Chemical Reaction: The U.S. presses Libya over a nerve-gas plant

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Although unwilling to divulge secret sources, U.S. officials confirmed that former workers in the plant had provided sensitive details. At first only the British Foreign Office seemed to be convinced of the danger. It conducted its own investigation of the complex and agreed with the U.S. findings. Later the French, Canadians and Egyptians advised the U.S. that they too were persuaded. But the Soviets and some U.S. allies claimed that the evidence was inconclusive.

Through newspaper leaks, the U.S. accused a West German firm, Imhausen- Chemie, of secretly supplying expertise and materials for building the plant. German officials insist that their investigation has turned up no proof to support these claims, though they agreed to examine more of the U.S. evidence this week. Privately the Reagan Administration warns that it may name five West German companies, two in Switzerland and some in unidentified other European nations that are involved in the Rabta project if their governments do not cut off such help to Gaddafi.

The announcement two weeks ago that the carrier Theodore Roosevelt had left Norfolk, Va., to join the Kennedy in the Mediterranean inspired fresh rumors of an impending U.S. attack on the Rabta plant. In that heated atmosphere, the Libyans could well have succumbed to nervousness and overreacted to the presence of the Kennedy off their coast.

Yet the Kennedy was sailing to the east last Wednesday. The carrier was near Crete, more than 600 miles away from the Rabta plant and 120 miles off recognized Libyan territorial waters, when the unexpected combat situation arose. Even the Libyans had to know that the F-14s were fighters on routine patrol, not bombers carrying out an attack.

Those facts lead to another, more complicated, theory about what happened: that Gaddafi deliberately sought the confrontation, sending his fighters on what amounted to a suicide mission in the hope of winning sympathy and provoking international criticism of the U.S. "Colonel Gaddafi knows that he is irrelevant within the Arab world and can win support only when he is perceived as the victim of superpower oppression," said Congressman Les Aspin, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "Two planes is a cheap price to pay so he can hear outpourings of fervent backing."

Was this reckless attack, then, really intended to fail? "We suspect -- mostly on the basis of the two Libyan pilots parachuting from their MiGs -- that they intentionally provoked the incident," said an Italian government official. Besides being concerned about the chemical plant, added a West German diplomat, Gaddafi "has been outraged by the P.L.O.'s concessions to the U.S. for direct contacts, and he could have seen a chance here to try to sabotage it."

The unpredictable nature of the Libyan attack and the trouble it has caused for the U.S. indicate that even after eight years of American pressure, Muammar Gaddafi retains his power to bedevil Washington. As Ronald Reagan departs from the White House, he leaves behind his Libyan nemesis as one more problem for George Bush to grapple with.