THRIVING ON TROUBLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505250117-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 117
• Publication Date: June 8, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT . Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000505250117-7
t
'ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE __?Q
TIME
8 June 1981
C C olonel Muammar Gaddafi could not
have appeared more at ease last
week as he sipped orange soda in an offi-
cial guest house during a one-hour inter-
view with TIME Diplomatic Correspon-
dent Strobe Talbott in the central Libyan
desert city of Sebha. Indeed, the mercuri-
al strongman's imperturbability seemed
to be in almost studied contrast to the er-
ratic policies that have increasingly made
Libya a focal point of international con-
troversy and contention. Only hours after
Thriving o
Trouble
Gaddafi calmly steers a
tempestuous course
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000505250117-7
murdered Gaddafi foes in Rome, Athens
and London: Gaddafi's agents have been
accused of masterminding the attempted
assassination last October of Faisal Zagal-
lai, 35, a Libyan student living in Colora-
do. Eugene Tafoya, a former U.S. Green
Beret, has been charged with the shooting,
which he denies. At home Gaddafi has lit-
tle trouble stifling potential opposition,
mostly by retaining iron control over his
45.000-man army. Concludes one State
Department analyst: "He looks as though
operated SA-9 missiles had been fired at
Israeli reconnaissance planes from Pales-
tinian positions in southern. Lebanon (see
preceding story).-In the U.S. three weeks
earlier, the Reagan Administration had
expelled 27 Libyan diplomats in protest
against what Washington regards as Gad-
dafi's outrageous policy of bankrolling ter-
rorist activities around the world. In the
Central African country of Chad, mean-
while. 4,000 Libyan troops served as a vir-
tual occupation force five months after
Gaddafi's military intervention in support
of President Goukouni Oueddei in that
country's civil war. This was exactly the
sort of move that has enraged Gaddafi's
neighbors-especially Egypt's President
Anwar Sadat, who has called the Libyan
leader "a vicious criminal, 100% sick and
possessed of a demon."
Other Arab leaders are also alarmed
by Gaddafi's revolutionary proclivities
and criticize him for siding with Iran in
its war against Iraq. Even Libya's Soviet
backers view Gaddafi with suspicion, no-
tably for his way of soliciting their sup-
port while keeping them at arm's length.
Sums up a Palestinian political observer
in Beirut: "If you measure a man by his en-
emies, Gaddafi has great stature."
Recently Gaddafi has had to contend
with increasing opposition to his regime
among Libyans studying and working
abroad, including several of his former
cabinet ministers. In response to such dis-
sent, according to officials of several gov-
ernments, Libyan "death squads" have