Cartella economia e diritto digitale Uninettuno con elaborato finale non discusso (per chi interessato)

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segretario difesa Usa 1989: nessun aereo Usa era in volo al momento della strage di Ustica

JOINT STAFF ACTION PROCESSING FORM CLASSIFICATION DIRECTORATE ACTION NUMBER UNCLASSIFIED J-3M 020-89, 09.01.89 ACTION SUSPENCE APPROVAL COB 09 JAN SIGNATURE SJS NUMBER 1516/092 SUBJECT INVESTIGATION ON THE DOWNING OF ITAVIA DC9 INTHE CENTRAL TYRRHENIAN SEA ON 27.06.80 ACTION SUMMARY 1. THE DEPUTY SEGRETARY OF DEFENSE REQUESTED, (DEPSECDEF MEMO, 29.12 88, "RESPONSE TO ITALIAN AIDE MEMORIE") IN RESPONSE TO AN ITALIAN AMBASSY REQUEST, (ITALIAN AMBASSY AIDE MEMOIRE, 27.12.88 (SJS 1516/092, SJS 1516/092-01) THAT THE US PROVIDE ANY INFORMATION AVAILABLE WHICH MIGHT A BEARING ON THE DOWNING OF AN ITALIAN DC9 ON 27.06.80. 2. APPROPIATE AGENCIES RESEARCHED THIS INFORMATION AT AN EARLIER DATE AND DETERMINED THAT THE US DID NOT HAVE AIRCRAFT OR SHIPS OPERATING IN THE AREA AT THE TIME OF THE CRASH. THIS INFORMATION HAS BEEN REVERIFIED WITH USEUCOM. THE ATTACHED PROPOSED DJS MEMORANDUM INFORMS THE DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE OF THIS FACT AND PROVIDES A PROPOSED MEMORANDUM FOR RESPONSE TO THE ITALIAN AMBASSADOR. 3. RECOMMED DJS APPROVED AND FORWARD ATTACHED PROPOSED MEMORANDUM.

Strage di ustica Raf inglese: esercitazioni 27 giugno 1980

Raf royal air force aveva phantom in volo disarmato solo per esercitazione di avvicinamento ad aeroporto Vedete io non potro' mai credere che un uomo Dettori ucciso ha mentito su Ustica, nemmeno la raf c'entra con chi ha abbattuto il dc9, gli assassini sono Naldini e Nutarelli. Laura Picchi RAF Valley Aircraft Movements 1980 Friday 27th June 1980 [MAS][MC 8/80][HE][MG][HO] 84+91 - CH-53G MHFTR-35 ‘GAM8491’ HEER ZA254 - Tornado ADV A.01* BAe PD ‘TARNISH11’ *38th flight: Dave Eagles/Roy Kenward. 68-0077 UH[r] F-111E 77 TFS/20 TFW PD ‘RERUN76’ VP952 - Devon C.2/2 207 Sqn AR RF-4C /10 TRW PD ‘ALEM42’ 2 approaches XV293 293 Hercules C.1 LTW ‘RRR4502’ 92 Sqn support

Strage di Ustica Il ministro della difesa inglese 1998

MRS M I FIELD, SECRETARIAT (AIR STAFF)2, MINISTRY OF DEFENCE, ROOM 8247 MAIN BUILDING, WHITEHALL, LONDON SW1A 2HB TELEPHONE (DIRECT DIAL) 0171 218 7065 (SWITCHBOARD) 0171 218 9000 (FAX) 0171 218 2680 MR S WATKIN DEPUTY HEAD OF THE UKCA YOUR REFERENCE HOME OFFICE ORGANISED AND INTERNATIONAL CRIME DIRECTORATE OUR REFERENCE JUDICIAL COOPERATION UNIT D/SEC(AS)/62/3/1/2 50 QUEEN ANN'ES GATE DATE LONDON SW1H 9AT 13.07.98 ITALIAN REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE IN THE INVESTIGATION OF THE LOSS OF A DC9 CIVIL AIRCRAFT OFF THE ISLAND OF USTICA (TYRRHENIAN SEA) JUNE 1980 FURTHER TO MISS PHILPOTT'S LETTER OF 11 JUNE, I AM NOW ABLE TO REPLY SUBSTANTIVELY TO YOUR LETTER OF 11 MARCH. I AM SORRY IT HAS TAKEN LONGER THAN WE HAD HOPED TO REACH THIS STAGE; YOU WILL, I AM SURE, APPRECIATE THAT THERE WAS A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF RESEARCH REQUIRED AND THAT IT WAS COMPLICATED BY THE LENGTH OF TIME WHICH HAS ELAPSED SINCE THE ACCIDENT. THE RESULTS OF THE DEPARTMENT'S RESEARCH ARE REPRODUCED IN THE TABLE ATTACHED AT ANNEX A. THIS LISTS ALL KNOWN RAF DEPLOYMENTS TO THE MEDITERRANEAN (INCLUDING GIBRALTAR) AND AIRCRAFT BELIEVED TO BE TRANSITING THE MEDITERRANEAN ON OR AROUND 27.06.80. I SHOULD STRESS THAT THE TABLE HAS BEEN COMPILED FROM THOSE CONTEMPORARY RECORDS WHICH SURVIVE AND WE CANNOT THEREFORE GUARANTEE THAT IT IS COMPLETE. THE RESEARCH IS FAR FROM CONCLUSIVE. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SAY WITH ANY CERTAINTY WHETHER ANY OF THE TRACKS IDENTIFIED BY NATO CORRELATE WITH ANY OF THE MOVEMENTS LISTED AT ANNEX A. NOR IS IT POSSIBLE TO SAY DEFINITIVELY, FOR SOME OF THE SERIALS, THAT THEY DO NOT. AS A RESULT, I HAVE PROVIDED A SHORT COMMENTARY AT ANNEX B WHICH I HOPE WILL ASSIST THE ITALIANS IN INTERPRETING THE DATA. THE EVIDENCE INSOFAR AS ROYAL NAVY AIRCRAFT CARRIER ACTIVITIES IS CONCERNED IS MUCH MORE STRAIGHTFORWARD. THE ITALIAN STATEMENT THAT THE ROYAL NAVY POSSESSED OPERATIONAL FIXED WING AIRCRAFT CARRIERS IN JUNE 1980 IS INCORRECT. TRADITIONAL FIXED WING NAVAL AVIATION ENDED WHEN HMS ARK ROYAL PAID OFF INTO RESERVE IN LATE 1978. HMS INVINCIBLE, THE FIRST OF THE NEW GENERATION OF CARRIERS HAD ONLY JUST BEEN COMMISSIONED AND WAS CARRYING OUT BASIC TRIALS AND TRAINING. SHE ARRIVED IN LISBON ON 23.06.80, AND SAILED FOR HOME ON 27 JUNE. SHE HAD NO AIRCRAFT EMBARKED AND WAS NOWHERE NEAR THE AREA IN WHICH THE AIRCRAFT WAS LOST. THE ONLY OTHER CARRIERS IN THE FLET WERE HMS BULWARK AND HERMES, BOTH OF WHICH WERE IN PORTSMOUTH ON THE DAY IN QUESTION. I DO NOT THINK THAT, IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, THERE IS ANY MORE WE CAN DO TO ASSIST. ANNEX B TO D/SEC(AS)/62/3/1/2 DATED 13.07.98 MOD COMMENTARY ON THE TABLE LISTING RAF MOVEMENTS OVER THE MEDITERRANEAN ON OR AROUND 27.06.80 * WE BELIEVE THE FOLLOWING SERIALS CAN BE DISREGARDED: - NOS. 3, 4, 8 AND 13: TRANSITS FLIGHTS UNLIKELY (BECAUSE OF POINT OF ORIGIN AND ARRIVAL) TO HAVE OVERFLOWN THE TYRRHENIAN SEA. * NOS. 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 & 25: AIRCRAFT CONCERNED ARE BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN ON THE GROUND AT THE TIME OF ACCIDENT. * NO. 1: THE DATE FOR THIS FLIGHT IS NOT RECORDED. WE DO KNOW, HOWEVER, THAT THE AIRCRFAT MADE A TWO-NIGHT STOPOVER AT VILLAFRANCA SOMETIME IN JUNE ON THEIR WAY TO BRINDISI. IT MAY BE POSSIBLE FOR THE ITALIANS TO ESTABLISH FROM ITALIAN RECORDS WHEN THE AIRCRAFT ARRIVED AT THE TWO LOCATIONS. * NO. 2: DEPARTED THE UK FOR RAF AKROTIRI (CYPRUS) ON 26 JUNE AND DID NOT RETURN UNTIL 1 JUL. THE AIRCRAFT STAGED THROUGH NAPLES IN BOTH DIRECTIONS, BUT ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE DATES AND TIMES ARE NOT KNOWN. * NO. 6: THESE AIRCRAFT WERE AT RAF AKROTIRI, CYPRUS, ON ARMAMENTS PRACTICE CAMP AT THE TIME OF THE ACCIDENT. WE HAVE NO RECORD OF WHETHER ANY SORTIES WERE FLOWN ON THE DAY OF THE ACCIDENT. * NO. 9: GIVEN THAT THIS C-130 AIRCRAFT LEFT PALERMO AT 1720 IT WOULD PROBABLY HAVE OVERFLOWN THE TYRRHENIAN SEA AT AROUND THE TIME OF ACCIDENT; IT IS THEREFORE ALMOST CERTAINLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ONE OF THE NATO TRACKS. * NO. 11: AIRCRAFT DEPARTED THE UK ON 24 JUNE FOR ARMAMENTS PRACTICE CAMP AT RAF DECIMOMANNU (SARDINIA). RECORDS SHOW THAT SOME OF THE AIRCRAFT FLEW ON TO RAF AKROTIRI VIA BRINDISI, BUT DO NOT SHOW WHETHER ANY SORTIES WERE FLOWN ON 27 JUNE. * NO. 24: THESE AIRCRAFT WOULD HAVE BEEN DETACHED TO RAF AKROTIRI THROUGHOUT JUNE TO SUPPORT THE VARIOUS ARMAMENTS PRACTICE CAMPS TAKING PLACE THERE. THERE IS NO RECORD OF WHETHER ANY SORTIES WERE FLOWN ON THE DAY OF THE ACCIDENT.

