The Libyan revolution of September 1, 1969, was led by the relatively unknown Colonel Muammar El Qaddafi. The young revolutionaries felt it was crucial to associate themselves with an established Arab power and turned to Egypt and its revered leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. The Egyptians dispatched several key diplomats to Tripoli, including Salah El Saadany, overnight. Over the next seven years, the Egyptian and Libyan relationship vacillated between placidity and volcanic eruptions--always unpredictable and often puzzling. An unusually astute and powerful insider here reveals the personalities of the leaders, and their tortuous diplomatic and political intrigues, in a book rejected as too frank by all Egyptian publishers approached.