Introduction
From the Cuban Missile Crisis to today’s Israeli-Palestinian conflict, clandestine diplomacy has played an integral role in international relations—both past and present.[1] Academic research, however, has long overlooked the critical role intelligence actors play in conducting diplomacy. The current body of research in this field has focused largely on secret and clandestine diplomacy, leaving the covert negotiations between the US, Britain, and Libya in the late 1990s and early 2000s untouched. When these areas are considered, analyses focus on WMD proliferation or the usage of coercive diplomacy. However, as this paper will argue, literature on these events offers indispensible insights on the role clandestine diplomacy in shaping both the negotiation process and outcome.
Clandestine diplomacy is a special case of “secret diplomacy[2]” and should not be confused with “intelligence-driven diplomacy,” the latter of which views intelligence as supplementary support for diplomats in the context of coercive bargaining.[3] It is a subset of the former by relying substantially, if not exclusively, on intelligence actors in order to achieve a diplomatic solution with an adversary.[4] Contrary to intelligence-driven diplomacy, in clandestine diplomacy, members of the intelligence community are the primary agents for fulfilling diplomatic functions.[5] Whether such “clandestine diplomats” fall into the category of diplomatic actors is contested in diplomatic literature.[6] I define non-accredited intelligence actors as diplomatic actors under certain circumstances, assuming a functional perspective. The basis for this definition is given by the functions of diplomatic missions as described by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations[7]: representation, negotiation, information gathering, and pursuing national interests.[8]
Taking a primarily functional perspective is a defendable position in diplomatic scholarship.[9] Yet clandestine diplomacy may expand these functions, as its essence “is that the participants can deny that they are engaging in talks or negotiations.[10]” In the case of US-UK-Libya talks, intelligence assets were crucial because in addition to plausible deniability, the intelligence community was able to (1) circumvent domestic/bureaucratic inhibitors, (2) had an intrinsic advantage over the diplomatic apparatus in maintaining secrecy, and (3) was crucial for the negotiations due to the nature of the subject. A necessary precondition for successful clandestine diplomacy was given by well-functioning personal relationships between the leading figures on both sides and within each party.
Overview and Background
Western-Libyan relations began to deteriorate as early as the 1969 with the coup that brought Gaddafi to power. After the US ambassador in Tripoli was recalled in 1973 and the US Embassy closed in 1980, all official diplomatic relations between the US and Libya ceased. An age of US coercive diplomacy then began in Libya, as described by a three-phase model proposed by Jentleson and Whytock.[11] While the first phase (1981-1988) of US sanctions and military force failed, the multilateral and more sanctions-based phase from 1989-1998 yielded mixed results”. Only the third phase from 1999-2003, based on “secret direct negotiations”, brought success. This includes foremost Gaddafi’s public announcement on December 19th, 2003, that Libya would renounce state-sponsored terrorism, accept responsibility for the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie tragedy, and grant UN inspectors full access to its WMD programs with the commitment to abandon proliferation. As a result of these concessions, Libya’s diplomatic relations eased soon after.[12]
In order to understand the importance of clandestine diplomats in the success of these covert negotiations, one needs to grasp the context of the 1990s in which several attempts to find a diplomatic solution failed due to domestic obstacles. In February 1992, former US Senator Gary Hart was approached by a Libyan intelligence official in Athens, who then conveyed Libya’s interest in negotiations to the US State Department. Throughout the following year until March 1993, Hart convinced the Libyan officials[13] to include all major disputed issues—a trial of the two Pan Am 103 suspects and “verifiable cessation of any support of terrorism and confirmed abandonment of weapons of mass destruction programs[14]”—in potential negotiations about the lifting of sanctions and normalization of diplomatic relations. Agreements on the logistical and legal details for the trial of the two suspects had also been reached through Hart’s intermediation. In fact, Libya even personally told Hart that “everything will be on the table.[15]” However, in that time period the Bush administration denied offers to initiate official negotiations at least four times. The last refusal came with a statement that even in exchange for the Pan Am bombers, “there would be no discussions.[16]”