1998 Il governo D'alema manda Cossiga da Gheddafi

https://video.corriere.it/gheddafi-privato-francesco-cossiga/5ebf8aae-bac0-11e0-9ed5-57850404ec1a Io ipotizzo che Cossiga ando' in Libia per dirgli cosa voleva Gheddafi per stare zitto su Ustica e a firmare la cambiale italiana per il silenzio libico soprattutto dei familiari di Gheddafi che dicevano su Ustica c'entra l'italia con la Cia per rovesciare il nostro Presidente Gheddafi. C'e' il parlamento libico che applaude Cossiga interamente, li per me quelli che ora sono il pd potrebbero aver svenduto noi e la verità all'interesse Usa che Gheddafi stesse zitto. Cossiga dice io ho nascosto a Gheddafi che gli Usa vogliono la libia sotto controllo per avere l'africa sotto controllo, ecco perchè lo tengono sotto pressione mica per Lockerbie con le sanzioni e con la lista in cui è messo come terrorista. Questa è la guerra tra bande che ci ha duramente colpiti e il metodo del bastone e carota Ue Usa e Nato per mettere sotto controllo la libia e poi l'africa liberandosi di Gheddafi. Laura Picchi

1996 gli inglesi con il servizio segreto MI6 provano ad uccidere Gheddafi

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/british-secret-service-bungled-plot-to-kill-gadafy-paper-says-1.180397 The Irish Times Subscribe Home Latest Subscriber Only Crosswords & Puzzles Election 2024 Ireland Politics Opinion Business World Sport Your Money Crime & Law Property Food Health Life & Style Culture Environment Technology Science Media Abroad Obituaries Transport Motors Listen Podcasts Video Photography History Tuarascáil Student Hub Offbeat Family NoticesOpens in new window Sponsored Subscriber Rewards Competitions Weather Forecast Ireland British secret service bungled plot to kill Gadafy, paper says Britain's foreign intelligence service, MI6, attempted to kill Libya's leader, Colonel Muammar Gadafy, two years ago in a plot… Thu Aug 06 1998 - 01:00 Britain's foreign intelligence service, MI6, attempted to kill Libya's leader, Colonel Muammar Gadafy, two years ago in a plot that led to the deaths of several bystanders, it was claimed yesterday. The allegations were made by Mr David Shayler, the former intelligence officer who is being held in a Paris jail pending extradition to Britain to face charges under the Official Secrets Act. They were reported in yesterday's New York Times. The respected American newspaper reports that Mr Shayler claims that MI6 tried to assassinate Col Gadafy in February 1996 by planting a bomb under his motorcade. However agents placed the bomb under the wrong car, killing several bystanders. The report goes on to claim that the agent in charge had ties to a rightwing fundamentalist group in Libya and he was paid US$160,000 (£113,400). Under British law it is legal for MI6 to carry out acts abroad which would be outlawed in Britain, providing they are authorised by the Foreign Secretary. The Conservative Party's Mr Malcolm Rifkind held the post at the time of the alleged plot. There have been numerous attempts on Col Gadafy's life. The last reported attempt to kill him was two months ago, when gunmen opened fire on his entourage near Benghazi. READ MORE In 1986, the Thatcher government approved an air attack by British-based United States bombers on barracks where he slept. Mr Shayler first came to public attention a year ago when he told the London-based Mail on Sunday that the domestic intelligence service for which he worked, MI5, held thousands of files on people, including Labour ministers it once considered potentially subversive, and he accused the agency of bungling operations. Learn more A government injunction prevented newspapers from publishing further claims by Mr Shayler, who had fled to France. Mr John Wadham, Mr Shayler's lawyer and director of the civil rights group, Liberty, said yesterday he was trying to free him from jail in Paris, as he began to fight the British government's request to extradite Mr Shayler to Britain, where he faces charges under the Official Secrets Act. Speaking from Paris, Mr Wadham said: "I hope to be able to get a bail hearing next week and I hope then he will be released". But it could be months before Mr Shayler finds out if he will be returned to face trial in Britain.

Telegraph 2011 la Tatcher si scontra con Blair su Gheddafi

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8378222/Libya-Margaret-Thatcher-gives-Colonel-Gaddafis-Labour-friends-a-history-lesson.html Libya: Margaret Thatcher gives Colonel Gaddafi's Labour friends a history lesson Margaret Thatcher is keen to point out that, unlike her Labour successors in 10 Downing Street, she never embraced Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. By Richard Eden 13 March 2011 • 6:24am While Tony Blair and Gordon Brown should feel ashamed of courting Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, one former prime minister is proud of standing up to the Libyan dictator. At a reception for the Young Britons' Foundation at the House of Commons, Conor Burns, the Conservative MP, disclosed that he had been with Baroness Thatcher as television pictures were broadcast of the uprising in Libya. When library images of Blair embracing Gaddafi were shown, Lady Thatcher declared, passionately: "I never hugged him, I bombed him." Wedding honour Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Elton John are among those who have been suggested as potential performers at Prince William's wedding reception. The only confirmed musician for the ceremony is, however, a rather less familiar name. James McVinnie, 28, the assistant organist at Westminster Abbey, will play for an hour as the guests find their seats. "It's an extraordinary honour," he says. "I'm very excited. Of course, there is a lot of pressure and one does get nervous, but we will be so well rehearsed, hopefully there won't be a lot of opportunity for things to go wrong." The cheeky monkey adds: "Sadly, my invitation for the reception afterwards seems to have been lost in the post."

Gli Usa all'inizio del 1981 con reagan e ledeen tornano a progettare di eliminare Gheddafi

