REAGAN IS SAID TO HAVE APPROVED HELP TO EGYPT IF IT ATTACKED LIBYA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201820024-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: February 21, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201820024-6
STAT hR 1 ~~~e Ari'Ef
ON PAGE NEW YORK TIMES
21 February 1987
'Reagan Is Said to have Approved
Help to Egypt iifltAttacked Libya
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 - Early last
year, President Reagan approved a se-
cret directive under which United
States military forces would support
Egypt in the event of a "pre-emptive"
attack on Libya, and the two countries
continued to prepare for this contin
gency throughout 1986, Adminstration
officials said today.
The officials said President Reagan
agreed to the proposal in early 1986,
shortly after the terrorist attacks in
the Rome and Vienna airports on Dec.
27, 1985.
Under the plan, which was supported
by some members of Mr. Reagan's Na-'
tional Security Council staff, the United
States would support an Egyptian at-
tack on Libya if it were intended as a
response to a Libyan military threat.
U.S. Raids in Libya Allowed
The policy allowed for American
military strikes against targets inside
Libya, officials said.
The Presidential directive replaced
one that had called for logistical sup-
port for Egypt only if Libya attacked
the Egyptians first, the officials said.
The Washington Post reported today
that the State Department made great
efforts in 1985 to block what The Post
called a White House plan for a joint
American-Egyptian attack on Libya.
These included bringing Nicholas A.
Veliotes, the Ambassador to Egypt,
back to Washington to argue against a
proposed mission to Cairo by Vice
Adm. John M. Poindexter, who was
then the deputy national security ad-
viser.
'No Policy or Plan'
Asked about a possible joint invasion
of Libya, , Marlin Fitzwater, the White
House spokesman, said, "There was no
policy or plan to do that that was put in
motion."
It has been previously reported that
Admiral Poindexter met with Hosni
Mubarak, the Egyptian President, in
August 1985 to discuss possible mili-
tary steps against Muammar el-Qad-
dafi, the Libyan leader, who has consis-
tently been a target of the Reagan Ad-
ministration's public polemics and cov-
ert activities.
There have been repeated sugges-
tions that the Poindexter mission was
part of an attempt by the Reagan Ad-
ministration to prod an unwilling
Egypt into providing a military answer
to a problem that had defied solution by
other means.
In March 1986, the semiofficial Egyp-
tian newspaper Al Ahram said Cairo
had rejected three requests from
American delegations for joint Amer-
By STEPHEN ENGELBERG
Special to e
ican-Egyptian military action against
Libya.
But several Administration officials
who support President Reagan's policy
on Libya insisted today that the meet-
ing with President Mubarak and the
subsequent planning were not an at-
tempt to press Cairo to invade. One of-
ficial said the United States had offered
its support only if Egypt were facing a
direct threat.
"It was a very sophisticated ap-
proach," this official said. "We wanted
the Egyptians to know we were pre-
pared to work with them. We were not
trying to start a war."
Another official scoffed at reports
that Mr. Mubarak was unwilling to pro-
ceed with the military planning. "They
didn't have to be goaded into any-
thing," this official said.
Plannir fgr_hQ. mdga,(,. th-LibyA
has been a major policy issue for the
National Security Council staff for the
ast severa ears. In addition to covert
o rations t e to encoura e
opponents of Colonel a a i to is-
ace him, the uni e-TS ates con udUcted
_m on Libya last year after
what it said was a Libyan-direcle at-
tack on a Berlin _c,icotheque fre
quented..by. American soldiers.
Intensified Administration planning;
on how to deal with terrorism, one offi-
cial said, was touched- off in mid-1985'
when Shiite Moslem radicals hijacked'
a Trans World Airlines flight and held
Americans who were aboard hostage
in Beirut.
In one such effort, National Security
Council officials began preparing the
way for covert arms sales to Iran, in
what the Administration has said was;
an effort to build support for what were
believed to be less radical elements in
that country.
Meanwhile, in late December iyaa,
terrorists conducted simultaneous at-
tacks at the Rome and Vienna airports
in which 20 people were killed and 110
wounded. These attacks were subse-
quently tied to Sabry al-Banna, the ter-
rorist known as Abu Nidal, whose ac-
tivities over the years are said to have
received support from Libya and other
Arab countries.
Officials said it was after these at-
tacks that President Reagan became
prepared to authorize extensive Amer-
ican involvement to back Egypt in an
attack on Libya even if the attack was
in response only to a threat.
While Abu Nidal is said to receive
support from several countries, among
them Libya, he also is said to carry out
operations without specific sponsor-
ship, and no direct evidence of involve-
ment by Mr. Qaddafi in the airport at-
tacks has been produced.
In late 1985 the Reagan Administra-
tion also began discussing the kidnap-
ping of suspected terrorists for trial in,
the United States, a proposed program
on which The New York Times re-
ported in January 1986.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201820024-6