U.S. Gives Italy Data Linking Libya to Terrorism

A high-ranking American official Friday presented Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi what he called “incontrovertible evidence” of Libya’s involvement in last month’s murderous terrorist attacks at Rome and Vienna airports and sought further Italian action against Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.

Deputy Secretary of State John C. Whitehead, on a nine-nation tour seeking support for President Reagan’s economic sanctions against Libya, praised the Italian government for imposing an arms embargo against the radical North African country last week.

“We are pleased that Italy is also considering further steps to isolate Libya and to curb Libyan terrorism,” Whitehead told a press conference following a 90-minute meeting with Craxi and Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti. Neither Whitehead nor Italian officials would elaborate on what “further steps” were being considered.

Cool to Sanctions

Like other U.S. States allies in Europe, Italy has been cool to Reagan’s call for coordinated economic sanctions against Libya. But it did cut off arms deliveries and pledged not to let Italians “fill in” for Americans and American companies displaced from Libya by the U.S. sanctions.

Whitehead said he handed Craxi a “classified” U.S. document that “presented incontrovertible evidence of criminal terrorist acts of Col. Kadafi, including incontrovertible evidence of Libya’s involvement in the Rome and Vienna airport attacks.”

When asked to elaborate on specific evidence in the document, he said “I cannot give details of it. If the details were known they could only help the terrorists.”

“No one need have any fear that we are going after an innocent man,” Whitehead added.

The State Department official added that while there were differences among the allies over the effectiveness of economic sanctions against Libya, “I’ve not found anyone who does not believe that Kadafi is deeply involved in terrorist actions.”

Talks in London

Whitehead met Thursday in London with British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe and Home Secretary Douglas Hurd but made little progress in efforts to persuade them to follow the U.S. lead on sanctions. Whitehead said he had not directly asked the British officials to impose sanctions. Both sides indicated that this was because Britain had made it clear before the meetings that they had no intention of doing so.

The U.S. envoy said that Howe had agreed to press his European Communities colleagues to stop the sale of arms to Libya. During their meeting, Whitehead said, Howe also confirmed that Britain will do nothing to undercut the U.S. sanctions.

Whitehead, who stopped in Toronto before his London visit, plans to fly on from Rome to Turkey, Greece, West Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium, pressing the U.S. case for sanctions before European Communities foreign ministers meet on Jan. 27 to consider possible joint actions against Libya.