A similar backchannel with former Undersecretary of State William Rogers, established in January 1992, indicated Libya’s readiness to talk even earlier.[17] Jentleson and Whytock consider “formidable political pressure” from the families of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing as the main reason for American reluctance to engage in negotiations.[18] Yet given Gaddafi’s demonstrated willingness to acquiesce to the Lockerbie’s demands as early as 1992, it is unlikely that this concern was the actual reason at that time. Rogers cites the loss of the Bush administration in the 1992 presidential election as its reason to lose interest in starting negotiations.[19] In 1997, the environment for negotiations improved rapidly after British foreign secretary Robin Cook agreed to Gaddafi’s proposal of trialing the two Lockerbie suspects in a third country—the Netherlands.[20] From May 1999 to early 2000, after the US-Libyan backchannels had been re-established, five meetings took place between the Libyan head of intelligence Musa Kusa and on the American Undersecretaries of State Martin Indyk and Edward Walker.[21] Another halt in negotiations that lasted until December 11, 2001 was again due to a change in administration and fear of domestic outcry over negotiations with a terrorism-sponsoring dictator. [22]
The Hybrid Vectors
Official US-Libyan diplomatic relations did not exist in the late 1990s and early 2000s, while those that existed were of a functionally unofficial nature. Aside from the problem of domestic sabotage, which I will later delineate in more detail, this environment especially challenged Western countries. After all, “meeting and negotiating with aggressive dictators can indeed imply acquiescence, approval, and, worse, surrender of both principles and interests.[23]” Official talks “confer de facto recognition on the adversary.”[24] But the West had an interest in finding a formal diplomatic solution. Diplomatic disengagement can lead to a “substantial loss of information and intelligence on the target state”, which in turn causes a “reduction in communication capacity and a diminished ability to influence the target state.[25]” Out of self-interest, the US and Britain had to engage in diplomacy if they wanted to remain rather proactive on the Libyan issue.
Under these circumstances, clandestine diplomats can function as “hybrid vectors”, changing between the roles of officially accredited diplomats and unofficial intermediaries like personal envoys. In this way, they do not officially represent the state, but rather the particular administration they are serving.[26] Even without official recognition this role still grants clandestine diplomats substantial authority, rendering them preferable over unofficial or private envoys. Those are often used for both bypassing the foreign office and enabling plausible deniability but come with the problem of establishing credentials.[27] The intelligence community can provide these as institutional representatives of the administration in place.
Domestic Facilitators and Inhibitors
After diplomatic contacts were thoroughly cut by 1984, Libya’s intelligence community became the only avenue by which to negotiate with the country’s decision-making entity: Gaddafi.[28] It was access to Gaddafi that determined influence, not any formal position. In fact, the most important foreign policy circle around Gaddafi was found among the so-called “Men of the Tent”, including Musa Kusa and Abdullah al-Senussi, leading figures in Gaddafi’s intelligence apparatus. In fact, Gaddafi used members of his intelligence community numerous times as diplomatic actors to settle issues even before official diplomatic channels were cut by the West.[29] Agency was not equally dispersed in this circle, though. Most of the foreign policy community was counted among his “loyal executioners.[30]”
On the American side, three domestic factors had to be bypassed for negotiations to succeed: (1) the Lockerbie lobby, (2) Congress, and (3) hawks in the executive branch. As already discussed, the families of the Lockerbie victims posed a potential danger to successful talks. In their case, bypassing meant keeping them isolated from the process in order to prevent any leaks about on-going negotiations—at least until their demands were incorporated into a comprehensive agreement. As for, Congress and hawkish executive members, foremostly Undersecretary of State John Bolton, clandestine diplomats intrinsically better suited than diplomats.
Congress needed to be bypassed in the pre-negotiation stage because it was strongly opposed to lifting sanctions for a formalized agreement on Lockerbie, renouncing terrorism in general, and dropping of WMD programs. As Joffe aptly describes: “Congress mattered more than Bush,” referring primarily to the role of the Lockerbie compensations in the talks.[31] Arguably, Congress had far stronger connections with the State Department than the Lockerbie lobby, which incentivized the president to use actors capable of diplomatic functioning without proximity to the State Department: the intelligence community. Bolton was a tougher problem, since he was not only within important foreign policy circles, but was also someone who focused on eliminating proliferation threats as undersecretary. His agenda was set on regime change, pressing for Libya to be included in the official “axis of evil”.[32] This objective, however, was a driving force leading the US into a diplomatic deadlock with Libya until the late 1990s.[33] Combined efforts of British intermediation[34] and strong clandestine diplomacy headed by Sir Mark Allen, Saif al-Islam, and Musa Kusa[35] sustained negotiations despite powerful domestic inhibitors.
