ISRAELI AGENTS PUT QADDAFI ON THE COUCH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150118-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 5, 2012
• Sequence Number: 118
• Publication Date: March 9, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150118-8
A:. 2 C LE APPEARED
ON P.AC,.: C19
THE WASHINGTON POST
9 March 1982
Israeli Agents
Put Qaddafi
On the Couch
There is a tendency in Washing-
ton to refer to Libyan dictator
Muammar Qaddafi as a crazy man.
Armchair psychologists justify the
glib label by pointing to his ,fanatic
extremism, his failure to put realistic
limits on boastful pronouncements
and his periodic fits of deep depres-
sion, when he retreats to the desert
and broods in a tent.
But beyond the egomania that af-
flicts most political leaders, is Qad-
dafi mentally aberrant? Is he truly
deranged?
Israeli intelligence is a highly re-
spected group of professionals with a
particularly keen interest in the Lib-
yan strongman. Qaddafi's oil billions,
combined with his implacable hos-
tility toward Israel, make him in
many ways the beleaguered nation's
most dangerous enemy. It is vital for
the Israelis to know whether they are
dealing with a madman.
After years of research, picking
the brains of medical experts to as-
sess the information gathered by
their agents, Israeli intelligence of-
ficials have compiled a psychological
profile of Qaddafi. My associate Indy
Badhwar has seen a copy -
The Israelis' conclusion is that
Qaddafi is not crazy. Representing
him as mentally ill "is of no help to
an understanding of him and does
not fit the facts," the secret profile
concludes.
Among the juicier suggestions in
the various intelligence reports an-
alyzed by the Israelis was that Qad-
dafi's behavioral quirks were the re-
sult of brain damage from 'venereal
disease. But the profile says this pos-
sibility cannot be verified. "Apart
from mental problems that could be
associated with syphilis, there is no
evidence that Qaddafi suffers from
symptoms matching the disease."
There have been reports that
Qaddafi suffers from schizophrenia,
paranoia, hysteria and serious psy-
choneurotic disturbances. But the
profile concludes: "Available evi-
dence is insufficient to confirm or
deny definitely whether he has a
mental illness."
The profile says, "There is much
information about his strangeness,
lack of stability and emotional dis-
turbances ... [and he does apparent-
ly suffer from a psychological distur-
bance that can be characterized as a
character disturbance."
But the analysis points out that
Qaddafi "has been functioning as the
leader of Libya for 12 years, and it is
difficult to believe that a man suf-
fering from maniacal depressive psy-
choses would be capable of with-
standing the pressures that he has
been under for such a long time and
with such stability, without our
being witness to repeated outbreaks
of illness."
Qaddafi's mercurial temper and
bouts of the blues may be partially
explained by the man's catalog of
painful physical 'ailments. ? He had
tuberculosis as a child, underwent an
appendectomy in 1970 and report-
edly suffers from a stomach ulcer,
gallstones and kidney colic, enough
to make anyone moody and irritable..
It is also quite possible that Qad-
dafi's "strangeness"?to Western
eyes at least?is simply the result of
his personal background. A shepherd-
. boy who was 16 before he completed
the sixth grade, he had a dream of
Islamic revolution and. pursued it
with single-minded zeal..
By the time Qaddafi was 16 his ?
charisma and revolutionary fervor
had made him a leader. Copying the
successful methods of Egypt's pan-
Arab revolutionary leader, Gamal
Abdel Nasser, Qaddafi sought power 1
through the military.. He persuaded i
schoolmates to enroll with him in a
military officers' school, and they
managed to win over successive
classes of cadets to their cause.
In 1969 the "Free Officers Move--;
ment" overthrew. King Idris by an i
Arabian Nights ruse. They invited.i
the king's police to a party and, at.i
the peak of the festivities, took them.
prisoner. At 27, Muammar Qaddafi..
the Bedouin shepherd, became ruler I
of Libya, eager to make his youthful
dreams of glory come true.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/05: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100150118-8