Moscow offered perfunctory condemnation of the incident,125 declaring that the Sixth Fleet’s “piratical action had caused a storm of indignation around the world.”126 The planners in Washington had been right in their prediction: the Soviets did not come to the assistance of Qaddafi. The incident demonstrated the paradox of Moscow’s relationship with Libya. The Soviets were willing to demonstrate a degree of support for an Arab leader who shared many of their interests, especially in the Middle East, and who purchased huge quantities of their weapons, but they could not champion many of Qaddafi’s extreme policies and declarations. The Soviets took no further action on behalf of Qaddafi because they did not support his claim to the Gulf of Sidra.
Among America’s allies only Israel lent unabashed support to the United States. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin called the U.S. action “an act of self-defense—just like our raids on the Iraqi nuclear plant and on the PLO headquarters in Beirut.”127 In Western Europe the reaction to the incident was mixed. Governments and the press generally supported the United States for acting in self-defense in international waters but expressed some concern that the United States may have provoked the incident. One unlikely source welcomed the American show of force. In an editorial the left-leaning French newspaper Le Monde stated: “Restoring the power of the United States . . . is above all a question of showing that the country will not hesitate to act whenever it is challenged. The hesitations and the scruples of a Jimmy Carter thus are relegated to the antique shop.” The Spanish newspaper Dario 16, however, best expressed the conflicting feelings held by many Europeans: “While Carter’s excessive weakness was a threat to Western stability, the whole world now feels insecure after Reagan’s show of force.”128
The prospect of Libyan retribution against American citizens and interests in Libya was relieved one day after the incident when senior officials from the Libyan ministries of oil and heavy industry met with executives of the American oil companies operating in Libya. The Libyans assured the Americans that Libya would not retaliate against the United States by nationalizing the American oil companies, by placing an embargo on the sale of oil to the United States, or by harming the Americans living and working in Libya.129 Furthermore, a Libyan diplomat in Paris stated that Libya had no intention of mistreating the Americans living and working in Libya because Libyans “differentiate between governments and peoples,” and because the Americans have “a role to play in the Libyan economy.”130 In the aftermath of the incident the American expatriate community maintained an atmosphere of guarded calm, and oil field operations continued without interruption. Meanwhile Reagan, who was deeply concerned about the safety of the Americans living in Libya, sent a message to Qaddafi through diplomatic back channels. He warned Qaddafi “that any acts of terrorism directed against Americans would be considered acts of war, and we would respond accordingly.”131
Qaddafi Plots Revenge
By most measures the air battle in the Gulf of Sidra was a minor military victory, but in a number of ways it was an enormous psychological and diplomatic triumph for Ronald Reagan. First, Qaddafi had been outmatched militarily. The U.S. Navy demonstrated that it was a powerful and effective force, one that Qaddafi was helpless to stop. Second, Qaddafi was intimidated. Western business executives and European diplomats reported that the Libyan government was obsessed with the threat of attack by the United States. Third, the incident demonstrated to Moscow and its clients that the United States was willing to use force to protect its vital interests around the globe. Finally, the battle reassured moderate governments in the Middle East and Africa that radical regimes were vulnerable and assumed an enormous risk if they challenged the United States. In his memoir Fighting for Peace: Seven Critical Years in the Pentagon, Caspar Weinberger commented on the political consequences of the recent action: “We had demonstrated not only a greatly increased American resolve, but also a greatly increased American capability for dealing with the enemy quickly and decisively. That alone did more to reassure our allies than any budget amounts we committed to spend, or any amount of rhetoric, no matter how well delivered.”132
On 22 August Qaddafi was in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, conferring with the country’s Marxist ruler, Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam. Present at the meeting was a senior Ethiopian official allegedly on the bankroll of the CIA. The agency rated him as a “generally reliable” to “excellent” source of information. At the meeting Qaddafi declared that he was going to have Reagan assassinated. The informant forwarded this information to his local CIA handlers and added that Mengistu believed Qaddafi was serious. The report was forwarded to Washington with the recommendation that Qaddafi’s statement be taken seriously.
Shortly afterward the National Security Agency (NSA) intercepted a telephone call from Addis Ababa to Tripoli in which Qaddafi repeated his vow to avenge the Gulf of Sidra debacle by assassinating Reagan. The CIA mentioned both reports in Reagan’s daily intelligence brief. Although most administration officials lost interest in the reports after one week, William Casey remained keenly interested in the matter and directed the intelligence community to keep him informed of any new information concerning Qaddafi’s threat to kill Reagan.133
The Assassination of Sadat and the Bright Star Exercise
On 6 October President Anwar as-Sadat of Egypt was brutally murdered by Muslim extremists as he viewed a military parade celebrating the eighth anniversary of Egypt’s crossing of the Suez Canal during the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War. In a speech delivered only hours after the assassination Qaddafi applauded the killing and remarked that “the sound of the bullets that resounded firmly and courageously in the face of as-Sadat this morning was in fact saying this is the punishment of those who betray the Arab nation.”134
Although no evidence that linked Libya to the crime could be uncovered, the United States took immediate action to assure regional allies and increase pressure on Qaddafi.135 First, on 8 October Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 14. The secret directive, titled “Security Considerations in Egypt and Sudan,” directed the secretaries of state and defense to “undertake an immediate examination of steps to be taken to strengthen the position of Egypt and Sudan.” The directive mandated increased military cooperation with both countries, and it envisioned that the enhanced cooperation would take the form of large increases in military aid, more visible demonstrations of military support, and promises to safeguard Egypt and Sudan. Additionally, it authorized the expansion of Bright Star ’81, the large multinational exercise scheduled to take place in November in several locations throughout North Africa and the Middle East. The Reagan administration hoped that Bright Star would demonstrate a potent U.S. military commitment to the Middle East and North Africa and counter the influence of the radical tripartite alliance of Libya, Ethiopia, and South Yemen; that it would deter attacks on the new government in Egypt and other friendly governments in the region; and that it would assure regional allies that the United States would come rapidly to their aid during a crisis.136
Second, in mid-October Reagan dispatched two U.S. Air Force E-3A Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft to Egypt. The planes arrived on 15 October and immediately began monitoring the airspace around Egypt. By deploying the two sophisticated planes the United States sought to project both a visible presence and a settling influence in the region following Sadat’s assassination. The deployment demonstrated support for the new Egyptian president, Husni Mubarak, and served as a warning to Qaddafi not to exploit the tenuous situation in Egypt.
Bright Star ’81 commenced on 9 November and continued for two weeks. During the exercise the United States demonstrated its ability to project power and operate military forces thousands of miles from their bases in the United