A Crucial Secrecy
Aside from the ability to conduct diplomacy parallel to or instead of the diplomatic corps, clandestine diplomacy promises to be less prone to leakage or whistle blowing. Intelligence infrastructure and assets are designed to ensure secrecy, while the diplomatic service has a strong political component making it more prone to intrigues and mistakes. Robert Blackwill, former ambassador and senior official in the National Security Council, called it the “confidentiality factor”. Thus intelligence officials are significantly less likely to leak information compared with officials from the Department of State. Blackwill sees the reason for this in the lack of incentives for the intelligence community to “shoot down your policy.[36]” In the Libyan case, absolute secrecy was necessary beyond the need to bypass the Lockerbie lobby. Looking at Libya, both “the US and UK participants understood that speed was essential “due to the ramifications[37]” press leaks could have. Secrecy could diminish a delegation’s incentive to grandstand for domestic audiences and also streamlined the negotiation process by removing layers of bureaucracy between negotiators and decision-makers.” Moreover, the domestic pressure on the Libyan regime, which included mostly internal politics and regional opposition mobilization, was also substantial, heightening Gaddafi’s need for negotiations.[38]
By 2003, the delaying factor in the negotiations was primarily the question over the intensity with which Gaddafi would condemn Libya’s oppressive past. In the mid and late 1990s, Gaddafi assumed a leading role in African organizations, shifting away from his former Arab nationalism.[39] As became evident during the negotiations, this shift did not mean that he would be immediately willing to risk losing his face through abrupt policy shift and a public apology for and renunciation of terrorism. His reputation and stance in the Arab world was still of crucial importance to him.[40] But in order to come to the desired agreement with the West, a “strong [public] declaration was crucial,” said a British official.[41]” The necessity for a negotiated agreement was grounded in the ever-worsening economic and political situation in Libya. Significant GDP decreases, soaring inflation, and unemployment began to negatively impact the country’s political stability. In May 1998, Gaddafi even used the military to repress uprisings in Benghazi.[42] The threat of domestic militant resistance against the regime also increased Gaddafi’s sense of urgency.[43] Domestic and regional constituencies were highly influential, and ordinary citizens and intellectuals had begun to matter more than governmental authorities.[44] The secrecy guaranteed by clandestine diplomacy was thus able to start an open discussion of issues that, if publicized prematurely, would have provided propaganda material for opposition forces and rivals against Gaddafi. The stakes were too high for Gaddafi to trust normal diplomatic channels. During the end of the negotiations in 2003, even Gaddafi himself participated[45] and “drove his own subordinates to cooperate.[46]”
Nature of the Subject: Libya’s WMD Program
A rather unique aspect of clandestine diplomacy is reflected in the relationship the intelligence community had to the subject of negotiation. It made involvement of intelligence vectors basically inevitable. In the course of “some half-dozen secret meetings” from March until October in London, Geneva, and Tripoli[47], the lack of agreement over the dates for inspections of Libya’s nuclear WMD program—when the country had yet to even publicly acknowledge its facilities—led to a “diplomatic lull”.[48] Two intelligence successes finally turned the negotiations around. First, in early October 2003, American intelligence officials informed the Libyans that they intercepted a ship with cargo for Libya, which “contained thousands of centrifuge parts to enrich uranium.[49]” This discovery immediately changed Libyan attitudes to the point where senior CIA official Stephen Kappes was permitted to join an inspection tour of Libyan WMD facilities from October 19th to October 29 of 2003.[50] Following this success, in November 2003 U.S. intelligence handed the Libyans a CD containing “a recording of a long discussion on February 28, 2002, about Libya’s nuclear weapons program, between Ma’atouq Mohamed Ma’atouq, the head of the nuclear program, and A.Q. Khan.[51]” This evidence deprived Gaddafi of any plausible deniability for uranium enrichment efforts. Nackaerts even claims that the final decision to actually renounce the WMD program was causally related only to the final pieces of evidence.[52] More generally one can claim that “certain strategies are particularly dependent on intelligence, such as those involving either surprise or the signaling of intent.[53]”
Personal Relationships: Past and Present
Research on secret diplomacy so far indicates that personal relationships have neither substantial impact on process nor outcome.[54] My analysis of the Libyan case, however, locates crucial importance of personal relationships at least in the initiation of negotiations if not even to some degree throughout the negotiations. As already shown, Libyan interest in serious talks can be detected at least as early as 1992, with this intention even directly conveyed to the US.[55] What changed was Libya’s ability to find the right “ears”. In August and fall of 2002, Saif al-Islam established an “intelligence backchannel[56]” via emissaries like Mohammed Rashid, while British-Libyan discussions on unconventional weapons were taking place in Libya. British intelligence officials “reportedly assured Mr. Rashid that Tony Blair would raise Libya with Mr. Bush” at Camp David in September 2002.[57] Considering that Bush and Blair did indeed agree on a formula—abandonment of WMD programs in exchange for lifting sanctions—Saif al-Islam’s personal relationships appeared to have bridged the gap that prevented an agreement before.
