An April 5 front-page article on the secret deals by the French and Italian governments with Libya and the Palestine Liberation Organization granting safe passage to terrorists quoted the U.S. government as claiming it learned about such agreements as late as "last year."
When I was living in Italy in the late 1970s it was known to everyone with the mildest interest in politics that the Italian authorities, hard pressed by the Red Brigades terrorists, had struck deals. It is quite simply impossible that the U.S. government was unaware of them. The Reagan administration's self-righteousness is about as much use in combatting terrorism as its recent antics in the Gulf of Sidra.
