CNN) -- Just a few years before becoming embroiled in fighting a rebellion, Moammar Gadhafi was spending millions of dollars a year to wage a PR campaign to burnish his global image as a statesman and a reformer, confidential documents show.

The mercurial leader hired The Monitor Group, a Boston-based consulting firm, to execute a public relations strategy that included paying think-tank analysts and former government officials to take a free trip to Libya for lectures, discussions and even personal meetings with Gadhafi starting in 2006.

According to a 2007 memo from Monitor to Gadhafi's intelligence chief, the campaign was to "enhance international understanding and appreciation of Libya... emphasize the emergence of the new Libya... [and] introduce Muammar Qadhafi as a thinker and intellectual."