Documento desecretato Cia TARGET QADDAFI Document Type: CREST Collection: General CIA Records Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500230008-3 Release Decision: RIPPUB Original Classification: K Document Page Count: 14 Document Creation Date: December 14, 2016 Document Release Date: November 30, 2000 Sequence Number: 8 Case Number: Publication Date: February 22, 1987 Content Type: MAGAZINE File: Attachment Size PDF icon CIA-RDP91-00901R000500230008-3.pdf 1.35 MB Body: ONTF LEAPPFED NEW,,Y,~QR,K TIMES MAGAZINE p r Rele a /g4/12j ~qtA-RDP91-00901 TARGET STATINTL QADDAFI By Seymour M. Hersh EIGHTEEN AMERICAN WARPLANES SET out from Lakenheath Air Base in England last April 14 to begin a 14-hour, 5,400-mile round-trip flight to Tripoli, Libya. It is now clear that nine of those Air Force F-11 I's had an unprecedented peacetime mission. Their tar- gets: Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and his family. The mission, aut ortze by the White House, was to be the culmination of a five-year clandestine effort by the Reagan Administration to eliminate Qaddafi, who had been described a few days earlier by the President as the "mad dog of the Middle East." Since early 1981, the Central Intelligence Agency had been encouraging and abetting Libyan exile groups and foreign governments, especially those of Egypt and France, in their it bi- efforts to stage a coup d'etat - and kill, if necessary - zarre Libyan strongman. But Qaddafi, with his repeated threats to President Reagan and support of international ter- rorism, survived every confrontation and in the spring of 1986 continued to be solidly in control of Libya's 3 million citi- zens. Now the supersonic Air Force F-111's were ordered to accomplish what the C.I.A. could not. goal of That the assassination of Qaddafi was the primary g the Libyan bombing is a conclusion reached after three months of interviews with more than 70 current and former officials in the White House, the State Department, the Cen- tral Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Pentagon. These sources, a number of whom were closely involved in the planning of the Tripoli raid, agreed to talk only if their names were not used. Many of them, however, cor- roborated key information. The interviews depict a White cision-making process that by early last year was d e House relying on internal manipulation and deceit to shield true policy from the professionals in the State Department and the Pentagon. The interviews also led to these findings: ^ The attempt last April on Qaddafi's life was plotted by a' small group of military and civilian officials in the National Security Council. These officials, aware of the political risks, operated with enormous care. A back channel was set up to limit information to a few inside the Government; similar steps had been taken the year before to shield the equally sensitive secret talks and arms dealings with Iran. ^ Much of the secret planning for the Iran and Libyan operations took place simultaneously, so that the Administra- tion was pursuing the elimination of one Middle East source of terrorism while it was trading arms with another. The two missions involved the same people, including John M. Poindex- ter, then the national security adviser, and Oliver L. North, the N.S.C.'s deputy director for political-military affairs. Seymour M. Hersh is working on a book on the Reagan Ad- ministration's foreign policy for Random House. ^ There was widespread concern and anger inside the Na- tional Security Agency over the Administration's handling of the Libyan messages intercepted immediately after the April 5 terrorist bombing of a West Berlin discotheque. The White House's reliance on these messages as "irrefutable" evi- dence that Libya was behind that bombing was immediately challenged by some allies, most notably West Germany. Some N.S.A. experts now express similar doubts because 'he normal intelligence channels for translating and interpreting such mes- sages were purposely bypassed. As of this month, the N.S.A.'s North African specialists had still not been shown these inter- cepts. ^ William J. Cat-then Director of Central Intelligence, personally served as the intelligence officer for a secret task ill force on Libya set up in mid-1981, and he provided intelli- gence that could not be confirmed by his subordinates. Some task force members suspected that much of Casey's informa- tion, linking Qaddafi to alleged "hit teams" that were said to be targeting President Reagan and other senior White House aides, was fabricated by him. President Reagan's direct involvement in the intrigue against Qaddafi - as in the Iran-contra crisis - is difficult to assess. The President is known to have relied heavily on Casey's intelligence and was a strong supporter of covert ac- tion against QaddafI. But Mr. Reagan initially resisted when the National Security Council staff began urging the bombing of Libya in early 1986. Some former N.S.C. staff members ac- knowledge that they and their colleagues used stratagems to win the President over to their planning. THE PLANNERS FOR THE LIBYAN RAID AVOIDED the more formal White House Situation Room, where such meetings might be noticed by other staffers, and met instead in the office of former Navy Capt. Rodney B. McDaniel, the N.S.C.'s executive secretary. The small ad hoc group, for- mally known as the Crisis Pre-planning Group, included Army Lieut. Gen. John H. Moellering of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Michael H. Armacost, Under Secretary of State for political affairs, and Richard L. Armitage, Assistant Secre- tary of Defense for international security affairs. Most of the planning documents and option papers on the bombing were assigned to a small subcommittee headed by North; this com- mittee included Howard J. Teicher, the N.S.C.'s Near East specialist, and Capt. James R. Stark of the Navy, who was as- signed to the N.S.C.'s office of political-military affairs. For North, a Marine lieutenant colonel who had emerged by early 1985 as the ranking National Security Council opera- tive on terrorism, the Libyan raid was a chance to begin a new phase in the American counterterrorism struggle - the direct use of military force. He had served as a member of Vice President Bush's Task Force on Combating Terrorism, whose report - made public last February - presciently summarized the pros and cons of the mission: "Use of our well-trained and capable military forces offers an excellent chance of success if a military option can be im- plemented. Successful employment, however, depends on timely and refined intelligence and prompt positioning of forces. Counterterrorism missions are high-risk/high-gain operations which can have a severe negative impact on U.S. Approved For Release 2003/04/02 : CIAp ff b ( 500500230008-3 Contiftid  94Q /A ndCIA- aPe? 11TPt$R1%J1~_q?%q 30008-3 At the time of (HPR tqYPgrrFL46} e*7t ?@M Force officer says "The fact Teicher had been deeply involved in the Administration's se- cret arms dealings with Iran for nearly a year; they also knew that funds from those dealings were being funneled from a Swiss bank account controlled by North to the Admin- istration-backed contras fighting against the Sandinista Gov- ernment in Nicaragua. North has told associates that only he and a few colleagues worked on the targeting of Qaddafi and that they left no writ- ten record. "'There was no executive order to kill and no ad- ministrative directive to go after Qaddafi,' " one former N.S.C. official quotes North as saying. "They've covered their tracks beautifully." EVEN THE OFFICIAL BOMBING ORDERS supplied by the White House to the Pentagon did not cite as targets the tent where Qaddafi worked or his family home. Instead, North has told colleagues, the stated targets were the command-and-control center and admin- istrative buildings of El-Azziziya Barracks in Tripoli, none of which were struck by bombs, as well as the military side of the Tripoli airport and a com- mando training site in the nearby port city of Sidi Bilal, which were hit by the other nine F-I I1's. Also mistakenly hit by one F-111 assigned to attack the barracks was a heavily popu- lated residential area of Tripoli near the French Embassy. The shielded orders explain a series of strong denials after the bombing, especially by State Department officials, when it became clear that Qaddafi's personal quarters had been a primary target. That, too, was part of the White House or- chestration, officials acknowledge. One well-informed Air Force intelligence officer says, "There's no question they were looking for Qaddafi. It was briefed that way. They were going to kill him." An Air Force pilot involved in highly classified special operations acknowl- edges that "the assassination was the big thing." Senior Air Force officers confidently predicted prior to the raid that the nine aircraft assigned to the special mission had a 95 percent "P.K." - probable kill. Each of the nine F-11 i's carried four 2,000-pound bombs. The young pilots and weap- ons-systems officers, who sit side-by-side in the cockpit, were provided with reconnaissance photographs separately de- picting, according to one Air Force intelligence officer, "where Qaddafi was and where his family was." The mission was the first combat assignment for most of the fliers. Qaddafi's home and his camouflaged Bedouin tent, where he often worked throughout the night, were inside the grounds of El-Azziziya. The notion of targeting Qaddafi's family, according to an involved N.S.C. aide, originated with several senior C.I.A. officers, who claimed that in Bedouin culture Qaddafi would be diminished as a leader if he could not protect his home. One aide recalls a C.I.A. briefing in which it was argued that "if you really get at Qaddafi's house - and by extension, his family - you've destroyed an impor- tant connection for the people in terms of loyalty." In charge of the mission was Col. Sam W. Westbrook 3d, a Rhodes scholar and 1963 Air Force Academy graduate who was subsequently promoted to brigadier general and reassigned in September to the prestigious post of Com- mandant of Cadets at the Academy. A special biography made available to recruiting officers for the Academy in- cludes a typewritten adden- dum stating that Westbrook led the Libya raid and caution- ing that he "is not cleared to has told associates, pin- pointed Qaddafi's exact loca- tion during the long night of April 14, as the Air Force jets, bucking strong head- winds, flew around France, Portugal and Spain to the Mediterranean. The last fix on Qaddafi's location came at 11:15 P.M., Libyan time, two hours and 45 minutes before the first bombs fell. He was still at work in his tent. In the hours following the raid, Qaddafi's status was not known, but inside the White House there was excitement, one N.S.C. staff aide recalls, upon initial reports that he had not been heard from. Teicher reacted to the belief that Qaddafi had been killed by excitedly telling col- leagues: "I'll buy everybody lunch, and not at the Ex- change," an inexpensive Fri- day night staff hangout. Shortly afterward, a C.I.A. operative in Tripoli informed the agency that the Libyan leader had survived but was said to be shaken by the bombing and the injuries to his family. All eight of Qadda- The C.I.A. knew of the plot fi's children, as well as his in advance, the official says l wife, Safiya, were hospita - but was unable to learn fo ized, suffering from shock several days that the office and various injuries. His 15- I month-old adopted daughter, Hana, died several hours after the raid. Poststrike infrared intelli- gence photographs showed that the bombs, guided by the F-1I1's sophisticated on- board laser system, left a line of craters that went past both Qaddafi's two-story stucco house and his tent. Newsmen reported that the bombs had damaged his tent and the por- ticoed family home. The Air Force viewed Qad- dafi's survival as a fluke. Two senior officers separately compare his escape with Hit- ler's in the assassination at- tempt led by Count Claus von Stauffenberg in 1944, and a four-star general, after de- scribing in an interview the tight bomb pattern near Qad- dafi's tent, says resignedly, "He must have been in the head." Another well-informed Air is, they got into the exact tarp get areas they had planned. It was an ironic set of circum4 stances that prevented Qad4 dafi from being killed. It was just an accident, a bad day.'! The officer is referring to the fact that the laser-guidance systems on four of the nine F-111's attacking Qaddafi's quarters malfunctioned prior to the attack The pilots had to abort the mission before reaching the target, thus eliminating at least 16 more bombs that could have been dropped. The high-technology system that was to insure Qaddafi's death may have spared his life. The C.I.A. already knew how difficult a target Qaddaf could be. In late 1981, accord ing to a senior Governmen official, after Libyan force returned from Chad, Qaddaf# promoted the commander of his successful invasion to general and invited him to hi desert headquarters. On th jeep ride, the new genera pulled out a revolver an fired point-blank at Qaddafi. had missed and been shot to death by the Colonel's set curity guard, believed to an East German. After th attempt, Qaddafi was no seen publicly for 40 days. A FTER THE RAID Ol Tripoli, any sugges, tion that the Unitedl States had specifically tarp geted Qaddafi and his family was brushed aside by senior Administration officials, who emphasized that the Govern ment had no specific know edge of Qaddafi's wher( abouts that night. Secretary of State Georg P. Shultz told newsmen, "We are not trying to go after Qa daft as such, although think he is a ruler that is be ter out of his country." One the Air Force's goals, he sai guard around Qaddafi. At a closed budget hearirl before the House Appropri tions defense subcommitt, address this sul erg Md'Iyor Release 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500230008-3 circumstances." c?dl,y  six days Q, gWoarao~eIeasfhItQ4&Ze%GfAel r P retary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger was ques- tioned about the Air Force targeting by Democratic Representative Norman D. Dicks of Washington. "Mr. Secretary, you are a lawyer," Dicks said, according to a subsequently released manu- script. "Can you characterize this in any other way than an attempt to eliminate a for- eign leader?" "Oh, yes, Mr. Dicks, we sure can," Weinberger re- sponded. "His living quarters is a loose term. This is a com- mand-and-control building. His living quarters vary from night to night. He never spends two nights in the same place. His actual living quar- ters are a big Bedouin sort of tent. We are not targeting him individually." When questioned for this article, Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said through a spokesman that there had been what he termed "some loose talk" during planning sessions about "getting" Qaddafi, but, he went on, such targeting was "never part of the plan." The spokesman added, "There was a lot of bantering at these meetings," but Crowe and his aides "did not take the bravado seriously." A Congressional aide who participated in classified briefings on the raid says he understood all along that the denials of Administration of- ficials of any assassination plans were pro forma. "I was acute disappointment in the White House and Penta- gon, military officials say, be- cause five of the nine F-111's had failed to engage their tar- get - besides the four mal- functioning guidance sys- tems, human error aboard another F-111 resulted in the bombing of the residential area, killing more than 100 people. There was criticism from abroad, but the attack was strongly supported by the American public and Con- gress. A New York Times/ CBS poll, taken the day after the raid, showed that 77 per- cent of those queried ap- proved, although many voiced fear that it would lead to further terrorism. One reason for the wide- spread support was a collec- tive sense of revenge: the White House had repeatedly said prior to the attack that it had intercepted a series of communications, said to be "irrefutable" and a "smoking gun," which seemed to di- rectly link Libya to the April 5 bombing of the La Belle dis- cotheque in West Berlin, in which an American service- man was killed and at least 50 others injured. There were also nearly 200 civilian casu- alties, including one death. found myself feeling some- what ambivalent," he re- called, because of the Air Force's target - "you know, 'Scum of the earth.' " A senior American foreign service officer on assignment in the Middle East at the time of the raid recalls having few i illusions: "As abhorrent as we find that kind of mission, the Arabs don't. The first word I got was, 'You screwed it up again.' We missed." Only one F-111 was re- ported missing during the at- tack and the overall opera- tion was subsequently de- scribed by Weinberger as a complete success.. ANY IN THE IN- telligence com- munity believe that the Reagan Administration's obsession with Libya began shortly after the President's inauguration in 1981, and re- mained a constant preoccu- pation. Director of Central Intelli- gence Casey and Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. took office prepared to move against Qaddafi, who had been utilizing a number of former C.I.A. operatives, most notably Edwin '_Wil- son and Frank E. Teroil. to help set up terrorist training camps. There were other reasons for American concern. Qad- dafi was relentlessly anti-Is- rael, supported the most ex- treme factions in Syria and opposed the more moderate regimes of Jordan's King Hussein and Egypt's Anwar el-Sadat. There also were re- ports early in 1981 that Libya 'I QWWQQQ5Q82A0eA6'-r3 often-stated ambition to set up a new federation of Arab and Moslem states in North Africa alarmed policy makers, especially after his successful invasion early in the year