THE BULGARIAN CONNECTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000100510005-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 18, 2007
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: January 5, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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The MacNeil-Lehrer Report
STATION WETA-TV
PBS Network
DATE January 5, 1983 7:30 P.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
The Bulgarian Connection
ROBERT MACNEIL: In May 1981, Pope John Paul was shot in
St. Peter's Square. Does the assassin's trail actually lead to
Moscow and the top Soviet leaders?
MACNEIL: The Soviet newspaper Pravda said today it was
utterly absurd to suggest that the Soviet Union or Bulgaria were
involved in the assassination attempt on the Pope in 1981. The
Official newspaper Pravda accused the Central Intelligence Agency
and the U.S. Government of using the story to undermine Soviet
disarmament proposals.
The Italian government has charged that Bulgarian
intelligence agencies were involved in the attempt on the Pope's
life by the Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca. The Italians
arrested a Bulgarian airlines official and have been questioning
him for six weeks.
The alleged Bulgarian connection has inevitably raised
the question of whether such a momentous event could haved been
planned without the Kremlin being involved as well. That idea
has in turn caused the Italian evidence to be greeted with some
skepticism, even embarrassment, in the West.
Tonight, how good is the evidence that the assassination
attempt on the Pope was a Bulgarian-Soviet plot?
JIM LEHRER: Robin, Mehmet Ali Agca says he learned to
kill people in Lebanon in 1977 .as a student at a terrorist camp
run by the Soviet-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine. Less than two years later, he was arrested back home
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in Turkey for the assassination of a prominent newspaper editor.
He immediately and publicly confessed to the murder, and then
later in court said he didn't do it, but he knew who did. That
veiled threat to spill the beans apparently got him what he
wanted -- freedom. A month later he escaped from prison by
walking out in an army uniform, having passed through eight
normally locked doors on the way out.
The next day, he wrote a letter to a newspaper
threatening to shoot the Pope when he came to Turkey three days
later. There was no assassination attempt then, and Agca left
Turkey, ending up eventually in Sofia, Bulgaria. There he stayed
in the best hotel for 50 days, living the good life and meeting,
among others, a prominent arms and drugs smuggler, who reportedly
wanted the Pope dead.
From Bulgaria, Agca went to West Germany, Switzerland,
Austria, Spain, and Tunisia, among other places, on a grand tour
that officials estimate cost at least $50,000. Finally, he ended
up in Italy on a three-month Italian student visa and went to
Rome. There, through the good offices of the smuggler back in
Sofia, he met three Bulgarians, the airlines official and two
Bulgarian Embassy employees, all of whom allegedly assisted in
Agca's attempt on the Pope's life in St. Peter's Square.
That is a rough piecing-together of some of what has
come out thus far, all of it drawn from what Italian officials
have either released or leaked, or from the independent journal-
istic investigations conducted by Reader's Digest and NBC News.
Both of the American news organizations were assisted in their
investigations by Paul Hinsey (?). He worked as a specialist on
Turkish terrorism, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe at the
National Security Council in the Carter Administration. He is
now a research fellow at the Rand Corporation.
First, Mr. Hinsey, is there anything you would add to my
description of what the evidence is up till now?
PAUL HINSEY: Well, there's a lot of other evidence, and
some of it involves the Bulgarian connection. Some of it is
coming out at the present time as a result of the arrest in
Germany of an interesting Turkish figure by the name of
Celebe (?). It appears that the story is even more complicated
than we've seen to date. And I have the feeling that a great
deal more is going to come out over the next few weeks. Clearly,
the Italians have collected far more than they've revealed.
LEHRER: What does it add up to you at this point, as we
sit here tonight?
HINSEY: Well, I think the evidence is almost
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incontrovertible. The Bulgarian connection with Turkish
terrorism goes very far back in time. It goes way back into the
'70s. It probably even goes back into the '60s. The Bulgarians
were smuggling arms into Turkey, supporting terrorists over a
long period of time. They were aiding and abetting drug traffic.
They were giving lenient treatment to a group called the Turkish
Mafia, of international smugglers and unprincipled business
dealers who could not find refuge, certainly, for any period of
time in any Western country. This is most peculiar in a
communist country, where everything that goes on is basically, in
the last analysis, controlled by the state.
LEHRER: But what about the direct connection between
Agca and the Bulgarian -- and official Bulgaria?