Initial meetings between primarily intelligence officials, in fact, were decided based upon previously established personal relationships.[58] Sir Mark Allen, an old school Arabist, was the “primary vector of the British approach” to Libya. He was first responsible for contacting Musa Kusa and subsequently for the rapprochement with Gaddafi, developing a “strong personal relationship” with the latter.[59] Importantly, Gaddafi also had deep confidence in Musa Kusa.[60] Given the stakes at play, mistrust in either negotiation team could have hampered the whole process significantly. Negotiations were able to progress quickly on the detail stage as long as the formula still had Gaddafi’s support. Also, it is important to note that Musa Kusa, Libyan ambassador to Rome Abd al-Ati Obeidi, and ambassador to London Muhammad al-Zuai were the same group that negotiated the Lockerbie bombing agreement with the British.[61] Official diplomats took part in the negotiation only to achieve a formal agreement and were basically the “sherpas who do the work.[62]”
Conclusion
Even though clandestine diplomacy is emerging as a fascinating field of study, regular diplomatic relations still remain “essential for the safe and regular conduct of diplomatic relations. ”[63] If clandestine diplomacy is chosen, this research functions as a major conceptual framework. However, several aspects are underexplored. First, the latitude clandestine diplomats enjoy should be explored more systematically. In the Libyan case my research supports the view that both sides had firm control over their diplomatic actors. It is unclear, however, how control over a state’s actor affects process and outcome of clandestine diplomacy. Research on clandestine diplomacy during the Cuba Crisis and the North Ireland Conflict indicate that high independence if not even the loss of ultimate control over the asset can lead to high-risk situations.[64] Second, in light of recent leaks of confidential NSA documents, it is imperative to explore how clandestine diplomats can act as “policy vectors” for domestic matters of allies. A NSA internal summary lists “[t]he German government modified its interpretation of the G-10 Privacy Law” in Germany as a “success story” of their liaison work with the Bundesnachrichtendienst.[65] On several instances, the paper alluded that NSA officials were directly involved in convincing officials of the German foreign intelligence service Bundesnachrichtendienst to press for policy change. Finally, it is important to analyze the interactions between clandestine diplomats and official diplomats. The case of “Spider”, nickname for a CIA station chief in Kabul who became a “pivotal behind-the-scenes power broker”, shows how clandestine diplomats can become rivals with accredited diplomats.[66] Thus, even if the Libya case can provide us with substantial insights into conceptual aspects of clandestine diplomacy, more focus on this field of study is highly promising.
Nils Metter (’17) is a Political Science major in Ezra Stiles College.
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Berridge, G.R. and Alan James. A Dictionary of Diplomacy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.
Brown, Jonathan. “Diplomatic Immunity: State Practice Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.” International and Comparative Law Quarterly 37:1 (1988): 53-88.
Busch, Nathan E., and Joseph F. Pilat. “Disarming Libya? A reassessment after the Arab Spring.” International Affairs 89:2 (2013): 451-475.
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Eban, Abba Solomon. The New Diplomacy: International Affairs in the Modern Age. New York: Random House, 1983.
Hart, Gary, “My Secret Talks with Libya, and Why They Went Nowhere.” Washington Post, January 18, 2004.
Gilboa, Eytan. “Secret Diplomacy in the Television Age.” International Communication Gazette 60:3 (1998): 211-225.
Gorman, Siobhan. “CIA Man Is Key to U.S. Relations With Karzai.” Wall Street Journal, August 24, 2010. <http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704741904575409874267832044>.
Hirsch, Michael. “Bolton’s British Problem,” Newsweek, May 2, 2005. <http://www.newsweek.com/boltons-british-problem-118859>.
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Jentleson, Bruce W., and Christopher A. Whytock. “Who “Won” Libya? The Force-Diplomacy Debate and Its Implications for Theory and Policy.” International Security Vol. 30:3 (2006): 47-86.
Joffé, George. “Libya: Who Blinked, and Why.” Current History: A Journal of Contemporary World Affairs 673 (2004): 221-225.