of Chad. One of the areas seized by Libyan forces was believed to be rich in ura- nium. Qaddafi was further viewed as having close ties to the Soviet Union, a point re- peatedly driven home in a 15- minute color movie that was prepared by the C.I.A. in 1981 for the President and key White House officials. It was clear early in the Adminis- tration, one former White House aide recalls, that the best way to get the Presi- dent's attention was through visual means. The movie, which substituted for a writ- ten psychological profile of Qaddafi, the aide says, was meant "to show the nature of the beast. If you saw it, there's little doubt that he had to go." Libya became a dominant topic of the Administration's secret delibera- tions on C.I.A. covert action. At senior staff meetings, one participant later recalled, Haig repeatedly referred to Qaddafi as a "cancer to be cut out." In mid-1981, Haig put William P. Clark, the Deputy Secretary of State, in charge of a secret task force to look into the Qaddafi issue. The initial goal of the small group, which included a representative from the Department of Energy, was to evaluate economic sanctions, such as an embargo on Libyan oil purchases. Libya was then supplying about 10 percent of total American imports of crude oil, and an estimated 2,000 American citizens lived in Libya. Such planning was hampered by the fact that Libyan crude oil was of high quality and much in demand. Clark, whose confir- mation hearings had been marked by controversy over his lack of knowl- edge about foreign affairs, turned to Robert C. (Bud) McFarlane, then the State Department counselor, for help. One immediate step, taken early in 1981, was to encourage Egypt and other moderate Arab states to con- tinue their longstanding plotting against Qaddafi. In May, the State Department ordered the closing of the Libyan diplomatic mission in Washington and gave Libyan diplo- mats five days to leave the country. Approved For Releao&2000AWQ2g GI RDP91-00901 R000500230008-3  Approved For Release 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500230008-3 There were reports in American newspapers, leaked by Government officials, suggesting that Libyan op- position to Qaddafi was growing and citing the defection of Mohammed Magaryef, a former Libyan Auditor General living in exile in London who would become the focal point of American, French and Egyptian ef- forts over the next four years to over- throw Qaddafi. In August 1981, President Reagan approved a series of naval war games inside the so-called "line of death" - the 120-mile limit claimed by Libya in the Gulf of Sidra. As ex- pected, the Libyan Air Force rose to the bait and Navy jets shot down two SU-22 warplanes about 60 miles off i the Libyan coast. Libya accused the United States of "international terrorism." According to an account later provided to the columnist Jack Anderson, an enraged Qaddafi, in a telephone call to Ethio- pian leader Lieut. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam after the planes were shot down, threatened to assassinate President Reagan. One former Cabinet-level official, who served in a national security position in 1981, recalls that there was no question that the "only thing to do with Qaddafi was kill him. He belonged dead." However, White House and C.I.A. planning throughout much of 1981 was hampered, the for- mer official says, by President Car- ter's 1978 executive order against as- sassinations. "The thought was to get a third party," the former official said - such as Egypt's President Sadat, who some in the White House believed was within a few days of moving against Qaddafi when he was assassinated on Oct. 6, 1981.On Oct. 7, Magaryef and other exiles formed a National Front for the Salvation of Libya, based in London, "to rid Libya and the world of the scourge of Qad- dafi's regime." In the weeks following Sadat's death, newspapers and television re- ported a barrage of Qaddafi death threats to Reagan and senior Admin- istration officials. Secret Service pro- tection was ordered for the Presi- dent's three top aides, Edwin Meese 3d, James A. Baker 3d and Michael K. Deaver, and security for senior Cabi- net members, including Haig and Weinberger, was increased. Haig, at a news conference, told newsmen: "We do have repeated reports coming to us from reliable sources that Mr. Qaddafi has been funding, sponsor- ing, training, harboring terrorist groups, who conduct activities against the lives of American diplo- mats." There were further reports that five Libyan-trained terrorists had ar- rived in the United States to assassi- nate the President and some of his aides. Mr. Reagan publicly endorsed those reports. "We have the evidence and he knows it," he told newsmen, referring to Qaddafi. ACCORDING TO KEY sources, there was little doubt inside Clark's task force about who was responsible for the spate of anti-Qaddafi leaks - the C.I.A., with the support of the Presi- dent, Haig and Clark. "This item stuck in my craw," one involved offi- cial recalls. "We came out with this big terrorist threat to the U.S. Gov- ernment. The whole thing was a com- plete fabrication." Casey began traveling regularly to the State Department to attend policy meetings of the Clark group. He was accompanied at first by his deputy, Vice Adm. Bobby R. Inman, a long- time intelligence officer who had served as director of the National Se- curity Agency in the Carter Adminis- tration. According to one participant, Casey claimed to have reports and inter- cepts directly linking Qaddafi to ter- rorist activities. "I listened to Casey's pitch and it was going for broke," the participant recalls. "'We're going to take care of Qaddafi.' Everyone was very careful - no one uttered the word assassination - but the mes- sage was clear: 'This matter has to be resolved.' " If Casey's intelligence was correct, the participant recalls, it threatened the day-to-day ability of American of- ficials to travel internationally. Inman attended only one meeting, at which he said little. The participant, experienced in in- telligence matters, was struck by In- man's sudden disappearance and the lack of specificity in Casey's presen- tations. Privately, Inman confirmed to a task force member that there was no further specific intelligence on the Libyan "death threats." A trip to N.S.A. headquarters was arranged for the member; there was nothing in the raw intercepts other than "broad mouthings" by Qaddafi, the official recalls. During this time, the Amer- ican intelligence community consistently reported that Iran and its religious leader- ship were far more involved than Libya in international terrorism. Qaddafi was known to have brutally mur- dered former Libyan offi- cials, but he was not known to have acted on his many threats against Western political leaders. An intelli- gence official who has had di- rect access to communica- tions intelligence reports says, "The stuff I saw did not make a substantial case that we had a threat. There was nothing to cause us to react as we have, saying Qaddafi is public enemy No. 1." - Inman soon resigned from the C.I.A. and Casey contin- ued to handle the intelligence briefings to Clark on Libyan terrorism. Some task force members were convinced that Clark's aides, including McFarlane and Michael A. Ledeen,_then a State Depart- mentsconsultant, were leak- ing Casey's reports. One task force official eventually con- cluded that Casey was in ef- fect running an operation in- side the American Govern- ment: "He was feeding the disinformation into the (intel- ligence( system so it would be seen as separate, inde- pendent reports" and taken seriously by other Govern- ment agencies. There were reprisals planned if Qaddafi did strike. By the early 1980's, the Navy had completed elaborate con- tingency plans for the mining of Libyan harbors, and sub- marines bearing the mines were dispatched to the Medi- terranean during training ex- ercises. In late 1981, a White House official was sent to Lajes Air Base in the Azores, one N.S.C. aide recalls, to in- sure that it was secure in case an air raid against Libya was ordered. "When Haig was talking about the hit team," the aide recalled, "we were ready to bomb." None of Qaddafi's alleged threats materialized. Approved For Release 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500230008-3 Continued  Approved For Release 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500230008-3 I N JANUARY 1982, Clark succeeded Richard V. Allen as national se- curity adviser and quickly named McFarlane as a depu- ty. McFarlane brought in Donald R. Fortier from the State Department's policy planning staff. The two had worked together on defense issues as Congressional aides in the last days of the Carter Administration. Later, Howard Teicher, an- other McFarlane protege from the State Department, joined the staff. North, who had come to the White House on a temporary basis in the summer of 1981, was kept on. He would establish a close working relationship with McFarlane. "He accompa- nied McFarlane to meetings with the President and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs that other N.S.C. staffers would not participate in," one of North's former colleagues recalls. After a year and a half, Clark, who had a poor rela- tionship with Nancy Reagan and the men who ran the White House staff, resigned. The President picked McFar- lane as his successor, and McFarlane named Fortier and Vice Adm. John Poindex- ter as deputy assistants. Fortier was given the author- ity to delve into any N.S.C. ac- tivity, including covert ac- tion. A critical step occurred in early 1984 when, after a series of political defeats on the contra-aid issue in Con- gress, President Reagan au- thorized McFarlane, one aide recalls, to get the contras funded "in any way you can." North subsequently wrote an internal memorandum out- lining the shape of much of the future N.S.C. activities, calling for White House-led fund-raising efforts in the pri- vate community and among foreign governments. Mean- while, Fortier, relying on raw intelligence, was beginning to argue that the Administra- tion could make some policy moves toward Iran. The N.S.C. staff began to go operational. UAMMAR EL-QAD- dafi again became an obsession in Washington after the June 1985 hijacking of an Athens- to-Rome Trans World Air- lines flight by a group of Lebanese Shiite Moslems. One Navy diver on board was killed and 39 other Amer- icans were held hostage for 17 days. There was no evi- dence linking the hijacking to Libya, but within the Reagan Administration feelings ran high that action must be taken, and striking against Iran and Syria wouldn't do. By July, the N.S.C. was se- cretly involved in conversa- tions with Israeli officials over the possibility of trading American arms to Iran for hostages. And any attempt to target Syria would be strongly resisted by the Pen- tagon. Syria's superb antiair- craft defenses had shot down an American Navy fighter plane in 1983 and one naviga- tor, Lieut. Robert 0. Good- man Jr., had been captured. He was later released to the Rev. Jesse Jackson, one of the President's most severe critics. The target was obvious. In July, McFarlane opened a high-level foreign policy meeting with the President by declaring that diplomatic and economic pressure had failed to curb Qaddafi's sup- port for terrorism and much stronger measures had to be taken. During the late summer and early, fall, there was a series of White House meetings on Libya, under the supervision of Poindexter and Fortier. The two even made a secret visit to Egypt to coordinate possible joint military operations against fi dd a Qa . I By October, the President had formally authorized yet another C.I.A. covert opera- tion to oust Qaddafi. But, ac I~ cording to a report in The Washington Post, the Admin- istration was forced to have Secretary of State Shultz ap- pear in secret before the House Select Committee on Intelligence in order to pre- vent a rare committee veto of the action. Committee mem- bers were said to have been 1984 C.I.A. assessment con- cluding that it would be possi- ble to call on "disaffected ele- ments" in the Libyan mili- tary who could be "spurred to assassination attempts or to cooperate with the exiles against Qaddafi." United States officials knew of at least two major French operations to assassi- nate or overthrow Qaddafi in 1984, both directed by the Di- rection de la Security Exter- ieure, the French counter- part of the C.I.A. According to a participant, officials at the National Security Agency monitored cable traffic from C.I.A. headquarters to its sta- tion in Paris authorizing the sharing of highly sensitive in- telligence, including satellite photographs and communi- cations intercepts, in support of the operations. Teams of Libyan exiles were armed with Israeli and other third- party weaponry, brought to the Sudan for combat train- ing and infiltrated through Tunisia into Libya. Neither plot succeeded, al- though one, in May 1984, re- sulted in a pitched battle with Qaddafi loyalists near El-Az- ziziya Barracks. Libya later reported that 15 members of the exile group had been slain. Qaddafi emerged unscathed. THE SECRET WHITE House planning escalated dramatically after terrorist bombings in airports in Vienna and Rome on Dec. 27, 1985, killed 20 people, five of them Americans. Within days, the N.S.C.'s Crisis Pre-planning Group authorized contingency mili- tary planning that included possible B-52 bomber strikes on Libya from the United States, as well as F-111 at- tacks from England. Predict- ably, Qaddafi responded to published reports of Amer- ican plans by warning that his nation would "harass American citizens in their own streets" if the bombers came. Approved For Release d over a toe-secret) ~~b3/04/02 : IA-RDP91-009018000500230008-3  Newsmen were told that the C.I.A. had foutAltw Libyan connection to the air- port attacks, although the Is- raelis publicly blamed them on a Palestinian terrorist fac- tion led by Abu Nidal. A State Department special report, made public early in 1986, was unable to cite any direct connection between Libya and the airport incident. The sole link was that three of the passports used by the terror- ists in Vienna had been traced to Libya. One had been lost in Libya by a Tunisian la- borer eight years earlier and two had been seized by Libyan officials from Tuni- sians as they were expelled in mid-1985. One involved White House aide believes that the basic I decision to use military force was made at a high-level Na- tional Security Planning Group meeting on Jan. 6, 1986, in the emotional after- math of the airport bomb- ings. All of the key Adminis- tration officials attended, in- cluding the President, Shultz, Weinberger, Casey and Poin- dexter. Reviewing his notes of the For Releain {oloftanl't~W1001 resist a military response pending a "smoking gun" - some evidence link- ing Qaddafi to the airport bombings. Another of Mr. Reagan's concerns was that an attack on Libya must ap- pear to be a just response. The Joint Chiefs were known to be reluctant to use force as a response to terrorism, and had been resisting White House staff entreaties to move a third air- craft carrier into the Mediterranean to buttress the two already on patrol. The Joint Chiefs had claimed that at least three carriers and their strike force would be needed if Libya re- sponded to a bombing with its 500 1 fighter aircraft. Adding a third car- rier to the task force, the Joint Chiefs explained, would disrupt the schedule of leaves for seamen and pilots. One White House aide recalls a tense meeting in which Richard Armitage of the Defense Department declared, "Cancel the leaves," only to have the Joint Chiefs insist that three carriers could not be on station until March. Jan. 6 meeting, a White House aide recalls that a decision was made to pro- voke Qaddafi by again send- ing the Navy and its war- planes on patrol in the Gulf of Sidra. Any Libyan response would be seized upon to jus- tify bombing. According to this N.S.C. aide, there was talk, inspired by a memorandum written by North, Teicher and Stark, of using one of the Navy's most accurate weapons, the Tomahawk missile, to attack targets in Libya. Libyan air defenses, the White House had been told, were ex- cellent and would probably shoot down some American aircraft. The Tomahawk, a submarine-launched cruise missile with a range of 500 miles, is accurate at that distance to within one hundred feet of a target. The next day, Jan. 7, the President, declaring that there was "irrefuta- ble" evidence of Qaddafi's role in the airport attacks, announced economic sanctions against Libya, including a ban on direct import and export trade. The idea, advocated by Forti- er, was "to get economic sanctions out of the way so the next time they could do more," one involved White House aide recalls. President Rea- gan, the aide adds, may not have been fully aware that he was being boxed in by an N.S.C. staff that wanted ac- S PEAKING AT THE NA- tional Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington on Jan. 15, George Shultz argued that the United States had a legal right to use military force against states that support terrorism. Under interna- tional law, he claimed, "a nation at- tacked by terrorists is permitted to use force to prevent or pre-empt fu- ture attacks, to seize terrorists or to rescue its citizens, when no other means is available." Shultz's statement was part of a carefully constructed scenario. In subsequent weeks, one White House official recalls, State Department lawyers began to prepare an exten- sive legal paper arguing, in part, that "in the context of military action what normally would be considered murder is not." Two days after Shultz's speech, the President signed a secret executive order calling for contacts with Iran and waiving regulations blocking arms shipments there. Casey was in- structed not to inform Congress, as the law provided, because of "se- curity