Arnaud de Borchgrave examines a now-neglected but vital episode in the life of John Paul II: the KGB plot to assassinate him in 1981.
In the round-the clock coverage of the Pope John Paul II's death, remarkably little was said about the plot, even less about those who wanted the pope dead ASAP.It was the Polish pope's election in 1978 and his first visit a year later to his homeland (where he had been archbishop of Cracow), and the millions that turned out to greet him, that set alarm bells ringing in the Kremlin. Unlike Josef Stalin who sneered at the pope and his imaginary divisions, KGB chief Yuri Andropov (1967-1982) saw this anticommunist pope as a mortal danger to Soviet control over Eastern Europe.
The head of the French intelligence agency at the time was Alexandre de Marenches, one of the great spymasters of the post-World War II era. He told this reporter within days of the botched assassination about East European intelligence defectors who had pointed an accusing finger at the Bulgarian KGB, one of Moscow's satellite services that specialized in 'wet' operations, spook jargon for contract killings.
He also rescues from ill-deserved obscurity the work of pathbreaking journalist Claire Sterling, who exposed KGB support for multiple terrorist groups in the 1970s and 1980s.
Claire Sterling, a prize-winning journalist and author, had just published 'The Terror Network' when Ali Agca tried to kill the pope. Her articles were widely published in major U.S. magazines as she used her Rome base for 30 years to report in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia.Miss Sterling quickly saw the Bulgarian connection when it became known Ali Agca had made several trips to Sofia, Bulgaria, and stayed in a hotel favored by the Bulgarian KGB (DS). In Rome, he had also had contacts with a Bulgarian agent whose cover was the Bulgarian national airline office. In an earlier incarnation, he had escaped from a Turkish jail where he had been serving time for killing a newspaper editor.
'The Time of the Assassin,' published in 1983, was Miss Sterling's in-depth look at the plot to kill Pope John Paul II and the subsequent investigation. She had no doubt the plot originated at 2 Dzerzhinsky Square, KGB headquarters in Moscow. The KGB assigned this super-wet operation to the Bulgarian DS, which functioned under its orders. The Bulgarians then looked for cover and deniability among the Turkish extremist group involved with the local KGB in lucrative drug smuggling routes through Bulgaria to Western Europe.
The story, now two decades old, received fresh corroboration just days ago.
New documents found in the files of the former East German intelligence services confirm the 1981 assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II was ordered by the Soviet KGB and assigned to Bulgarian and East German agents.According to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, the documents found by the German government indicated that the KGB ordered Bulgarian colleagues to carry out the killing, leaving the East German service known as the Stasi to coordinate the operation and cover up the traces afterwards.
Bulgaria then handed the execution of the plot to Turkish extremists, including Mehmet Ali Agca, who pulled the trigger.
The documents consist mostly of letters from Stasi operatives to their Bulgarian counterparts seeking help in covering up traces after the attack and denying Bulgarian involvement.
The willingness of the world's powers to publicly ignore or deny the implications of a KGB assassination attempt against the Pope remains to this day as an amazing artifact of the Cold War.
• By Claire Sterling:
- The Time of the Assassins
- The Terror Network