HINSEY: Well, it's -- Agca was an extremely well-known
personality in Turkey. For a year, Agca was in the headlines in
Turkey. When Agca escaped, it was all over the Turkish press and
it was all over the world press. It's inconceivable that
Bulgarian, which after all does follow Turkish affairs closely
and which is right next door, didn't know who Agca was.
Under those circumstances, it's very difficult to
imagine that Agca could arrive in Bulgaria, whatever passport he
was carrying, and not be known to the Bulgarian authorities.
The estimates of Agca's stay in Bulgaria actually vary
from perhaps six weeks to six months. We really don't know.
This part of it has not been clarified.
Agca left Turkey under very mysterious circumstances
after escaping from prison. In the dead of winter, he went over
high mountain passes into Iran, of all places. Iran, at that
point, in the early weeks and months of 1980, was one of the last
places in the world anybody would want to go to to seek refuge.
You'd get into trouble by simply standing on the street in Iran
in those days. The Iranians were holding the American Embassy
hostage. They were -- the country was in a state of disorder.
Why Agca went to Iran and where he went from Iran has never been
clarified.
LEHRER: Well, one piece of speculation I read today was
that he went from Iran to the Soviet Union. Is there anything to
that?
HINSEY: Well, it's entirely possible. After all, the
Soviet Union is right next door to Iran, and it would be a very
nice way to go in the back door.
LEHRER: All right. Now, you've been to Turkey and
you've talked to Agca's family. Agca, from the very beginning --
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I mean the day after the assassination attempt on the Pope -- has
been described as a religious fanatic, a crazed terrorist. The
most recent designation has been he was a cool hired gun.
What is your feel for this man? How would you describe
him? What...
HINSEY: He's much closer to being a cool hired gun,
certainly, than he is to being a religious fanatic. There was
nothing religious about Agca. I verified this by talking to his
mother, his brother, his sister, the people in his home town.
Agca was a very typical young Turk, in that sense. He was no
more religious than most young Turks are today, and no more
religious than most young people are in most parts of the world.
He seldom went to mosque. He observed only the standard
holidays. He showed no interest in religion. He never wrote
anything about religion.
Agca, on the other hand, was a very bright student. He
had a reputation in high school for being somewhat of a loner.
His nickname was Emperor because he held himself above others.
He had good grades. He read a lot. He had a reputation for
knowing a lot among his fellows.
This leads me to think that Agca was spotted somewhere
fairly early as a very promising recruit to terrorism. And...
LEHRER: And he was in it for the money, and the money
was there.
HINSEY: Well, the money began to flow very early. One
of the things we discovered in the course of the NBC program last
year, last spring and summer, was that sums of money began moving
into bank accounts fairly early in Agca's career. This is most
extraordinary for a student anywhere in the world of modest
circumstances.
LEHRER: All right. Thank you.
MACNEIL: Now we hear from a man who has studied
Bulgarian intelligence and believes Bulgarian involvement with
terrorist groups in Italy goes far beyond the Agca affair. He is
Michael Ledeen, a senior fellow at the Georgetown Center for
Strategic and International Studies. Mr. Ledeen was a special
adviser to Alexander Haig when he was Secretary of State.
Mr. Ledeen, is the Bulgarian connection with Agca and
this plot credible to you?
LEDEEN: Oh, yes. Absolutely. And it's not just the
Bulgarian connection with Agca that's got the Italians upset
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right now, but a wide variety of Bulgarian espionage activities
in Italy, of which there are three principal ones. The first is
Agca himself. The second is an enormous drug and arms-running
operation in the North of Italy. And the third is the
penetration of the Italian trade union movement at its very
highest levels by a confessed Bulgarian agent and his wife, who
also worked for the Bulgarians. And this guy, among other
things, was in very close contact with the Solidarity trade union
in Poland.
MACNEIL: Now, back to the alleged plot on the Pope.
What makes this lead from the Pope to Agca to the Bulgarians to
the Soviets credible to you?
LEDEEN: Motive and opportunity, the usual things that
you look for in analyzing a crime. The Russians had every motive
to remove the Pope from the world scene. He was...
MACNEIL: Describe that motive to us, as you see it.
LEDEEN: Well, the Russians faced, in the Polish case, a
tremendous threat to the empire. If Poland goes independent, if
freedom really gets a toehold in Poland, there's no telling where
it may lead. And this threatens the entire Soviet system.
