No other dictator had such charm and sex appeal; no other dictator so cannily combined the lure of oil and the implied threat of terror to turn Western powers into cowed appeasers. Muammar Gaddafi's story is a study in the exercise of absolute power, told not by politicians but by those who directly served the late Libyan leader whose rule, underpinned by oil revenue of $4 billion a month, was amongst the most unforgiving of any modern despot.