A PUBLIC AFFAIRS STRATEGY FOR ACTIONS AGAINST LIBYA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP84B00049R000902290034-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 1, 2006
• Sequence Number: 34
• Content Type: REPORT

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A PUBLIC AFFAIRS STRATEGY FOR ACTIONS AGAINST LIBYA
An effective public affairs strategy for gaining support
for whatever measures we decide to take against Qadhafi would
have to (1) dramatize the message of the danger we feel Libya
poses to U.S. interests and to international order; (2) anti-
cipate fears and opposition likely to be engendered by the
? specific policy actions chosen to deal with Qadhafi; (3)
counter these concerns with arguments designed to alleviate
undue anxiety and appeal to-overriding-motives of morality
and patriotism; and (4) expend the necessary resources and
utilize sufficiently varied channels to get the message
across to broad and opinion-s Fi ping sectors of the public.
Danger Posed by Qadhafi.
We would want to get the following message across:
Qadhafi's ideological predisposition is antithetical
to U.S. and.western interests and to the norms of international
order subscribed to by most civilized nations.
(1) Qadhafi considers assassination and terrorism to
be legitimate vehicles for accomplishing his policy
objectives.
- He has supported regimes as reprehensible as
that of Id.i Amin.
- He operates a network of terrorist training camps
in Libya; people trained in these camps are then fanned
out within Africa, throughout Europe, and as far away
globally as the Philippines. (Declassify this informa-
tion, as necessary.)
- Groups supported include the Red Brigades (who
took credit for the kidnapping and killing of Aldo Moro
in Italy).
- Qadhafi planned to assassinate U.S. Ambassador
to Egypt Eilts in 1977 and was deterred from doing so
only by strong action on our part. Within the last
three months, Qadhafi has publicly threatened the life
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of President Reagan and has sent assassination teams to
target several U.S. Ambassadors in Western Europe. (if
proved): Even more recently, Qadhafi's agents were
responsible for attempting to assassinate our Charge in
Paris, Christian Chapman.
(2) Qadhafi's incursion into Chad, ostensibly
to support the legitimate government there in the
midst of an ongoing civil war, was followed by demands
that Chad merge with Libya. When these demands were
rejected and Qadha i was asked to leave in favor
of an OAU-sponsored peacekeeping force, Qadhafi
cynically manipulated the situation by withdrawing
precipitously, taking food and supplies with him,
and depositing new armaments with pro-Libyan guerrilla
forces so that they could carry on their campaign
against the central government on Libya's behalf.
Libya is reported to hope either that the resulting
chaos in Chad will result in an invitation to the
Libyans to return or that the ascendancy of pro-
Libyan forces who will view the merger plan with
greater favor than their predecessors will be achieved
on the battlefield. (Declassify this information, as
necessary.)
(3) Qadhafi's opposition to Israel and the Camp
David process is well-known. In efforts to undermine
constructive approaches to Middle East peace, Qadhafi
has supported the most radical of the Palestine
liberation groups -- those openly subscribing to the
the use of terrorism to achieve their goals.
(4) Partly as a result of his regional ambitions to
head a pan-Saharan Islamic State and partly in oppo-
sition to the U.S. and Camp David, Qadhafi has
supported dissident groups in pro-Western Tunisia,
Morocco, Somalia, the Sudan, and Egypt -- along with
a score of smaller African countries.
- Qadhafi's gloating in the wake of the assassi-
nation of Anwar Sadat and his exhortations aimed at
achieving the overthrow of the successor regime in
Egypt were particularly obnoxious -- and give a measure
of the man he is.
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(5) Within Libya, itself, Qadhafi is punishing
opponents to his regime with arrest and torture,
while subscribing to an anarchistic philosophy that
alleges that there is no government. Instead, there
are "People's Committees" that undertake actions
in the name of the people in -a manner that leaves
the individual citizen of Libya no redress against
their excesses.
- Libyans who oppose the regime are not safe
even when living in exile abroad. Qadhafi has
called for their liquidation as enemies of the
Libyan revolution.
- Qadhafi's long reach in this regard has
extended to western European countries and even
to the United States, as illustrated by the widely
publicized shooting incident involving a Libyan
dissent graduate student living in Colorado.
-- Qadhafi and the power that he could command by
virtue of Libya's small population of 2.5 million would
pose a relatively small threat were it not for Libya's
huge oil income. Under normal oil market conditions, this
income amounts to $25 billion a year. Before the dis-
covery of oil, Libya was one of the world's poorest coun-
tries.
-- Libya has used its oil income not to help in the
economic development of other poor countries, but to pur-
chase a vast arsenal of advanced Soviet weaponry, far in
excess of its own legitimate defense needs.
- Libya has already purchased over $12 billion
worth of Soviet weapons, paying the Soviets, in turn,
much-needed hard cash.
- These weapons, in addition to Libyan campaigns,
of subversion directed against its neighbors, pose a
substantial regional threat in North Africa and in the
Horn of Africa -- areas crucial to the protection of
the Mediterranean and the oil-rich Persian Gulf.
