NORTH AFRICA: Broken Engagement

The Middle East's chronically unsuccessful suitor, Libyan Strongman Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, seems to need the services of a professional matchmaker. All his past efforts to join Libya with other Arab countries have failed. Now Libya's betrothal to Tunisia, which Gaddafi and Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba happily announced in mid-January, has apparently been broken.

Both countries at first enthusiastically welcomed the planned merger. It would have created one nation having a single constitution, flag, capital (Tunis), army and legislative, judicial and executive system, with Bourguiba as its President and Gaddafi as a Vice...

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