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Of greatest concern to the U.S. and its allies has been Gaddafi's links with the Soviets. Over the past ten years, Gaddafi has purchased $12 billion worth of Soviet tanks, aircraft, artillery and other military hardware. Some 2,000 Soviet military advisers are now stationed in Libya. In an interview last week with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Gaddafi called the Soviet Union a "friend" and the U.S. a "devil." Said he: "America does not have friends, but only slaves. We refuse to accept slavery and are therefore considered enemies." Yet most analysts feel that Gaddafi is not a Soviet pawn. He has refused to allow the U.S.S.R. to have a military base in his country. "I suspect that the Soviets are in no better position to understand Gaddafi than the Americans or the Europeans," says an Israeli intelligence expert.
Gaddafi has had a long and complicated relationship with the U.S. TIME has learned that as a young officer in King Idris' army, he became friendly with an Arab agent of the CIA known as Charles Boursan, who apparently reported to his superiors in London that Gaddafi was a young leader of promise. There is no evidence that the agency encouraged Gaddafi at any point, but it seems clear that Gaddafi was intrigued by and attracted to the kind of rough-and-tumble, Marlboro-loner cowboy American who occasionally worked for the CIA in the Arab world, and who more commonly represented the smaller oil companies in the area. Representatives of the oil firms with interests in Libya insist that Gaddafi has always treated them with courtesy and respect, even as his political relations with the U.S. plummeted.
These relations were virtually broken off when a mob sacked and burned the U.S. embassy in Tripoli in December 1979, ostensibly to show support for Iran's Ayatullah Khomeini. The following spring, President Carter expelled four Libyan diplomats who were accused of threatening anti-Gaddafi students and exiles in the U.S. Then, after the embarrassing disclosure that his brother Billy had accepted $220,000 in loans from Gaddafi's government, Carter launched a State Department study of U.S. relations with Libya.
Convinced that Gaddafi was not only a Soviet client but a man who sought to overthrow pro-Western regimes in Africa and the Middle East, the Reagan Administration stepped up the study of diplomatic and military options. Meanwhile, Gaddafi was quietly trying to repair his frayed relations with Washington. He sent Reagan a message of congratulations on his Inauguration; no reply was made. In May, the Administration ordered the closing of the Libyan "people's bureau" (as Gaddafi had renamed his embassy in Washington) and the expulsion of its remaining diplomats. Reason: "Libyan provocations and misconduct, including support for international terrorism."