'THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME' IN MIDEAST

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100170024-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: October 29, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100170024-0
ARTICLE A.rP r?:`=D
ON F AG!
THE WASHINGTON POST
29 October 1980
JACK ANDERSON
.4n ri
e Most, erPP5 Gaine'
A deadly two-man game has been' Arab rivals indulged in what State
going on for years in the Middle East Department analysts described in
'=-and both players are men who their reports as "bizarre. adventures"
'should know better. The participants, aimed at each other's throat.
President. Anwar Sadat of Egypt and- - In actual" numbers, Qaddafi has
Libyan strongman Muammar Qadda- probably planned more violence
fi, have been trying, by one means or against Sadat than the other way
another; to remove the other from the around: But Sadat has done his share.
playing field "with extreme prejudice" In. public, Sadat has called his
-by assassination, or violent over- desert neighbor crazy, childish and
throw. suffering from a Napoleonic complex.
This updated version of "The Most In private, he has planned Qaddafi's
Dangerous Game" has been followed assassination.
with some nervousness by the Amer- "President Sadat," says one of sev-
ican intelligence community. U.S. eral top-secret CIA reports, "has ord-
hopes for peace and stability in the ered the Egyptian intelligence service
region would blow sky-high if either to draw up plans to overthrow Libyan
Sadat or Qaddafi succeeded in rub-. President Qaddafi . . Sadat report-
bing out his rival. edly stipulated that the coup should
The seesaw struggle between the appear to originate within Libya, and
two leaders is chronicled in inlet- that care be taken to conceal Egypt's
ligence files. The falling-out began hand... Sadat is apparently going
nearly a decade ago. Qaddafi, a young' about the planning with some cau-
nearly
..,
zealot, was an admirer of tion."
Sadat's revolutionary colleague and. One of many Qaddafi plots against
predecessor, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the
charismatic military man who master-
minded" the ouster of Egypt's playboy,
King Farouk in the 1950s. Nasser at'
one point tried to unite Egypt and
Libya as a first step in creating one
great Arab nation.
Qaddafi-who even lived for a time
in Sadat's home--came to believe
that Sadat had betrayed the Nasser
dream and the pan-Arab cause. Even
1 before Sadat solidified this suspicion munists, and was to include "a plan to
by making peace with Israel, the two - assassinate the,Egyptian leader, using
Sadat is described in a top-secret
State Department report. It tells of a
meeting between the Libyan dictator
and George Habash, a member of one
of the Palestinian terrorist groups
Qaddafi has bankrolled to the tune of
some $70 million a year.
Habash was promised all the money
he needed to engineer Sadat's over-
throw, according to the report. The
plot was. to involve leftist Egyptian
non-Arab terrorists to avoid damag-
ing the Palestinian position in the
Arab world."
One Qaddafi plot against Sadat was
discovered by Israeli intelligence anti
the Egyptian president was tipped]
off. Sadat angrily ordered a border at
tack on Libya. Alarmed by.this open
clash, the United States quietly
stepped in.
But the plots keep coming "every
three to six months," including one by
Qaddafi to blow up Sadat's plane on
his way home from Washington last
April. Our intelligence agents learned
of the plot and Sadat was routed,
through England instead. -
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100170024-0