On Guard

Rumors of a Libyan hit team

Libya has been suspected in the attempted murder last month of Christian Chapman, the American chargé d’affaires in Paris. It has been accused of sending hitmen to assassinate Washington’s Ambassador to Italy Maxwell Rabb. And now U.S. intelligence authorities are investigating a report that agents of Muammar Gaddafi may be on the prowl for even bigger targets: President Ronald Reagan, Vice President George Bush, Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger.

An informant has told U.S. intelligence officers that a Libyan hit team may have been sent into the U.S. from Canada, but U.S. authorities emphasize that they have no reason to think the information is accurate. “There is one specific operation we are concerned about,” says an official. “We simply don’t know if it is real or fictitious. We are debriefing the informant, and we are taking precautions, but we are not taking his word as gospel.” Says another official: “This is pretty nebulous stuff.”

But even the remote possibility of harm to the President and top Administration figures has prompted new security measures. The FBI is working with the CIA, customs officers and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to increase surveillance along the U.S.-Canadian border for possible infiltrators. Says Ray Hagerty, a regional Customs Service director: “We have stepped up our watch.” But an FBI official in Detroit, where more than a million people a month cross from Canada, cautions that reports of heightened vigilance along the border should not be blown out of proportion. Says he: “There is no massing of agents along the river looking for men in a rubber boat towing a SAM missile.”

Rumors that Libya would attempt some type of dramatic revenge have been circulating ever since U.S. pilots downed two Libyan jets in a dogfight over the Gulf of Sidra last August. Haig and others have spoken of a “hit list” of potential U.S. targets. Although Libya has labeled these claims “insolent in the extreme,” security around American leaders has been significantly tightened in recent weeks. Secret Service agents carrying UZI submachine guns have been notably more prominent at Reagan’s side during public appearances. Air Force One and other official planes have been equipped with devices to foil heat-seeking missiles. Haig and Weinberger, both of whom are scheduled to travel overseas within the next two months, have been provided extra protection, including unmarked police cars that now accompany their motorcades. The possibility of Libyan terrorism, sums up a State Department official, is an “ongoing concern.” ∎