Jones, Clive, and Tore T. Petersen, eds. Israel’s Clandestine Diplomacies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Kerr, Pauline, and Geoffrey Wiseman. Diplomacy in a Globalizing World. London: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Lieberfeld, Daniel. “Secrecy and” Two-Level Games” in the Oslo Accord: What the Primary Sources Tell Us.” International Negotiation 13:1 (2008): 133-146.
Maller, Tara. “Diplomacy Derailed: The Consequences of Diplomatic Sanctions.”The Washington Quarterly 33:3 (2010): 61-79.
Miller, Judith, “How Gadhafi Lost His Groove.” Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2006.
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“NSA Intelligence Relationship with Germany—Bundesnachrichtendienst.” National Security Agency, January 17, 2013. <http://www.spiegel.de/media/media-34053.pdf>.
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Scott, Len. “Secret Intelligence, Covert Action, and Clandestine Diplomacy.”Intelligence & National Security 19:2 (2004): 322-341.
Slavin, Barbara. “Libya’s Rehabilitation in Works since Early ‘90s.” USA Today, April 27, 2004. <http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-04-26-libya_x.htm>.
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Endnotes
[1] Clive Jones and Petersen Tore, eds., Israel’s Clandestine Diplomacies (London: Oxford University Press, 2013); Len Scott, “Secret intelligence, covert action and clandestine diplomacy,” Intelligence & National Security 19:2 (2004): 322-341.
[2] A widely accepted definition is that secret diplomacy entails the ”total isolation and exclusion of the media and the public from negotiations and related policy-making”. See Eytan Gilboa, “Secret diplomacy in the television age,” International Communication Gazette 60:3 (1998): 213.
[3] Pauline Kerr and Geoffrey Wiseman, Diplomacy in a Globalizing World (London: Oxford University Press, 2012), 255.
[4] Scott, Secret Intelligence, 330.
[5] Ibid., 336.
[6] The debate about what constitutes being a diplomat goes along the following lines: (1) only those diplomats accredited by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations conduct strictly speaking diplomacy, (2) a broader base of state-affiliated actors ought to be included, or (3) the notion of state-centric diplomacy has to be revised completely in order to include a wider variety of actors. Kerr and Wiseman, Diplomacy Globalizing World, 4.
[7] United Nations, Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, United Nations Conference on Diplomatic Intercourse and Immunities, Vienna, Austria: 1961.
[8] Although explicitly named as another function of diplomacy in the Vienna Convention, it is widely accepted that “promoting friendly relations” is rather “political correctitude than…reality”. G.R. Berridge and Alan James, A Dictionary of Diplomacy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), 66-67.
[9] Other definitions of diplomacy focus on negotiation, communication, and omission of force. The Oxford Dictionary defines diplomacy as “the management of international relations by negotiation; the methods by which these relations are adjusted and managed by ambassadors and envoys.” See Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), 385-86. Another common definition sees diplomacy as the “process of dialogue and negotiations by which states in a system conduct their relations and pursue their purposes by means short of war.” See Adam Watson, Diplomacy: The Dialogue Between States (London; New York: Routledge, 1991), 11.
[10] Scott, Secret Intelligence, 336; G.R. Berridge, Diplomacy: theory and practice, 4th ed., (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010), 230-32.
[11] Bruce W. Jentleson, and Christopher A. Whytock, “Who “Won” Libya? The Force-Diplomacy Debate and Its Implications for Theory and Policy,” International Security Vol. 30:3 (2006): 57-72.
[12] Both the re-opening of the US interest section in Tripoli in February 2004 and the upgrade to a US liaison office in June of the same year can be cited as symbolic signs of improvement. Ibid.
[13] Among these were Yussuf Dibri (head of the intelligence service), Abdul Salaam Jalloud (prime minister), and Musa Kusa (deputy foreign minister).
[14] Gary Hart, “My secret talks with Libya, and why they went nowhere.” Washington Post, January 18, 2004.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Barbara Slavin, “Libya’s Rehabilitation in Works since Early ‘90s,” USA Today, April 27, 2004, <http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-04-26-libya_x.htm>.
[18] Jentleson and Whytock, Who “Won” Libya”, 65.
[19] Slavin, USA Today, 2004.
[20] George Joffe, Interview by Nils Metter, Personal Interview, Cambridge, UK, August 6, 2014.
[21] Slavin, USA Today, 2004.
[22] According to Indyk the “[t]hey were prepared to accept pretty much all the requirements we had” at that time of the “long laundry list of things we expected the Libyans to do to ‘graduate’ from U.S. sanctions.” Ibid.