risks." The White House was careening down two dangerous paths. E ARLY IN 1986, INTELLI- gence sources said, the Na- tional Reconnaissance Office, the secret group responsible for the procurement and deployment of America's intelligence and spy satel- lites, was ordered to move a signals intelligence satellite (SIGINT) from its orbit over Poland to North Africa, where it could carefully monitor Libyan communications. Libyan diplomatic and intelligence ReiacaQ2 a routine target of the N.S.A., whose field stations ring the globe; but beefed-up coverage was deemed necessary. Interception stations in England, Italy and Cyprus, among others, were ordered to moni- tor and record all communications out of Libya. In the N.S.A. this is known as "cast-iron" coverage. A high-priority special category (SPECAT) clearance was set up for the traffic, denying most N.S.A. inter- ception stations access to the Libyan intelligence. A special procedure for immediately funneling the intercepts to the White House was established. A third American aircraft carrier arrived in the Mediterranean in mid- March, and the three carriers and their 30-ship escort were sent on an "exercise" into the Gulf of Sidra. It was the largest penetration by the American fleet into the Libyan- claimed waters. One involved N.S.C. aide acknowl- edges that Poindexter, who had suc- ceeded McFarlane as national se- curity adviser, and Fortier had deter- mined that the Navy should respond to any loss of American life in the ex- ercise by bombing five targets in Libya. As the Navy task force sailed toward Libya, the aide remembers, he overheard Fortier and General Moellering, the Joint Chiefs' delegate to the Crisis Pre-planning Group, dis- agree on tactics during a meeting in the N.S.C. crisis center. Fortier, the aide says, asked the general to outline the Navy's rules of engagement in case Libya responded. "Proportional- ity," the general said. "They should be disproportionate," the aide heard Fortier sharply re- spond. On March 25 and 26, the Sixth Fleet attacked four Libyan ships, destroy- ing two of them. Navy aircraft also conducted two raids against a radar site on the Libyan coast. There were no American casualties and no Libyan counterattack. The White House, pressing the advan- tage, warned Qaddafi that any Libyan forces venturing more than 12 miles from shore - the international limit recognized by the United States - were subject to attack. Qaddafi's failure to rise to the bait frustrated the N.S.C. staff. One senior State De- partment official acknowl- edges, "Everybody wanted to beat the hell out of Libya." In- stead, the fleet was with- drawn after three days in the Gulf of Sidra, two days earlier than planned. tion. "We were m4 t 'etve&Frro f (Release 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500230008-3 the President," the aide says.  Thcpp6Rspd citidglee po'ie0iYS~vitaGerte~yesPcqiQ09~}~ iOM90$nIny of N.S.C. aides remained: how to convince the reluctant Presi- dent that bombing was essen- tial. In late March, the N.S.A. intercepted a message from Tripoli to Libyan agents in East Berlin, Paris, Belgrade, within hours. One State De- partment intelligence officer recalls, upon seeing the inter- cepts, "It was too good. I knew it would leak." On April 7, Richard R. Burt, the Ambassador to West Ger- Geneva, Rome and Madrid many, publicly linked the ordering them "to prepare to Libyans to the La Belle carry out the plan." Shortly bombing. Interviewed on the before 8 P.M. on April 4., "Today" show, Burt said, Washington time (April 5 in "There is very, very clear Germany), the La Belle disco i I evidence that there is Libyan in West Berlin was blown up. involvement." Fourteen hours later, the Yet police officials in West men in the White House had Berlin repeatedly told news- their "smoking gun." men that they knew of no evi- B Y 10 A.M. ON SATUR- day, April 5, the N.S.A. had intercepted, decod- ed, translated from Arabic and forwarded to the White House a cable from the Libyan People's Bureau in East Berlin to Tripoli stating, in essence, according to N.S.C. and State Department officials, that "We have something planned that will make you happy." A few hours later, a second mes- sage from East Berlin to Tripoli came across the top- secret computer terminals in the N.S.C. providing the exact time of the La Belle bombing and reporting that "an event occurred. You will be pleased with the result." The messages were rushed to the California White House, where the President was spending Easter. The decision to bomb was made that afternoon, one former White House official recalls: "The same people who wanted to have a show of dence linking Libya to the dis- cotheque bombing. One week after the attack, Manfred Ganschow, chief of the anti- terrorist police in Berlin, was quoted as having "rejected the assumption that suspi- cion is concentrated on Libyan culprits." Christian Lochte, president of the Hamburg office of the Protection of the Constitu- tion, a domestic intelligence unit, told a television inter- viewer five days after the bombing, "It is a fact that we do not have any hard evi- dence, let alone proof, to show the blame might unequivo- cally be placed on Libya. True, I cannot rule out that Libya, in some way, is re- sponsible for the attack. But I must say that such hasty blame, regarding the two dreadful attacks at the end of the year on the Vienna and Rome airports, for which Libya had immediately been made responsible, did not prove to be correct." A senior official in Bonn, in- force in late March could now I terviewed last month for this do it in the context of terror- article, said that the West ism." The President would no German Government contin- longer be, as one aide put it, ued to be "very critical and "the inhibitor." skeptical" of the American By Monday, Teicher had intelligence linking Libya to prepared a discussion paper the La Belle bombing. The for a talk at a high-level United States, he said, which meeting on the proposed has extremely close intelli- bombing; one key element, a gence ties with West Germa- i firsthand source recalls, was ny, had made a tape of its in- a proposal that the intercepts tercepts available to German should be declassified and intelligence, with no change made public in a Presidential in Bonn's attitude. speech. The idea, the White Some White House officials House official adds, was to again "make an end run on the President" and prevent any second thoughts. had immediate doubts that the case against Libya was clear-cut. The messages had been delivered by the N.S.A. to the White House, as direct- ed, without any analysis. them specifically linking Qaddafi to the La Belle bomb- ing. What is more, the disco- theque was known as a hang- out for black soldiers, and the Libyans had never been known to target blacks or other minorities. The normal procedure for SPECAT intelligence traffic from Libya is that it be pro- cessed and evaluated by the G-6 group at N.S.A. headquar- ters at Fort Meade, Md., be- fore being relayed elsewhere. But the La Belle traffic was never forwarded to G-6. As of this month, the April 4 and 5 Libyan intercepts had not been seen by any of the G-6 experts on North Africa and the Middle East. "The G-6 section branch and division chiefs didn't know why it was taken from them," says an N.S.A official. "They were bureaucratically cut out and so they screamed and yelled." Another experienced N.S.A. analyst notes: "There is no doubt that if you send raw data to the White House, that constitutes misuse because there's nobody there who's capable of interpreting it." N.S.A. officials had no choice if the White House asked for the intercepts, he says, but adds, "You screw it up every time when you do it - and especially when the raw traf- fic is translated into English from a language such as Ara- bic, that's not commonly known." Yet another analyst points out that Qaddafi was known to have used personal couriers in the past - and not radio or telephone communi- cation - in his many assas- sinations and assassination attempts. A senior State Department official who was involved in the White House delibera- tions on the Libyan bombing insists that he and his col- leagues were satisfied with the handling of the intercepts. "There was nothing to sug- gest that it was not handled in good faith," he says. "The in- tercepts did not say La Belle disco was bombed. They never identified the site. But there was a history that the Libyans were going to mount an operation in Europe." Approved For Release 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500230008-3  T HERRp{~+-,4sv F _Rel as%cQft 4k02in Q1M DP91-00'9?1>~@AO Q0&Q~)0?$it mosphere of cynicism given to colleagues, North, the Joint Chiefs Chairman, and disarray within just prior to the bombing, North told colleagues. At the the National Security Council made a series of suggestions close of the meeting, with the as it prepared to bomb Libya at a high-level meeting at- President out of hearing, while supplying arms to Iran. tended by the President, North related, Crowe walked Poindexter was being hailed Poindexter, Crowe and Gen. up to him, and nose to nose in Newsweek as "a cool war- Charles A. Gabriel, the Air warned: "Young man, you'd I rior" who "steadies the Force Chief of Staff. With the better watch your step." N.S.C." But privately, some approval of Casey, North had Through an aide, Crowe I security council officials say, already interceded with the denies the encounter, saying he was feeling overwhelmed, Israelis to increase the intel- that he "did not recall any and would soon be telling ligence available before the discussion on substantive close associates that he mission. Now he argued for matters that he ever had" wanted a transfer to the Na- using a covert Navy SEAL with North. "Nor does he re- tional Security Agency. By team, which would surface on I call any meetings with North April, some N.S.C. insiders, the beach near Qaddafi's tent except as a back-bench note and reportedly the President, and residence and set up a taker" at White House meet- knew that William Casey had laser beam that could guide ings, the aide said. Further- started undergoing radiation the American bombs directly more, Crowe was quoted by treatment for prostate can- to the main targets. The at- an aide as saying, "He doesn't cer; his illness was not made tacking planes could then recall North having any input public until December. Don- launch their bombs offshore at all in the April raid." ald Fortier also was ex- - out of range of Libyan an- tremely ill. He would die of tiaircraft missiles - and be T N A NATIONALLY liver cancer in August. just as effective. The SEAL televised speech on April In the weeks preceding team, apparently at North's 14, President Reagan said April 14, Oliver North has direction, had already been the intelligence linking Libya told associates, he became deployed to the Middle East. to the La Belle bombing "is extremely active in the But, North told colleagues, direct, it is precise, it is ir- Libyan planning. The Joint Crowe said no - that no one refutable. We have solid evi- Chiefs had decided on a two- wanted to put Americans at dence about other attacks pronged aerial attack, involv- risk. Qaddafi has planned." He Be- ing Navy units in the Mediter- North reportedly then scribed the Tripoli raid as a ranean and the F-111's from raised the issue of using the "series of strikes against the England. But none of the mili- Air Force's most-advanced headquarters, terrorist fa- tary planners wanted to see fighter-bomber, the superse- cilities and military assets American airmen shot down cret Stealth, said to be capa- that support Muammar Qad- and paraded around Libya; ble of avoiding enemy radar. dafi's subversive activities." and there was concern that The aircraft would be perfect The President added: "We the Navy's A-6 bombers to attack Qaddafi's personal Americans are slow to anger. would be vulnerable to an- quarters and tent; it could be We always seek peaceful ave- tiaircraft fire. The F-11 is not ferried to the huge American nues before resorting to the only flew much faster - they naval base at Rota, Spain, use of force, and we did. We would hit the target going 9 and attack from there. Admi- tried quiet diplomacy, public miles a minute - but also ral Crowe again said no, ex- condemnation, economic had far superior electronic plaining that the Stealth tech- sanctions and demonstra- defense mechanisms to ward nology was too valuable to I tions of military force - and off enemy missiles. risk. none succeeded." The round-trip from Eng- North told colleagues that According to one involved land to Libya, over France, he persisted in seeking alter- N.S.C. official, there was 1 would be about seven hours, natives, raising the possibil- other language prepared for well within the F-11 is limits. ity of attacking the Qaddafi the President - a few para- Admiral Crowe and the Joint quarters with a convention- graphs bracketed into the Chiefs agreed that the F-111's ally armed Tomahawk cruise text in case the White House would play the lead role in the missile fired from a subma- could confirm that Qaddafi attack, buttressed by 12 Navy rine. Admiral Crowe, the re- had been killed. The message A-6's, which were assigned to port goes, responded that would echo an analysis pre- bomb an airfield and military there were too few conven- pared by Abraham D. Sofaer, barracks 400 miles east of tionally armed Tomahawks the State Department legal Tripoli. in the arsenal. North has adviser, claiming that the But North has told col- claimed that he then raised I United States had the legal leagues that he had doubts the possibility of supplement- right "to strike back to pre- about the Air Force's mis- ing the bombing by mining vent future attacks." The kill- sion, and they were height- and quarantining the har- ing of Qaddafi, under that ened when the French bars, saying he wanted "a far doctrine, was not retaliation refused to permit the F-111 more sophisticated scenario nor was it in any way a crime. overflight. The Air Force was to cover up the fact that the But Qaddafi was not killed, now confronted with a diffi- target was going to be an as- and a White House official re- cult assignment against the sassination." counts an elaborate briefing strong headwinds of the Bay a day or so after the raid at of Biscay. which the Air Force's failure Approved For Release 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500230008-3 ConhfU88  wash N'av obvt6"i S. ft were at ease, confident," the aide recalls. "All had worked perfectly." The Navy's two main targets had been accu- rately attacked, with no loss. "The poor Air Force guy," re- calls the aide. "He was defen- sive and polite. Talked about how the White House kept on changing signals." The intelligence satellite that had been moved from Poland was ordered to re- main over Libya, in the hope tember, there was a 200y3,'~;5-X06601 R000500230008-3 ficials to Iran, and continued arms trading. Within a month that the bombing would rally those military men opposed to Qaddafi and spark a revolt. "They honestly thought Qad- dafi would fall or be over- thrown," one National Se- curity Agency official says, referring to the N.S.C, "and so they kept the bird up there." There was no coup d'etat - and there was one intelli- i gence satellite missing over Eastern Europe in late April, when an explosion rocked one of the reactors at the Soviet nuclear power plant in Cher- nobyl, in the Ukraine. After another bureaucratic battle inside the intelligence com- munity, one N.S.A. official re- calls, the satellite was re- turned to its normal orbit above Poland, as the United States tried to unravel the ex- tent of damage to the nuclear power plant and the scope of the fallout threat to Western Europe. The White House's two- track policy toward Libya and Iran continued. In May, McFarlane, accompanied by North and Teicher, among others, traveled to Teheran bearing arms. A few weeks later, Poindexter routinely approved a proposal, strongly supported by Casey and Shultz, calling for an- other disinformation opera- tion against Libya in the hopes of provoking Qaddafi. The C.I.A. triggered the re- newed planning, one insider recalls, by reporting once again that "Qaddafi was on the ropes." the policy - and the National Security Council - began to come apart. By early Novem- ber, the Iran scandal was on the front pages. Its major casualty was the credibility of a popular President. In the wake of that scandal, Oliver North would emerge in the public's perception as a unique and extraordinary player inside the National Se- curity Council, a hard-charg- ing risk-taker who was differ- ent from his colleagues. It is now apparent that North was but one of many at work in the White House who believed in force, stealth and opera- tions behind the back of the citizenry and the Congress. He was not an aberration, but part of a White House team whose full scope of opera- tions has yet to be unraveled. North, along with Poindex- ter, Teicher and others, have left the Government. The much-reviled Colonel Qad dafi remains in power. ^ Approved For Release 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-00901R000500230008-3  ARTICLEAP+ ABED Approved For Release 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-009Q CHICAGO TRIBUNE STATINTL ON PAGE I I A 17 February 1987 An addiction to covert operations despite their limited value 4 PARIS-As the direction of the CIA passes from William Case ,enthusiastic patron of the "operations" e o t e intelligence agency, to Robert M. QatcL a career intelligence analyst, a good"8e"ar t en approvingly about Casey's rebuilding of the agency's covert action capability. No one seems to be asking what covert action is worth, or whether it recently has done the United States any good. "Covert," of course, has in CIA matters acquired a rather peculiar definition, that of an officially proclaimed program, debated in Congress, and