Qaddafi as I Knew Him

In: International affairs: a Russian journal of world politics, diplomacy and international relations, Band 58, Heft 6

Abstract

I first saw Muammar Qaddafi in 1975 when, in my capacity as second secretary in the foreign ministry's Africa Department, I arrived in Tripoli as a member of the delegation accompanying Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Alexei Kosygin. It struck me that the 33-year-old Qaddafi, who was then the chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council of the Libyan Arab Republic, that is, the head of state, in conversation with Kosygin was all respect for him as a man his superior in age and experience, and sometimes could not hide his shyness. The fervor and sincerity with which he expounded his ideas also did not escape my attention. Later on, working in 1976-1980 as first secretary at the Soviet Embassy in Tripoli, I met Qaddafi dozens of times when I accompanied, in the course of the visits to him, our ambassadors I.N. Yakushin and A.V. Anisimov, attended the talks of delegations that came to Libya or served as an interpreter in the Libyan leader's conversations with his Soviet counterparts during his visits to Moscow in 1976 and 1981; then I had meetings with him in 1992-1996, this time as the Russian ambassador in Tripoli. With the passage of time, Qaddafi's demeanor changed. He was no longer embarrassed when conversing with the "powers that be," but tried his very best to emphasize his own importance. In public, by contrast, he used to be quite diverse, skillfully adapting himself to his audience. During our meetings though, he would become the old Qaddafi, comporting himself in a simple and natural manner. Maybe he knew that by emphasizing his importance he would not make impression on me, or perhaps because I was for him a person from his youth. Adapted from the source document.