THE PRESS, THE K.G.B. AND THE POPE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505120032-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 15, 2010
• Sequence Number: 32
• Publication Date: July 2, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/15: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505120032-5
THE NATION
2 July 1983
THE `BULGARIAN CONNECTION',
THE PRESS,
1 THE K.G.B.
. ND THE POPE".
FRANK BRODHEAD AND
'EDWARD S. HERMAN
The papal reign of John Paul II has coincided
with the onset of a new cold war between the
United States and the Soviet Union. Because of
the entrance of the Pope and, more generally,
the Roman Catholic Church into arenas that are
central in this conflict-Poland, the arms "raa,
liberation struggles in Central America-his
papacy has become inextricably linked with
heightening East-West tension.
Another feature of the renewed conflict is the
Reagan Administration's claim that machina-
tions of the Soviet Union and its allies are behind
each disturbance of the status quo. I 'Terrorism"
is the catchword for all acts of political -violence
repugnant to the West, behind which we are like-
ly to find the hand of the K.G.B. This propagan-
da campaign has been effective. It is widely ac-
cepted in the "free world" that the Russians and
their :"proxies" are the root of much of the
world's turmoil.
One of. the most dramatic contemporary acts.
of political violence was the attempted assassina-
tion of the Pope by "a young Turk in 1981. Ini-
tially interpreted ' by the Western media as the
work of a right-wing fanatic, the assassination
attempt is now seen as having been directed from
the Kremlin and implemented through a "Bulgar-
ian Connection." In their new book, Pontiff,
Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts center
their story around the shooting in St. Peter's
Square. Nowhere do they question the validity
of the K.G.B. root of the plot.
We believe that the Bulgarian Connection
theory, as delineated in Pontiff and in the mass
it took little time after Mehmet Ali Agra Shot the Pope in
St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981, for the world to learn
much about his background. One of Turkey's most notori-
ous terrorists, Agca had assassinated the editor of a leading
Turkish newspaper two years earlier. Moreover, he was as-
sociated.-with a local fascist movement, the Nationalist Ac-
tion Parry (NAP), and its affiliate, the Grey.Wolves, whose
leaders had been arrested in late 1980 and charged with hun-
dreds of political murders. Their 945-page indictment,
which was handed down in Turkey two weeks after Agca's
assassination attempt, contained much information on
NAP's extensive domestic and European networks.
Most Western correspondents, including Marvin Howe
and R.W. Apple of The New York Times, did not hesitate
to describe the attempt on the Pope's life as the work of the
extreme right, and to suggest that there were links between
Agca and NAP's more than 100 European branches. While
his motive was obscure, it was thought to be related to ultra-
chauvinism and anti -Westernism, both characteristic of
Turkish fascism, an ideology in which Agca had been im-
mersed since high school. Lending credence to that theory
was NAP's part in engineering Agca's escape from-a Turk-
ish prison in November 1979, which occurred when he was
being tried for murder. Immediately afterward, Agca wrote
to an Istanbul newspaper announcing his intention to shoot
the Pope, whose visit to Turkey was then imminent. The
deed, of course, was postponed to another day.
Agca's brief trial in Italy for the papal shooting, in July
1981, left many questions unanswered. Where did he get his
gun and false passport? Who helped him during his fifteen-
month flight throughout Europe following his escape from
the Turkish prison? Where exactly had he gone, and who
provided him with traveling money-totaling 550,000, ac-
cording to Western intelligence estimates? Finally, did he
have any accomplices on the day of the .shooting? While
substantial evidence that Agca was part of a conspiracy was
offered in court and in press reports, the nature and mem-
bers of that conspiracy remain in doubt.
There matters stood until the publication of an article by
Claire Sterling in the September 1982 Reader's Digest. Ster-
ling's article, and a September 21, 1982, NBC "White
Paper" narrated by Marvin Kalb, asserted that Agca's ap-
parent connections to the right were only a cover, and that
his actual "control" was the K.G.B. The main evidence sup-
media, is incompatible with many known facts and is spe-
ciously argued. The book displays the main features of a
growing body of pseudoscientific writing that serves Presi-
dent Reagan's political objectives by portraying the Soviet
Union as the locus of terrorism. Pontiff thus provides a use-
ful illustration of the character, the genesis-and the infir-
mities-of a politically convenient untruth.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/15: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505120032-5