followed in close detail by the press. The government itself is responsible for this, since officials deliberately make known their "covert" programs to promote their policy in Congress and collect support from the public., Possibly the United States runs truly covert "covert" programs, in addition to the ones we know so much about. One is inclined to doubt it, though-Americans never having been particularly talented in this matter, as well as being devoted to publicizing what we are up to. Support for anticommunist, or ostensibly anticommunist, guerrilla movements in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia and Nicaragua certainly is the main element in current U.S. covert operations. Serious questions should be asked. First is a political question: Have these movements a serious chance of succeeding? The answer in every case except the Afghan is no. The contras will return to Managua only if the United States Army takes them there. The guerrillas the U.S. supports in Angola and Cambodia are tribal, regional or factional, not national. The Afghan resistance is a national movement of resistance to a foreign occupation and has imposed severe costs upon the Soviet Union, with the result that Moscow now wants out of Afghanistan. But like the United States in Vietnam 20 years ago, the Soviet Union wants it both ways-to leave Afghanistan and also to keep a communist government there. Second is a moral question. If a guerrilla movement isn't going to win, is support for it justified? The guerrillas themselves may say they will fight on, no matter what their prospects are. They are to be honored if they take that stand. For the United States to give support to guerrillas without serious prospect of success implies a cynical decision to let them die for American interests, while Washington reserves the right to abandon them when that seems expedient. Let us not forget that the United States has again and again supported guerrilla movements and then dropped them, often after having encouraged them to commit themselves to combat and risks of a scale they ,/William Pfaff might not otherwise have dared. The list of victims is a sobering one, including Ukrainians, Albanians, Chinese Nationalists, Tibetans, Kurds, Meos and Montagnard tribesmen in Vietnam. There is not much doubt that the contras sooner or later will join that list. .. Adm. Bobby lnm who directed the National S or our years and then became deputy director of the CIA, recently told a University of California at Berkeley seminar that he is skeptical of the usefulness of covert action. "I'm not persuaded that efforts to change governments have over the long haul been either very successful or very effective. It's hard to get along with unfriendly governments; it's even harder to try and prop up people to govern that you helped put in place that don't have the capacity to govern." He added that he is persuaded that, in the CIA, "covert action has tended to draw support away from what I consider a much more vital function: understanding what goes on in the outside world." Two factors are responsible for the American government's addiction to covert enterprises despite their demonstrated limits. The first is that covert action provides something to do. It does little to answer the real problem, but it answers the problem of seeming to do something about the real problem. It . provides a useful illusion. The second reason we like covert action is that it is exciting and seems romantic. "The trade of the spy is a very fine one," wrote Honore de Balzac. "Is it not in fact enjoying the excitements of a thief, while still retaining the character of an honest citizen? ... The only excitement which can compare with it is that of the life of a gambler." Like the gambler, the covert operator, of course, loses more often than he wins. For him, as an individual, the game may nonetheless justify the odds. For a government, dealing in national interests both grave and enduring, the gambler's choices are surely false choices. Approved For Release 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500230008-3  ARTICLE APP@,i vedForlelease 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500230008-3 ON PAGE ,4.A US\ TODAY 1? February 1987 CIA choice has tough tasks ahead By Sam Meddis USA TODAY The Senate could confirm ri Robert-,Cates-today as youn- 'gi~ver CIA director. But, at 43, the 21-year CIA veteran faces two larger tests: ^ First, defending the CIA's role in the Iran-contra scandal at confirmation hearings - to- day on CNN at 10 a.m. EST. ^ And, over the next two years, establishing his indepen- dence from the Reagan admin- istration so he can retain the post under a new president. UPI "I flatly predict - I have no GATES: Married father of two question in my mind - he called a very private person should be confirmed," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. "oil drilling equipment" Chas a reputation for Some senators may try to ex- hard work, a flair for analysis tract a pledge that Gates will and a scholar's savvy about the tell the panel of all future se- Soviet Union. He joined the cret CIA operations or resign. CIA in 1966, remaining in the Ex-CIA Deputy Director analysis unit - never in clan-, Bobb Inma Gates has a ante of staying on af- destine activities. He become s Fong c deputy director in April. ter Reagan: "His reputation But the Senate Intelligence (as) a non-partisan, competent Committee hearings will raise professional is already there." sticky questions about Gates'-fJ Says ex-CIA Director Stans- role in the Iran affair. field Turner: "It's a good move "I expect some fairly tough to start with a new generation." questions on ... what he knew./ vv Roy, Godson, a Georgetown and when he knew it," says Jim University government profes- Dykstra, a committee staffer. sor, says Gates will have to If Gates knew anything, the fend off congressional efforts questions are likely to turn to at new restrictions on the CIA why he didn't tell Congress. while improving counter-intel- While committee Chairman ligence in the wake of embar- Sen. David Boren, D-Okla., says rassing big spy cases. the hearing won't become a "It would be hard enough to full-blown arms scandal probe, do either one of those," Godson Gates is certain to be asked said. "And he's got to do both." about reports of a cover-up. Contributing: William Ringle News reports claim a cover- - up story was drafted for ex-CIA director William Casey - now recovering from brain surgery - to be presented before the Senate, saying the CIA believed missile shipments to Iran were Approved For Release 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500230008-3  WASHINGTON TIMES 3February 1987 610, STATINTL Reagan names Gates 'to succeed Case Little `cloak-and-dagger' on deputy chief ~e resume N 71MES Robert Michael Gates, President Reagan's nominee for CIA director, has a reputation as an intelligence bureaucrat with a wealth of knowl- edge about analysis but scant exper- ience with clandestine operations - often considered the heart and soul of the spy business. A career CIA analyst who special- izes in Soviet affairs, Mr. Gates, 43, became acting director last month when William Casey underwent brain surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. Mr. Casey resigned yesterday. The announcement of Mr. Gates' nomination drew praise from most intelligence experts, with the excep- tion of some critics who felt he might derail Mr. Casey's large-scale covert action programs in support of anti- communist resistance movements. 4 David Atlee Ph fillips a former CIA clandTestine services officer, praised the Casey era for what he called "the revival" of both the agency's morale and the funds alloted for covert op- erations. But Mr. Phillips said he believed Mr. Gates, who would be the first CIA analyst to become the agency's director, would not provide the same level of support for covert action. "Since his background is devoid of all covert action experience, we will assume there will be very little of that in the last two years of the Reagan administration," Mr. Phillips said yesterday. Born in Wichita, Kan., Mr. Gates attended the College of William and Mary and Indiana University. He earned a doctorate from George- town University. He joined the CIA in 1966 and then spent three years in the Air Force before becoming a CIA analyst. In 1971 he joined the U.S. SALT negotiating team as an intelligence adviser, and in 1973 became the s ass>stant national intelligence officer for strategic programs. He was detailed by the agency to the National Security Council dur- ing the Nixon and Ford administra- tions and later became an executive assistant to Carter administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, Mr. Brzezinski, now with the Cen- ter for Strategic and International Studies, described Mr. Gates as "a shrewd, experienced professional" who advocated close cooperation be- tween the White House and CIA. "One of the things he always stressed to me was that the CIA and National Security Council should be natural allies." Mr. Brzezinski said. "I think that analysis will serve him well as DCI." Former Carter era CIA Director ,y Adm. Stansfield Thrner, who chose 1VIrr. ates as a policy adviser, said the director-designate would have a hard time repairing the agency's poor relations with congressional oversight committees following the Iran arms deal controversy. "I think the president was right to put someone in there who is fully familiar with what went on," Adm. 'lltrner said. "He's imaginative and he helped me originate many of the innovative things I tried to do for the CIA." Adm. Thrner has been criticized by some former CIA officials for summarily dismissing hundreds of the agency's most experienced clan- destine services operators. Mr. Gates was chosen by Mr. Casey to be an executive assistant in 1981, but later returned to his post as the top intelligence analyst on the Soviet Union. He became CIA deputy director for intelligence in 1982 and assumed the No. 2 post at the agency last sum- mer. During confirmation hearings, Mr. Gates supported the administra- tion's large-scale paramilitary pro- grams but noted the agency was re- sponsible only for implementing such programs. "It [covert action] is a decision made by the National Security Coun- cil, and CIA is an instrument by which it is implemented," Mr. Gates told the Senate Intelligence Commit- tee. "And I believe that when that decision is made, the CIA has an ob- ligation to implement it as effec- tively and as efficiently as possible." Intelligence sources said sugges- tions for covert action programs often began with plans developed by the CIA's operations directorate. One intelligence source, who de- clined to be identified, said the nomi- nation of Mr. Gates was a sign that agency enthusiasm for covert action has ended. "The agency will be very, very hesitant to engage in anything with a flap potential unless they have someone like Casey willing to take the heat," the source said. "He was willing to give things a whirl, but I don't think anybody sees Gates that way. "If I were a covert action oper- ative," the source continued, "I would think about early retirement, or not working very hard until some- one is in there who will support the programs." Another source said the nomina- tion did not have the support of clan- destine services branch officials, al- though a CIA official said Mr. Gates had the backing of CIA Deputy Di- rector for Operations Clair George. ormer CIA Deputy Director Bobby Rav Inma disagreed and sai Mr. Gates was "absolutely the best appointment the president could make." "He is the first director of central intelligence from the analytical side," Mr. Inman said. "But I'm com- fortable he will call on the depth of competence from inside DDO [oper- ations directorate] to operate it and operate it efficiently." Senate Intelligence Committee member Sen. Chic Hecht, Nevada Republican, said tie oo d not ex- pect Mr. Reagan to have nominated Mr. Gates without Mr. Casey's full support. "Bob Gates has big shoes to fill," said Mr. Hecht, who praised Mr. Casey for "rebuilding" the CIA. "He has got a top staff of people at the CIA that he can rely on." Approved For Release 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500230008-3  ppr~ )WO For Release 2003/04/02 :CIA-RDP91-009018000500230008-3 20- Year Career Man Cautious Gates Called Contrast to Casey Style 3 February 1987 B MICHAE,~. WIt Times-Staff Writer WASHINGTON-To succeed his close friend William J. Casey in the nation's top intelligence post, Pres- ident Reagan on Monday nominat- ed a man who is Casey's top deputy and in many ways his opposite. The contrast between Casey and Robert M. Gates likely will please many critics-of the CIA and the rest of the intelligence bureaucracy, now under fire for missteps in both the Iran arms affair and the quasi- private support network for rebels in Nicaragua. But whether the cautious, even-tempered Gates will have the same sway over the intelligence community as the irascible, adven- turous Casey is an open question. Gates is a 20-year veteran of the CIA and the National Security Council and the holder of a doctor- ate in Soviet history. He is a cautious sort who reportedly frowns on "black" operations such as the Iran arms affair, favoring the sort of dispassionate analysis on which he has built his own career. Friends and observers say that he has a quick wit and acceptable political skills. At 43, Gates is the youngest man ever proposed to become director of central intelligent. a job that includes not only management of the CIA but also coordination of the entire U.S. intelligence community, from the Pentagon to the National Security Agency. He appears little like the 73- year-old Casey, the oldest director of central Intelligence in the post's 30-year history. Casey is a former World War II intelligence officer, a Reagan political guru, an anti-So- viet hardliner and cantankerous defender of the kinds of risky intelligence missions-such as the Iran arms sales-that had fallen into disfavor in the 1970s. A Senate Intelligence Committee report last week suggested that the CIA under Casey became more deeply involved in the Iran and contra scandals than has been admitted. Although Gates served as deputy director for intelligence during the period, he so far has not been tainted by the affairs. 'Careful Analyst' ''He's a very competent, straightforward person. a person of integrity. He's a careful analyst. He's fair-minded," said Michael Oksenberg, a University o hi- an professor and former co- work- er at t e National Security Council. "He represents to me the best of the profession, and it's a demanding profession." "I think he's clean," one former top CIA official said Monday. "I think he'll be questioned closely" during confirmation hearings by wary senators, "but many of them will be relieved to have somebody who's clearly not political." For someone reportedly so apo- litical, Gates' ascent through the espionage bureaucracy has been unusually rapid. Casey already had been retired from the CIA's predecessor, the wartime Office of Strategic Servic- es, for 20 years when Gates joined the CIA in 1966 a an intelligence analyst. In 1974, the year he ac- quired his doctorate from George- town University in Washington, Gates moved from the CIA to the National Security Council, where he remained through the Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter adminis- trations. By the time he left the NSC in 1979, he was executive assistant to then-National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, controlling the paper flow within the White House national security bureaucra- cy and acting as an informal advis- er on Soviet affairs. Back in the CIA under Reagan. he served first as the agency's top Soviet analyst and then, in 1982. as deputy director for i.itelliger,ce. a year rater he added the post of director of the National Intelli- gence Council, the body that over- sees the assembly of intelligence "estimates" of worldwide political and military situations. It is in the world of number- crunching and thoughtful forecast- ing-and not dark-alley spying missions-that Gates has excelled. "Gates has demonstrated repeat- edly a very tough mind and he sees the role of intelligence agencies as making judgments, not lust writing United Prey (nternauenai Robert M. Gates history," said Bobby Ray Inman, a former deputy gene under Casey. "When you do that, you're never 100% right. But your value is greater." The covert operations that Casey so admired "will be a new business to him," Inman said of Gates. Other associates say that Gates brings the professionalism add breadth of view to the job thd!' Casey, the World War II "cowboy," visibly lacked. But the dispassiont, ate Gates lacks the White House clout and, perhaps, the internak loyalty that made Casey a powerfuk and often popular CIA director. "He's quick to form ludgmentS and not easy to turn around. Some- times he forms judgments by the quickness of arrogance rather than analysis," one critical observer said. "He is a crackerjack analyst who's rough on people. His man- agement style is to deal with substance and he doesn't give enough time to trying to win the allegiance of those who have to carry out his instructions " Several former associates said, that Gates may be hindered in thk job by his relative youth. He i4i fully three decades younger than Rea- gan, and years the junior of other intelligence heavyweights such as National Security Adviser Frank C. Carlucci The odds that he will be replaced by the next President.. in about two years. also limit his power to change the intelligence community's course, they said.. Cc,v %A., )f.y Approved For Release 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500230008-3  Approved For Release 2003/04/02 : CIA-RDP91-00901 R000500230008-3 But he has other assets to draw on, mciuding close ties to Car!ucc: and .o National Secur;t?: A;cncy D:rector

