Wouldn’t Lie to Press, but for Kadafi, ‘Anything Goes’: Regan

WASHINGTON — President Reagan’s chief of staff, commenting on the disclosure of secret Administraton plans to trick Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi into believing U.S. forces might attack again, said today that “when you have an opponent as wily and as dastardly as Kadafi, almost anything goes.”

But Donald Regan, appearing on the NBC-TV “Today” show, said, “We would never lie to the American press.”

Regan commented one day after presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said an unidentified Administration official had been guilty of making unauthorized disclosures and had been “free-lancing erroneous” information to the Wall Street Journal. The Journal subsequently published stories about the possibility of Kadafi undertaking a new campaign of terrorism and steps the United States was considering to deter such actions.

Regan today said the Administration was simply trying to keep Kadafi guessing about American intentions.

“What we’re trying to do there is to show that if the fleet moves one way, let him think what he wants on it. And if the fleet moves another way, let him think something else. That’s all we’re trying to do--keep him off stride.”

But in doing that, he added, “we have never tried to lie to the American press--we never would lie to the American press.”