[23] Kerr and Wiseman, Diplomacy Globalizing World, 274.
[24] Daniel Lieberfeld, “Secrecy and ‘Two-Level Games’ in the Oslo Accord: What the Primary Sources Tell Us,” International Negotiation 13:1 (2008): 137.
[25] Maller, Tara, “Diplomacy derailed: The consequences of diplomatic sanctions.” The Washington Quarterly 33:3 (2010): 61.
[26] Because “it is only through such official human agencies [diplomatic missions] that notional entities such as states can speak to each other.” See Berridge and Alan James, Dictionary of Diplomacy, 66.
[27] Berridge, Diplomacy: Theory and Practice, 226.
[28] Joffe, interview.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Patrick E. Tyler, and James Risen, “Secret diplomacy won Libyan pledge on arms.” New York Times, Dec. 21, 2003, <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/21/world/secret-diplomacy-won-libyan-pledge-on-arms.html>.
[33] Jentleson and Whytock, Who “Won” Libya”, 57-74.
[34] An intervention of British officials “at the highest level” against Bolton took place. See Michael Hirsch, “Bolton’s British Problem,” Newsweek, May 2, 2005m <http://www.newsweek.com/boltons-british-problem-118859>. Also, the travel of British foreign minister Michael O’Brien to Libya in August 2002 is described as a “key development in the intensification of the WMD negotiations.” See Jentleson and Whytock, Who “Won” Libya”, 73.
[35] Joffe, interview.
[36] Blackwill quoted in Jack Davis, “A Policymaker’s Perspective on Intelligence Analysis,” Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 38:5 (2005).
[37] Lieberfeld, “Secrecy and ‘Two-Level Games’”, 136-42.
[38]Nathan E. Busch,, and Joseph F. Pilat, “Disarming Libya? A reassessment after the Arab Spring,” International Affairs 89:2 (2013): 451-475.
[39] Gawdat Bahgat, “Nonproliferation Success,” World Affairs 168:1 (2005): 8.
[40] Tyler and Risen, New York Times, 2003.
[41] Ibid.
[42] Jentleson and Whytock, Who “Won” Libya”, 65-7.
[43] Tyler and Risen, New York Times, 2003.
[44] Joffe, interview.
[45] An intelligence official recalled: “He knew what he wanted to do, and he had a message to pass back to both Washington and London. Our meetings were usually late at night, but in each case he had done his homework, and was quite generous with his time.” See Tyler and Risen, New York Times, 2003.
[46] Tyler and Risen, New York Times, 2003.
[47] These venues were chosen in typically diplomatic manner: Geneva used to be a hotspot for Libyan intelligence officials and place of British-Libyan meetings over the Lockerbie case; London is a place where Saif al-Islam was well connected; Tripoli was inevitable for Gaddafi’s personal involvement.
[48]Judith Miller, ‘How Gadhafi lost his groove’, Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2006, <http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB114773941211953610>.
[49] Joffé, George. “Libya: Who Blinked, and Why.” Current history: A journal of contemporary world affairs 673 (2004): 223.
[50] Miller, “How Gadhafi lost his groove”, 2006.
[51] Ibid.
[52] Herman Nackaerts, “Towards More Effective Safeguards: Learning Hard Lessons,” Virginia, USA: Annual Meeting of Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM), 2011.
[53] Kerr and Wiseman, Diplomacy Globalizing World, 247.
[54] Lieberfeld, Secrecy and Two-Level Games, 247.
[55] Hart, Washington Post, 2004.
[56] According to Joffe, he “was not an autonomous agent in Libya’s acutely personalized system”. See Jaffe, interview. This, however, might be true of any figure aside from Gaddafi himself.
[57] Ibid.
[58] Joffe, interview.
[59] Ibid.
[60] Bahgat, Nonproliferation Success, 4.
[61] Ibid., 11.
[62] Joffe, interview.
[63] Jonathan Brown, “Diplomatic immunity: State practice under the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations,” International and Comparative Law Quarterly 37:1 (1988): 54.
[64] Scott, Secret Intelligence, 232-37.
[65] “NSA Intelligence Relationship with Germany—Bundesnachrichtendienst,” National Security Agency, Jan. 17, 2013, <http://www.spiegel.de/media/media-34053.pdf>.
[66] Siobhan Gorman, “CIA Man Is Key to U.S. Relations With Karzai,” Wall Street Journal, Aug. 24, 2010, <http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704741904575409874267832044>.