END CIA COVER-UP OF POPE SLAY PLOT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505120086-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 15, 2010
• Sequence Number: 86
• Publication Date: February 11, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/15: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505120086-6
YORK NEWS-WORLD
11 February 1983
End CIS cover-up of pope slay plot
Sen. Alfonse D'Amato is outraged over
what he perceives as a deliberate CIA-
State Department cover-up of Soviet com-
plicity in the plot to assassinate Pope John
Paul II. D'Amato returned Wednesday
from Italy on his own fact-finding trip to
probe allegations that the Bulgarian
secret police - and by extension the
Soviet KGB - was behind the murder plot.
He found to his astonishment that the
American CIA was either "inept or delib-
erately obstructing" in its handling of the
probe.
D'Amato said he believes top-ranking
CIA officials all the way up to CIA Director
William Casey are behind the effort to
downplay the shooting. The CIA's
obstructionist actions include disparaging
Italian efforts to get to the bottom of the
plot, dragging its feet on D'Amato's
request for information, and admitting to
him that the investigation had low CIA
priority without even a single CIA worker
assigned to the case.
"I am deeply disturbed by the conduct
and attitude of the CIA," he said. So are we
and so should every American. D'Amato
believes the agency's inaction is based on
the State Department's concern about not
offending the Soviets before the expected
summit meeting with Soviet leader Yuri
Andropov who, as former head of the
KGB, probably had a direct role in carry-
ing out the plot to murder the pope.
Being "nice" to the Soviets and trying
not to embarrass them by bringing up
their heinous crimes against humanity.has
been tried again and again by American
politicians and diplomats. Stalin's purges,
the Katyn Forest massacre in Poland, use
of chemical and biological warfare, sup-
port of world terrorism, even possible
KGB complicity in the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy were all swept
under the rug. The result: The Soviet
Union continues its atrocities ? without
letup and the United States loses more and
more of its stature as a moral leader in the
world.
We hope D'Amato's revelations will help
end this spineless policy. By not exposing
KGB crimes, the United States becomes a
silent partner in perpetrating them.
Besides, what does the United States
gain by remaining silent? The Soviets
certainly have not reciprocated. our
restraint, since communist propaganda
organs throughout the world exploit every
opportunity to trumpet fabricated stories
about CIA misdoings to the extent that
people in the Third World are ready to
swallow any lie the Soviets make about the
CIA. Tb give just one example, mob ram-
pages against U.S. embassies in Pakistan
and other Muslim nations some years ago
were fomented by KGB lies that the CIA
led the armed occupation of the Great
Mosque in Mecca.
President Reagan has been more vocal
than any previous president in exposing
Soviet crimes, having spoken out against
Soviet support of terrorism and its use of
chemical-biological weapons. There is no
reason, therefore, that Reagan should not
take the lead in getting to the truth about
the plot to assassinate the pope. It is better
to lose a summit meeting with Andropov
than lose our national dignity by keeping
silent in the face of Soviet outrages.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/15: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505120086-6