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- We cannot be certain of Soviet motives in pro-
viding a client as reckless as Qadhafi with such
advanced arms, but cannot discount the possibility that
the Soviets have pre-positioned advanced weaponry in
Libya_ to serve their own military purposes some time in
e future.
-- Libya has widely proclaimed its intention to
produce an Islamic nuclear bomb. ,In spite of our efforts to
curtail the dissemination of nuclear technology and weapons-
usable materials, Libya's oil income makes it almost impos-
sible to prevent black market acquisition of proscribed
items.
U.S. Response to this Danger.
We have already taken several steps designed to demon-
strate that we will not conduct business as usual with a
regime led by a person we consider to be an international
outlaw. The most dramatic of these steps were the closing
of the Libyan People's Bureau in the U.S. in May 1981 and
the U.S. naval exercise in international waters illegally
claimed by Libya in August 1981. In addition, we have taken
a variety of steps designed to curtail Libya's ability to
support international subversion and to reduce Libya's
conventional military capabilities.
If we decide to move further and undertake economic
actions like (1) a unilateral embargo of U.S. imports of oil
from Libya; (2) a blanket prohibition against U.S. commercial
relations with Libya; or (3) the mandatory withdrawal of
U.S. citizens now residing in Libya, we can expect the
following concerns to be expressed by the U.S. public:
--First, fear that the U.S. will pay for these
actions at the marketplace. in particular, there is likely
to be an expectation that denial of Libyan oil -- whether by
our own action or by Libyan reprisal -- will cause U.S.
domestic consumers hardship. Memories of the Long gas lines
of 1973 are still sharp, as is concern about the high cost.
of home heating fuel and its impact on the poor and elderly.
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-- Second, antagonism generated by the assumption that
others will profit commercially at U.S. expense. This
will be especially acute if wide publicity is given to the
likely continuation of lucrative business relationships
between Libya and our western allies.
In order to counteract these concerns, we would want to
stress the moral issue: service of the national interest
rather than private gain. Our policies would be making it
c =ear that we were not going to be doing "business as usual"
with an international outlaw. No longer would U.S. dollars
be used to fund international terrorism and purchase advanced
Soviet weapons.
We would also want to undertake -a campaign to explain those
aspects of the oil market t Hat are especially relevant here:
'-- In the current period of glut, the U.S. is only import-
ing 3 percent of its imported oil supplies from Libya.
-- Oil of equal quality and lower prices is available from
Nigeria.
-- Even if the current glut should disappear, the U.S.
would be able to. replace Libyan oil with that of other
suppliers.
Our recent policies to move forward on conservation
measures, the filling of our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and
the encouragement of exploration for new sources of oil through
de-control of oil prices, are all measures that help provide us
with a+safety net in the event that supplies are discontinued
from a single source.
-- Even though we have deplored the use of oil as
a weapon, there is no guarantee that oil producing nations.
will not again seek to embargo oil to the West. By our
actions we will have indicated that consuming nations
have a card to play, too, and that we will no longer follow
passive and reactive policies that leave the initiative
with the Libyas of this world.
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If we decide to undertake military steps beyond enhanced
regional security assistance, we will encounter fear of
escalation that could lead to:
-- direct involvement of U.S. forces in combat in an area
far from home; ' an
-- ultimate U.S.-Soviet military confrontation on behalf
of the respective client-states involved.
Again, in order to counteract these concerns we would want
to focus attention on particular messages:
-- the deterrent effect of the military measures we are
undertaking.
-- our resolve not to introduce U.S. combat forces into
the area; and
-- the necessity to take forceful, timely action in order to
prevent harder choices from confronting us further down the
road.
Channels for an Information Campaign
These would be varied. In addition to backgrounders to
the press, we would want to ask key administration officials
-- from the Departments of State, Energy, Commerce, and
Defense --.to brief opinion-shaping groups privately and to
give public addresses in the forums that would gain the
greatest publicity: the Council of Foreign Relations in New
York, the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, the World
Affairs Council, the Foreign Policy Association, and other
similar groups -- with special emphasis on regional dispersal.
We would also want*to mount a speaking campaign, coord-
inated by State, to reach public affairs groups at the
community level. The scope of this effort and the resources
we would devote to it would depend, in part, on the measures
chosen to deal with Libya. Similarly dependent on the kind
of measures chosen would be the kind of audience targeted at
the community level. If low-level military measures are
selected to supplement economic measures, for example, we
would want to address groups that are eager to support
a more forceful U.S. stance in the world, as well as their
opposite number: groups that are fearful of the escalating
consequences and ultimate social costs of such action.
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If only economic measures ar chosen, we would want to place
our emphasis on business and consumer groups.
Timing
The sequencing of the components of a public affairs
campaign, and the amount of lead-time needed for each one
would also be dependent in part on the measures
chosen and the need for secrecy prior to their effective
enactment. We could certainly begin with a campaign to
outline the general threat Qadhafi presents, as indicated in
the first section of this paper. Following this, we would
want to tailor the subsequent stages of the information
campaign to the require ments set by the measures chosen and
others that we see downstream.
Drafted:S/P:EMorton
11/13/1981
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