[GonzoII]

"Quaddafi ousted the US from the base after he overthrew King Idris."

Did he have popular support back then? Who supported him the ousting of King Idris? Do you recall the details?

Gonzo

[piasa]

A communist party had formed in Libya during its occupation by Italy when many people received their education in Italy and encountered Marxism there.

[piasa]

The headquarters of the communist party in Libya was Benghazi.

[piasa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Socialist_People%27s_Libyan_Arab_Jamahiriya#Great_Socialist_People.27s_Libyan_Arab_Jamahiriya_.281977.E2.80.932011.29

[billhilly]

I can't answer your questions because the overthrow occurred some years after I left the country. With one exception, it was a very peaceful country while I was there. That exception demonstrated to me how the Arab dominated nations stuck together.

We had a radar site, an Aircraft Control and Warning, AC&W site which was where I worked. We witnessed the air armada that attacked Suez in the fall of 1956 as it flew across the Northern Mediterranean. We were baffled by the number of aircraft, but since they were not penetrating our air space, we took no action.

After that bombing raid, jointly conducted by Britain, France and Israel, we got our first look at the fury of a united Arab World.Although President Eisenhower was kept in the dark about the raid the Arabs stormed our base in protest. Our Air Police were able to close the gates before the mobs were able to get into our base, they demonstrated for several days. Other than that, King Idris and the USAF seemed to have amicable relationships. Looking back to those times, and in case any old pilots who flew in and out of Wheelus read this, our call sign was Farnsworth and our AC&W site had two detachments that reported on aircraft in their airspace. They were in two locations east of Tripoli that would become household words in recent times. Misrata and Benghazi.