Kadafi’s Bid for Talks Seen as Economic Ploy

Col. Moammar Kadafi’s objective in saying that he wanted to get talks started with the United States apparently was to blunt the U.S. effort to isolate the Libyan economy, American experts on the Middle East said Friday.

Although it is always difficult to figure out the motives of the mercurial Libyan leader, it seems unlikely that he ever really thought Washington would be willing to negotiate with him, analysts said.

But by making a gesture he knew would be rebuffed, Kadafi makes himself look more reasonable and makes Washington look more intransigent. He was able to intensify that impact by channeling his overtures through the European and Arab governments he wanted most to impress.

Low on Cash

“The issue might be money--his cash is quite low because of the (U.S.-sponsored) boycott,” said Joyce R. Starr, director of the Near East Program of Georgetown University’s Center for Strategic and International Studies.

She said it seems clear that Kadafi hoped to give European governments an excuse to refuse to join Washington in squeezing the hard-pressed Libyan economy.

Libya’s economic woes are caused far more by the plummeting price of oil, the country’s only significant asset, than by the U.S. boycott. But things would get even worse if the nations of Western Europe or Arab states in the Persian Gulf joined the boycott. The U.S. imposed the boycott as a response to the December terrorist attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports that left 20 dead.

Kadafi Called Menace

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, perhaps the U.S. government’s most outspoken critic of Kadafi, says that most governmental leaders have come to agree that the Libyan leader is an international menace. The next step, Shultz says, is to persuade them to take action against him.

U.S. officials said earlier this week that Kadafi had passed the word to several European and Arab governments--most recently Saudi Arabia--that he was ready to open a dialogue with the United States, possibly using the same governments as go-between.

But the U.S. government, in a statement read by State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb, turned him down flat.

‘No Need for Mediation’

“The United States has not responded because there has been no need for mediation or go-betweens,” Kalb said. “If the Kadafi regime wants to improve its international acceptability, it knows precisely what it must do. . . . It must cease its support for terrorism.”

Another State Department official, who declined to be identified by name, said, “If you talk to him, you treat him as an equal--you dignify him and he doesn’t deserve it.

“The problem is not a lack of communication--not a failure to understand each other,” he added. “The problem is very concrete, Kadafi’s support of terrorism. He should be treated like what he is--an international pariah.”

‘Ego Aggrandizement’

Asked to speculate on Kadafi’s reasons for seeking talks with the United States, the official said, “For the mirror image of why we won’t talk to him--the dignity, the ego aggrandizement.”

He dismissed as “probably wishful thinking” suggestions that Kadafi perhaps realizes he lacks the military muscle to compete with the United States and therefore wants to avoid any more confrontations like the one in the Gulf of Sidra.

Starr of Georgetown University also scoffed at suggestions that Kadafi’s reported willingness to talk indicates a change in his policy.

“It’s form over substance--blue smoke and mirrors,” she said. “You can talk and go on blowing things up.”

Travel Permission Denied

The Administration underlined its determination to isolate Kadafi by refusing to authorize a trip to Libya by Richard Shadyac, a Washington lawyer who has represented Libyan interests in the United States for more than a decade. Shadyac had planned to leave for Tripoli on Friday to confer with Kadafi and other officials. Under the sanctions imposed earlier this year, U.S. citizens are prohibited from traveling to Libya without specific approval. The U.S. broke diplomatic relations with the Kadafi government in 1981.

Kadafi denied any involvement in this week’s terrorist bombing of a TWA jetliner in which four Americans were killed. Although White House spokesman Larry Speakes said that “his denials by themselves mean nothing,” it may be significant that the Libyan leader thought it necessary to distance himself from the mid-air attack.

“He was so quick to deny that he had anything to do with the TWA bombing that he might be concerned we would come down with our full weight on his head,” Starr said.