What'Ll It Cost Me to Be Your Friend?

By DAVID ELLIS

Libyan leader MUAMMAR GADDAFI, spooked by Operation Desert Storm and feeling lonely now that Syria has tilted toward the West, however slightly, is trying to end his isolation from the West. The strongman met secretly in Tripoli with Teddy Taylor, a Conservative member of the British Parliament, to talk about re-establishing diplomatic ties that were cut off in 1984, after a London policewoman monitoring an anti-Gaddafi rally was killed by a sniper hidden in the Libyan embassy. Gaddafi apologized and presented Taylor with a $500,000 check to a British police charity as restitution, but the Libyan was told he will remain a pariah until he publicly renounces the use of terrorism.

With reporting by Linda Williams