The Taming of a Radical

One of the world's most erratic and radical leaders, Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, is being uncharacteristically reasonable these days.

Last month he formed a loose union with conservative, pro-U.S. Morocco.

Last week he signed an agreement with France under which the two countries will make a "total and simultaneous" withdrawal of troops from the former French colony of Chad, beginning this week.

Under the agreement, which Morocco may have helped to broker, the French will remove some 3,000 men, 800 vehicles and 40 aircraft, which have been buttressing the government of President Hissene Habre; the Libyans will pull out their 5,000 men from northern Chad, where they have been backing the rebel forces of Habre's onetime ally and ousted predecessor, Goukouni Oueddei. Libya and France greeted with relief their anticipated departure from the costly stalemate. But the Chadians, mired in a seesaw 19-year-old civil war, were anything but jubilant. Stung by the French failure to consult them before the agreement and skeptical of the mercurial Libyan's change of heart, they viewed the accord as a French betrayal and a Libyan deception.