As F-14 fighters provided cover, 20 American attack planes roared off the deck of the U.S.S. Forrestal, heading southward across the Mediterranean. The A-6 Intruders and A-7 Corsairs closed quickly on the North African coast and zeroed in on their target: a desert airstrip encircled by tanks and protected by surface-to-air missiles.
Another U.S. air strike against Libya? Not quite. This time the bombs fell on a mock target near Wadi Natrun, some 50 miles northwest of Cairo, during U.S.-Egyptian military exercises last week. But the explosions that jarred the desert floor helped set off diplomatic reverberations in Libya and around...
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