1981 Gheddafi vuole uccidere Reagan

Behind Qaddafi's '81 plot to assassinate President Reagan By Daniel Southerland Staff correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor Dec. 07, 1982, 12:12 p.m. ET | Washington The 1981 threat by Libya's leader, Muammar Qaddafi, to assassinate President Reagan may have resulted from Colonel Qaddafi's misreading of American pressures against him, according to top US intelligence experts. Qaddafi's life and political survival were in no danger from the United States, the experts say. But, they add, a combination of threatening remarks from American officials, the misreporting of secret American attempts to curb Libyan influence in Africa, and an aerial shootout off the Libyan coast between US Navy and Libyan fighters was apparently what caused Qaddafi to threaten Mr. Reagan's life. The experts, who request anonymity, have no doubt that the threat from Qaddafi was real. They say they now believe that the ''hit teams'' launched by Qaddafi never reached the US. But some of their members were reported to have arrived at undisclosed locations on the North American continent, presumably in Canada or Mexico, late last year. In the summer of 1981, a series of press reports concerning secret American actions against Libya created a stir in Washington. The problem was that the first reports on the subject seem to have been misinformed. According to one specialist on the subject who was actively involved at the CIA at the time, the initial leaker may have been a congressman or aide who, unlike some others, had not taken the trouble to get fully briefed. The reports came at a time when CIA director William J. Casey was under fire from senators because of past business dealings and the controversial appointment of Max Hugel, a businessman with little experience in intelligence matters, to run the CIA's covert operations. The atmosphere was one in which everything Mr. Casey did was questioned. Newsweek magazine, on Aug. 3, 1981, reported that Mr. Hugel had presented the House Select Committee on Intelligence with a costly and large-scale plan to overthrow Qaddafi. According to Newsweek, committee members thought the plan implied that Qaddafi would be assassinated. The committee supposedly sent a strong letter of protest to Reagan. But according to a source who was fully informed on the matter, the target of the secret operation was not Libya but ''Libyan influence'' in Mauritius, an island nation of just under a million people located off the southeast coast of Africa. The letter of protest from the committee went not to Reagan but to Casey. By this time, however, the public record had become thoroughly muddled. Yet another misinformed source had confused Mauritius with Mauritania, the two names being vaguely similar. That source triggered yet another press report, this one in the Washington Post, saying that the CIA's target was Mauritania, a country located on the northwest coast of Africa. Almost unnoticed, the Wall Street Journal got the Mauritian target right. The White House denied any plot against Qaddafi. But given the Reagan administration's earlier public and private statements about Qaddafi, not too many people would have been surprised if such a plot had been conceived. At one point in the spring of last year, for example, then-Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr., in an off-the-record comment in an interview, remarked that Qaddafi was ''a cancer that has to be cut out.'' A reporter for the New York Daily News found out about Mr. Haig's remark and published it. But, according to one intelligence expert, when administration officials examined the options, they discovered that Qaddafi might well be overthrown some day without any help from the US. They found that dissent was strong in certain sectors in Libya, and that in the Army there were officers who resented being sent off on costly adventures to places such as Chad and Uganda. They also knew that a number of coup attempts had already been attempted against Qaddafi. The administration decided to work to help thwart Qaddafi's designs outside Libya and to raise the cost to Qaddafi of his overseas adventures. The mix-up in the press over Libya, Mauritania, and Mauritius might have added up to little more than an amusing farce to shake Washington out of its 1981 doldrums. But two professional intelligence analysts say that the misinformed leakers may have created a boomerang problem of mammoth proportions. They suggest that talk within the administration about putting pressure on Qaddafi and the published reports concerning a possible secret plan aimed at overthrowing the Libyan leader, combined with the impact of the US-Libyan air battle over the Gulf of Sidra on Aug. 19, 1981, in which US Navy jets downed two Libyan planes, probably led Qaddafi to threaten Reagan's life. They say that at one point late last year, Qaddafi made statements to the effect that he was out to get Reagan. A defector, who claimed to have been directly familiar with orders given by Qaddafi to assassinate Reagan, was one of the sources of information on this subject. In the end, Qaddafi apparently called off his hit teams. Insiders say that some as yet undisclosed secret US-backed actions aimed at curbing Qaddafi's operations in Africa met with moderate success. But it is the recent oil glut as much as anything that has damaged Libya, by cutting Qaddafi's oil revenues. In some cases, overt, rather than covert, actions have hurt Qaddafi. These have included the US oil embargo and diplomatic moves aimed at isolating the Libyan strong man. Most important, a number of black African nations have rejected Qaddafi's attempts to chair a summit meeting of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Tripoli. Qaddafi support for insurgents in Chad was the main reason for a recent second collapse of the projected OAU summit. Some American analysts now say that what was done to counter Libyan influence in Mauritius might have been better done through open means, such as support given through a political foundation rather than through the CIA. The United States, while aiming the CIA at a mouse (Mauritius), may have ended up stirring a tiger (Libya). In Mauritius, the mouse that didn't roar in the end at the US, a certain degree of businesslike equanimity seems to prevail. During a visit to Washington in September of this year, Paul Berenger, the country's finance minister and secretary-general of its ruling Mauritian Militant Movement (MMM), indicated that he would like to forget past frictions and get down to dealing with serious problems like the sugar quota the US had slapped against his country. Mr. Berenger, a youthful, articulate Franco-Mauritian, has been depicted by his political foes as a dangerous radical. It was apparently this as much as anything that led the Reagan administration to try to help keep him and his movement out of power during last June's elections in Mauritius. Officials in the government of then-Prime Minister Sir Seewoosagur Rangoolam claimed that the MMM's election campaign was financed by Libya, a nation with strong ties with the Soviet Union. An American intelligence analyst said that the US was ''certain'' that Libya was involved. The MMM further alarmed the US by vowing to mount a diplomatic offensive aimed at securing the Mauritian claims to the Chagos Archipelago, which includes the key US military base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. According to a New York Times report from Mauritius on June 9, 1982, the prime minister's backers hoped to use television to turn the election tide against his opposition. The Times said that they turned for imported media expertise to a group headed by a US media consultant. A series of television spots portrayed Sir Seewoosagur as a world statesman. This triggered charges from Berenger's party, which asserted that because of the prime minister's relatively accommodating stand on the issue of Diego Garcia , the CIA brought in media consultants to assist him. The consultants were rumored to be operating from the neighboring French island of Reunion. The prime minister's office, for its part, released a set of documents in Arabic supposedly describing commitments that Berenger had made in exchange for documents ''crude fakes,'' pointing out among other things that the eagle on what was supposed to be a Libyan letterhead was pointed the wrong way. Sir Seewoosagur called Berenger a Communist. In an interview with the Monitor during a visit here in September, Berenger did not deny that his country sought above-the-board financial aid from Libya and from whomever else it could get it. But he also said that Mauritius valued its ties with Western-supported financial institutions. ''Once upon a time, we were supposed to be pro-Soviet,'' said Berenger. ''But people forget that we have regularly taken a stand against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Before that, we took a stand against the invasion of Czechoslovakia.'' An American intelligence expert, meanwhile, confirms that the Reagan administration had sought to bolster the election chances of Sir Seewoosagur by quietly providing ''low-level'' support. But American support failed in a spectacular way: Berenger's movement won the June 11 election in a landslide. Sir Seewoosagur's party lost all its parliamentary seats. The same intelligence expert said that the State Department, not the CIA, conceived of giving a little help to Sir Seewoosagur. But State Department officials now seem to be pleased with Berenger's pragmatism. In the interview, Berenger was diplomatic about the allegations of a CIA role in the election campaign. ''Some people say that the CIA was involved in the electoral campaign,'' he said. ''. . . Our opponents' campaign was organized by American citizens.'' ''But they made such a mess of it, we would almost welcome them back next time,'' he said.

