Hawaz and Minister of Interior Musa Ahmad
al-Hasi from their posts and arrested them. (In
the first week of December Qadhafi had gone to
Cairo, and while he was there President Nasir
advised him to remove al-Hawaz and al-Hasi because
the UAR intelligence service had information that
they were Communists. Nasir may have called them
Communists to provoke Qadhafi into action; both
al-Hawaz and al-Hasi were "Libya firsters," in
contrast to Qadhafi who was more pro-UAR.) On 16
January 1970 Qadhafi dismissed Prime Minister
Maghribi and assumed the post himself. At the
same time the RCC appointed Qadhafi Minister of
Defense.
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Attitude Toward the West
Immediately after the coup, Qadhafi announced
his desire for friendly relations with the United
States--possibly fearing US support of a counter-
coup. About the end of November 1969, however,
when he felt secure in his position, he called for
the early evacuation of American and British bases,
claiming that they were the result of the previous
regime's policies and that there was no longer any
justification for them in the new Libya.
In an interview with a Lebanese correspondent
which was later published in Beirut's An-Nahar,
Qadhafi said, "We do not have faith in the people
of the United Kingdom or the United States; they
will have to prove their good intentions with deeds
over a long period of time before we can believe
them." He then initiated discussions with the Amer-
icans and British for the removal of their bases.
(According to British military authorities, when
Qadhafi was in the United Kingdom for military
training in 1966, he claimed that he favored British
troops remaining in Libya.)
In an interview with French journalists in
mid-September 1969, Qadhafi called France a friend
for suspending arms deliveries to Israel and
expressed hope for closer relations with France.
Relations With Other Arab States
Qadhafi has been pro-UAR since his high school
days. He was expelled from the Sebha high school
in 1961 for leading a student demonstration in a
protest over the dissolution of the Egyptian-Syrian
union. He was not outspokenly pro-UAR during the
early years of his military career, but after his
position in the post-coup government was assured,
he began overtures toward a closer Libyan-Egyptian
rapprochement.
Other delegates to the Arab Summit Conference
held in Rabat in December 1969 remarked that Qadhafi
was completely subservient to President Nasir.
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NO Foreign Mown
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Qadhafi opposed the more conservative Arab states
that he thought were blocking Arab unity which he
claimed was inevitable. One Arab journalist report-
ing on the conference said that Qadhafi made
unrealistic demands on the Iraqi and Algerian dele-
gations. He tried to tell Algerian President Houari
Boumediene how many tanks, guns, troops, etc.
Algeria should send to fight Israel. Boumediene
rebuffed Qadhafi, stating that he would speak for
Algeria. The Jordanian delegation, on the other
hand, thought that Qadhafi was the outstanding dele-
gate at the conference, giving the impression of a
strong, courageous personality.
Disillusioned by the lack of unanimity among
the delegates, Qadhafi returned to Tripoli calling
the conference a failure. He retained his faith
in Arab unity, but after the conference he was not
convinced of its inevitability- Late in December
he was host to tripartite talks among himself, Nasir
and Sudanese President Ja'far Muhammad Numayri in an
attempt to promote some form of union between Libya,
Sudan and the UAR.
Early Life and Career
Mu'ammar Muhammad al-Qadhafi was born in Sirte,
Tripolitania, in 1942. His parents are nomadic
tent dwellers. His father, a veteran of the pre-
independence anti-Italian battles, is a traveling
merchant. After completing elementary and secondary
schools, mu'ammar attended high school in Sebha.
After his expulsion from the Sebha high school (as
much for his violent temper as for his pro-UAR activ-
ities), he finished high school in Misurata. He
then studied history for one year at the University
of Libya, and in 1963 he entered the Libyan Military
Academy in Benghazi. Upon graduation in 1965,
Qadhafi was commissioned a second lieutenant in the
Signal Corps.
In 1966 Qadhafi spent nine months in the
United Kingdom, where he received advanced commu-
nications training. When he returned to Libya he
was assigned to the First Signal Squadron in
Benghazi. He attained the rank of first lieutenant
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--Nrlbmigo4DissemL_
in February 1968, and by August 1969 he was acting
adjutant of the Signal Corps. During the time he
was in Benghazi, Qadhafi organized a local "free
officers" clique which later formed the nucleus of
the RCC.
Personal Data
When Qadhafi was in the United Kingdom in
1966, his British sponsors called him cheerful,
hard-working and conscientious. Later reports
from US officials have described him as uncooper-
ative and hot-tempered. One of his former high
school teachers in Sebha said that Qadhafi showed
only average intelligence and that he had a stub-
Lin
born and violent temperament and was never able
to distinguish major from minor issues. Since
becoming Chairman of the RCC, however, Qadhafi has
demonstrated that he can be selective in support-
ng the important concerns of his subordinates
while rejecting their more petty demands. He has
also impressed US officials with his thoughtful
d unemotional approach to issues.
Qadhafi has termed himself a worker rather
than a talker. As chairman of the RCC, however,
he has given several long, effective speeches,
both to street crowds and within the confines of
the RCC.
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Several times during the Arab Summit Confer-
ence in December 1969 Qadhafi fainted. Many
observers thought at the time that it was an over-
emotional reaction to decisions of which he did
not approve. Upon his return to Tripoli, Qadhafi
went into the hospital. His presence there gave
rise to rumors (and wishful thinking by his ene-
mies) that he had been either stabbed or shot by
a would-be assassin. The assassination rumors
stemmed primarily from an Israeli broadcast
quoting a Paris correspondent of Radio Jerusalem.
Subsequently, however, it was learned that on or
about 1 January 1970 Qadhafi underwent an appen-
dectomy.
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In his leisure time, Qadhafi enjoys soccer
and reading. He speaks English in addition to his
native Arabic.
Family
On 25 December 1969 Qadhafi married Fathia
Khalid, daughter of Brigadier Nun i Khalid.
(Qadhafi chose UAR President Nasir to be best man
at his wedding.) Khalid was chief of the Fezzanese
security services before the coup and was the only
one of the three provincial police chiefs who
declared his support for the new government. Mrs.
Qadhafi's brother is officer in charge of the
Azizia barracks in Tripoli and is believed to have
been one of the leaders of the coup.
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