FLAKE OF FOX?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505250007-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: January 20, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ARTICLE APPEA Approved For Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000505250007-9
ON PAGE _J-4 - 20 January 1986
Flake or Fox?
Libya's Kaddafi is a dangerous man, but he seems to know what he's doing
How His
Mind Works
Egypt's Anwar Sadat once claimed that
Kaddafi was "100 percent sick and pos-
sessed of the demon." Another old
foe, former Sudanese President Jaafar Ni-
meiry, diagnosed him as "a split personal-
ity-both evil." Even his admirers con-
cede that Kaddafi is moody, hot tempered
and unpredictable. An administration of-
ficial argues that Kaddafi "displays
behavior typical of many sociopaths or
psychopaths extremely warm one mo-
ment, then hostile and cold the next." Un-
proven but persistent rumors speak of se-
cret treatments in a Swiss sanitarium
years ago. But there is no solid clinical
evidence on which to base a judgment
about Kaddafi's mental health, which
forces analysts to rely on their own in-
stincts. Former CIA Director Richard
Helms, who has extensive experience in
the Middle East, concludes that "Kaddafi
is in some respects crazy like a fox. His
various moves, even though seemingly
outlandish, appear to have some strategic
or tactical motive behind them. I think
he s pecu iar, quixotic, eccentric. But I
od think he's crazy b any means."
n large part, Kaddafi is a product of
Bedouin culture. He was born 43 years ago,
the son of a shepherd who lived in a goatskin
tent in northern Libya, a region steeped in
poverty despite the oil that enriched a few
under the Libyan monarchy. Kaddafi took
to the gospel of revolution at an early age,
modeling himself at various times on
Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser and China's
Mao Tse-tung, among others. He learned a
little English at a school in Tripoli and
studied briefly in England, where he felt
like an outsider, he says now. Back in Libya,
he joined the Army, married a former nurse
and eventually fathered seven children. In
1969 Kaddafi and a small group of fellow
officers overthrew King Idris and steered
Libya on to a radically new course.
Reflecting his nomadic tribal back-
ground, Kaddafi instinctively opposes the
rich and powerful and resists any form of
political structure and the impediments
that go with it. Under his leadership, Libya
has been transformed into al Jamahi-
riyah-"the state of the masses." The oil
wealth has been widely redistributed. Kad-
dafi's political, social and economic ideas,
some of them distinctly half-baked, are
spelled out in the three slim volumes of his
Green Book, self-consciously modeled on
Mao's Little Red Book. "No representation
in lieu of the people" is its overriding prin-
ciple-the idea that everyone should share
in government, town-meeting style. In
practice, however, the Green Book con-
cedes that any society will be ruled by the
strong-in this case, Kaddafi. The colonel
holds no formal job in the state; he is simply
al Qaid, The Leader.
i "Kaddafi's foremost ambition is to domi-
nate and unite the Arab world," says a
white paper released by the State Depart-
ment last week. "He frequently compares
himself to Garibaldi or Bismarck and has
justified his use of violence and terrorism
against moderate Arab regimes as neces-
sary to achieve Arab unity." Kaddafi is also
an egotist and a crybaby who sulks or
throws tantrums when he doesn't get
what he wants. He can act prudently and
will even back down when he has to. But a
study by the CIA and other U.S. intelli-
gence agencies predicted_a year ago that
Kaddafi will never change. "We concluded
tfiat (here is a zero ro as ili hat
a a will abandon his dream of unit-
ing the Arab wor under his leadership
and of humiliating the United
States," says an administra
tion official, "and an equally
remote chance that he will
abandon terrorism as his prin
c a weapon.
RuSSE LL WATSON (rich JOHN WALCOTT.
K(m W((.LENSON Un(l ZOEIA SMAROZ
in Washington. MICHAEI.A. [.ERN ERirrTrr(poli.
T H E 0 DO R E ST A N O E R in Rine nn(t h7(/5 (((( )(''/((I(t5
Approved For Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000505250007-9