Il racconto dei francesi che volevano rovesciare Gheddafi a Giugno 1980 (in inglese)

At dawn on 29 October 1980, a powerful blast breached the hull of the Libyan flagship Dat Assawari, docked for repairs in the Italian port of Genoa. The sabotage was claimed by the Maltese Nationalist Front; however, such a complex operation would have needed larger resources and military capabilities that very few countries could deploy in 1980. Until recently, responsibility for the attack remained uncertain.1 The smoking gun emerged in France’s hand thanks to the publication of a book containing the posthumous memoirs of Alexandre de Marenches, former director of French foreign intelligence.2 The question remains: Why did France take such a drastic step against Libya? The attack in Genoa is significant, considering it was a sophisticated military covert operation conducted in the territory of a NATO ally, with possible serious political implications. This should be viewed in the context of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s international activism during the Cold War and Libya’s underground conflict with France, but also the country’s geopolitical tension with the United States, Italy, and Malta. Libya also was involved in wars with Chad, a former French colony, and Anwar Sadat’s Egypt, which was leaning toward the West. The Secret War between France and Gaddafi Gaddafi’s hegemonic ambitions and Pan-Arab and Pan-African views were considered a threat to France’s postcolonial sphere of influence, known as Françafrique. Gaddafi was a source of chaos and instability for both Western and Arab countries. In 1978, Libyan troops invaded northern Chad in support of antigovernment rebels, to secure control of uranium reserves in the Aouzou strip and a sphere of influence over the Sahelian country. French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing decided to intervene when the Libyans (led by a young Khalifa Haftar) and local rebels reached the capital of Chad, N’Djamena. Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s (left) international activism was considered a threat to France’s own sphere of influence. French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (right) tasked the head of the French foreign intelligence’s special operations branch with overthrowing Gaddafi. Credit: Alamy; European Communities In 1977, Egypt and Libya fought a short, inconclusive war, and Egyptian President Sadat tried unsuccessfully to overthrow “the madman of Tripoli.” In July 1979, Colonel Alain Gaigneron de Marolles, head of the special operations Action Service of the French foreign intelligence organization (SDECE), organized with the Egyptians an attack on Gaddafi on 1 September 1979 in Benghazi, but the dictator escaped the ambush.3 In December 1979, Colonel Marolles received a peremptory order from President d’Estaing: “I personally charge you to overthrow Gaddafi.”4 Marolles organized a coup in Libya together with agent “Dal”—the code name of Christian Dallaporta—an SDECE operative in Tripoli. An uprising was scheduled to begin in Tobruk on 5 June 1980, but Gaddafi discovered the plot, the coup leader was found dead, the French embassy was raided, and Dallaporta and his son were taken hostage and released only after months of negotiations.5 It was an operational fiasco for Marolles, who was forced to resign.6 The Dat Assawari Despite the fiasco in Tobruk, President d’Estaing did not give up and ordered full-scale actions against Gaddafi’s regime. This meant targeting Libya’s strategic assets in the military sphere. While it was too risky to strike the country’s infrastructure, Gaddafi’s interests abroad could be easily hit. The Libyan Navy was small compared to its army and air force components. The naval branch was established in 1962 under King Idris, and its officers were trained in the United Kingdom at the Royal Navy College in Dartmouth. In 1966, the Libyan Navy was equipped mainly with two Ham-class minesweepers from the United Kingdom. But when Gaddafi seized power from King Idris on 1 September 1969, he signed contracts with the Soviet Union for new frigates, corvettes, and submarines. In particular, the Libyan Navy acquired four Wadi M’ragh-class (Assad-class) corvettes from Italy’s Fincantieri between 1977 and 1979 and six Foxtrot-class submarines from Moscow in 1982, as well as four Soviet-made Nanuchka-class corvettes between 1981 and 1983. The most important vessel was the frigate Dat Assawari. She was built in the United Kingdom by the Vosper Thornycroft Group and delivered in 1973. She was 330 feet long, initially armed with a triple Seacat surface-to-air missile launcher, a Mk-8 gun, two Bofors and Oerlikon guns, and a Limbo antisubmarine mortar. She was named after the Arab victory in the naval Battle of the Masts (Dhat Assawari), between the fleets of the Muslim caliphate and the Byzantine Empire in 654. In 1985, French foreign intelligence sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland, New Zealand. In reporting on the incident, the French magazine L’Express indicated the Rainbow Warrior attack was similar to one the French agency had conducted at Genoa, Italy, in 1982. Although the year was wrong, this was the first clue that France, and not the Maltese Nationalist Front, was responsible for the sabotage of the Dat Assawari. Credit: Greenpeace The frigate became the flagship of Gaddafi’s navy in defense of the Gulf of Sidra and the Libyan coastline, but for seven years she was not deployed in any significant operations. Since 1979, she had been harbored in the OARN shipyards of the Italian city of Genoa, where she underwent modernization and maintenance. During the refit, the initial armament was modified. The Limbo mortar was removed and replaced by four antiship missiles and two triple antisubmarine warfare torpedo tubes. The Seacat launcher was replaced by a quadruple launcher for Aspide surface-to-air missiles. The Sabotage of the Dat Assawari At dawn on 29 October 1980, an explosion caused a three-meter breach in the Dat Assawari’s hull. The Italian police divers who inspected the ship confirmed that the metal sheet of the hull was folded inward, and the dockyard was damaged as well.7 The Dat Assawari was moored with the bow close to the stern of Italian Navy frigate Perseo, but none of the officers on guard duty saw anything suspicious. The following nights, Italian Coast Guard boats patrolled the Genoa port. A floating tire was mistaken for a diver and caused a frantic, half-hour-long hunt with searchlights and signal flares.8 The Italian Navy established very strict controls over the Perseo, fearing that the attack on the Dat Assawari had been intended to target the Italian frigate. On the evening of 30 October, Agence France-Presse in Rome received a phone call from a man who spoke first in English and then in poor Italian: “One of our commandos sabotaged the Libyan frigate, Dat Assawari.” The next morning, a claim of responsibility written in Italian on behalf of the Maltese Nationalist Front was delivered to Agence France-Presse. In 1980, Malta had signed a defense treaty with Italy, in case of Libyan aggression. The statement accused Italy of giving hospitality to Libyan warships and claimed the sabotage was in response to a Libyan aggression on an Italian oil platform engaged on behalf of Malta in the exploration of the so-called Medina Bank. The Truth Revealed In 1985, the Italian newspaper La Stampa quoted the Parisian weekly L’Express, according to which, “An operation similar to the one carried out against Greenpeace took place in Genoa in 1982.”9 With Greenpeace, the magazine was referring to Opération Satanique—conducted in 1985 by  the French Action Service—which sank the Rainbow Warrior in the port of Auckland, New Zealand, and resulted in the death of a Dutch photographer.10 The French magazine was incorrect regarding the year of the Genoa operation, but this sentence was a significant clue to the true Dat Assawari saboteurs—one never gathered by the Italian investigators of the Dat Assawari sabotage—and the perpetrator was certainly more realistic than the Maltese Front. Thanks to the memoirs of Alexandre de Marenches—director SDECE from 1970 to 1981—published by Jean-Christophe Notin in 2018, there is historical proof that the sabotage of the Dat Assawari was the work of the French SDECE (renamed DGSE in 1982).11 It was called Opération Pieuvre (Octopus) and was organized in retaliation for the thwarted coup of Tobruk. Notin’s book provides confirmation that two Action Service commandos infiltrated the port of Genoa and planted the explosive to sink the Libyan flagship. Operation Octopus Operation Octopus was a high-risk mission with unpredictable political consequences. The French commandos responsible for the operation failed to sink the Dat Assawari, but they were not caught and the operation did not result in any deaths, unlike the Rainbow Warrior’s sabotage. The attack, however, did delay the delivery of the Libyan flagship until October 1983. The operation was overseen from the headquarters of French commandos at the navy base of Aspretto, Corsica. De Marenches was the director of French foreign intelligence; Colonel Jacques Sylla Fouilland was his deputy.12 The head of the Action Service and likely mastermind of the attack was Colonel Georges Grillot, former leader of the notorious Commando Georges—a ruthless unit in charge of eliminating members of the National Liberation Front in the Algerian war of independence.13 The sabotage in Genoa remained secret and unconfirmed until recently, perhaps because it was conducted in the territory of a NATO ally. The operation proved France’s determination to pursue its strategic agenda by any means. The Dat Assawari’s modernization in Genoa, however, was completed in 1983, and therefore the frigate was not operational and missed Libya’s 1981 clash with the U.S. Navy in the Gulf of Sidra. In 1984, the Dat Assawari underwent engine repairs in Italy, which were completed in 1985. The vessel was again not used during the 1986 battle against U.S. warships and aircraft. She returned to Italy in 1989 in a partially disarmed state. In 1992, the Dat Assawari was no longer operational and became a hulk for training in the port of Tripoli. What remained of Gaddafi’s modest fleet was sunk or destroyed by NATO forces during the 2011 Libyan civil war. 1. Vincent P. O’Hara and Eric Cernuschi, “Frogmen against a Fleet: The Italian Attack on Alexandria 18/19 December 1941,” Naval War College Review 68, no. 3 (2015). 2. Jean-Christophe Notin, Le Maître du Secret (Paris: Tallandier, 2018). 3. Jean-Pierre Bat and Pascal Airault, Françafrique: Opérations Secrètes et Affaires d’État (Paris: Tallandier, 2016). 4. Bat and Airault, Françafrique. 5. Roger Faligot, Jean Guisnel, and Rémi Kauffer, Histoire Politique des Services Secrets Français (Paris: La Découverte, 2012). 6. “Le Directeur du Renseignement au SDECE Donne sa Démission,” Le Monde, 11 September 1980. 7 “Genova: Attentato di ‘Uomini Rana’ a una Nave Llibica?” La Stampa, 30 October 1980, 9. 8 “Il Fronte di Liberazione Maltese ‘Abbiamo Sabotato la Fregata Libica,’” La Stampa, 1 November 1980, 7. 9. “Nell’80 i Francesi Minarono una Fregata Libica a Genova,” La Stampa, 21 September 1985, 9. 10. Charles Bremner, “Mitterrand Ordered Bombing of Rainbow Warrior, Spy Chief Says,” The Times, 11 July 2005. 11. Notin, Le Maître du Secret. 12. “Le Colonel Jacques Fouilland Dirigera le Renseignement au SDECE,” Le Monde, 26 November 1980. 13. J. Isnard, “Des Changements à L’état-Major du S.D.E.C.E. Les Responsabilités de Certains Militaires sont Accrues,” Le Monde, 26 September 1981; Pascal Le Pautremat, “Le Commando Georges: De la Contre-Guérilla à la Tragédie (1959–1962),” Guerres Mondiales et Conflits Contemporains 2, no. 2013 (2004).