"Mr. Smith" Goes to Paris

The reservation had been made for "Mr.Smith," but when the passenger arrived at the Manchester airport for the early-morning flight to Paris, he was recognized as Arthur Scargill, Marxist leader of the British mineworkers union. Scargill, the London Sunday Times reported, had been on his way to a secret meeting with a Libyan official described by French intelligence as a liaison between the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and international terrorists. A mineworkers' executive later went to Tripoli and met with Gaddafi.

Scargill insisted that the purpose of his Paris trip was merely to consult with French unionists and denied that the mineworkers were seeking money from Gaddafi to support their 35-week strike against Britain's national ized coal industry. Nonetheless Scargill's Libyan connection, revealed seven months after a British policewoman was killed by shots fired from Libya's London embassy, sparked a public outcry. "It is dreadful that this union would approach a terrorist country for help," said Ted MacKay, head of the mineworkers' North Wales branch. Declared Labor Party Leader Neil Kinnock, who has supported the strike: "By any mea sure of political, civil, trade union or human rights, the Gaddafi regime is vile."