40 years on, and in spite of the West, Libya's Gaddafi still going strong...

Muammar Qaddafi has used up twelve of his nine lives, but he still keeps going strong. He came to power – with some help from CIA it is whispered – in a 1969 coup against Libya’s doddering, British-run puppet king, Idris.

Forty years in power in the Mideast is a remarkable feat. President Ronald Reagan branded Qaddafi "the mad dog of the Mideast" and sent warplanes to kill him. Britain, France and some of Qaddafi’s Arab "brothers" also tried to overthrow or assassinate him. Libya’s "Leader" has had the piquant pleasure of outliving or outfoxing most of his enemies.

I was invited to interview Qaddafi in 1987. We spent an evening together in his colorful Bedouin tent. He led me by the hand through the ruins of his personal quarters, bombed a year earlier by the US in an attempt to assassinate him. Qaddafi showed me where his 2-year old adopted daughter had been killed by an American 1,000-lb. bomb. More...

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