The real leader of Poland is the Pope. He is the great
legitimate figure of authority in that country. The great
majority of Poles are Catholics, not communists, as we found out
when he made his trip there. And American television reporters
interviewed people on the streets, and they told him this. And
if you look at the Solidarity movement itself, all their leaders
carry pictures of the Pope. There are pictures of the Pope
hanging in the Gdansk shipyards. Walesa comes to the Pope, talks
to him, looks to him for spiritual and political guidance.
So that for the Russians, as they contemplated a
military operation in Poland -- and remember, they had to
contemplate the full range of military operations -- the figure
of a Pope, the man who wrote a letter to Brezhnev saying, "If you
invade Poland, I will lead the Polish resistance," is a
tremendous threat. And under those circumstances, they had to
consider removing him.
MACNEIL: Is there anything missing from this so far
which gives you some doubt about it?
LEDEEN: Well, yes, but I expect it'll always be
missing. There is no Freedom of Information Act in the Kremlin,
after all.
MACNEIL: I see. Well, thank you.
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LEHRER: Mr. Hinsey, do you go that far in your belief?
That you're firm about the Bulgarian connection. Do you believe
it's then automatic that there has to be a Soviet connection as
well, that there is one?
HINSEY: I think it's absolutely out of the question
that the Bulgarians could undertake this on their own. Of all
the East European countries, they have the least motivation.
They have no Catholic population. They have no quarrel with the
Pope. And the Bulgarian reputation, over a long period of time,
is that of the most loyal of the satellites. Bulgaria has never
had any real serious dissidence that's threatened the Soviet
relationship.
LEHRER: We'll probably not know -- never know the
answer to the question I'm about to ask the two of you. But both
of you have studied this.
What is your best guess? Do you think that Agca was
literally approached and hired to kill the Pope for a certain
amount of money? Or do you think it just -- what do you think
actually happened? Did the Soviets make the decision, then tell
Bulgarians, "Go find somebody"?
The Bulgarians, "Well, we've got this guy."
"Okay. Here's some money. Go do it"?
LEDEEN: I think that Agca was sent to Rome without
knowing exactly what his mission was going to be. Because the
stuff in the Italian press recently suggests that he may have
been sent there to kill Walesa some months earlier, when Lech
Walesa went to Rome. So he may -- he certainly was there twice,
because he checked into the same hotels, using the same alias and
the same phony documents the first time, when Walesa went to
Rome.
So my guess is the Russians put him there and said,
"Perhaps we'll get Walesa. Perhaps we'll get the Pope,"
depending on how their contingency planning was going in Poland
and how developments unfolded.
HINSEY: I think it's possible, also, that the whole
operation against the Pope may have been kept on a standby basis
until some real opportunities developed. And the opportunity
that developed, which has received very little attention, is the
fact that Cardinal Wyszynski, along with the Pope, the real
symbol of nationalism and religious strength in Poland, became
deathly ill in March of 1981.
Now, that is exactly time when Celebe, in Germany, says
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that he went to Zurich to meet Agca and offered to pay him three
million marks to assassinate the Pope.
LEHRER: Gentlemen, there's one fly in this ointment,
and I'm sure you're aware of, is that Agca wrote a letter in 1979
to a Turkish newspaper threatening to kill the Pope. That was
long before there was Solidarity, long before there was a problem
in Poland.
HINSEY: Well, there was a problem in Poland at that
point. I think the Russians were concerned about the Pope from
the moment he was elected. So I don't find it too surprising
that Agca would have been exercised by letting him write a letter
and seeing how well he did. I think Agca at that point was being
tested and tried, and he proved himself pretty good.
LEHRER: You mean you think he was told to write the
HINSEY: I think he was probably told to write the
letter. Yes. I can see no other reason why Agca would write a
letter about the Pope. The Pope's visit to Turkey went off very
successfully and there was no opposition to it.
LEHRER: Thank you.
MACNEIL: For another perspective, we have Harry Gelman,
former specialist on Soviet bloc intelligence for the Central
Intelligence Agency. Currently a senior fellow at the Rand
Institute, Mr. Gelman is working on a hook about detente. He
joins us tonight at public station KCET in Los Angeles.
Mr. Gelman, do you find this story credible?
HARRY GELMAN: I am inclined to think that, on balance,
it is more likely to be true than not. But I'm not quite as
convinced as Mr. Hinsey and Mr. Ledeen.
MACNEIL: What causes you some doubts about it?
GELMAN: Well, I think -- I'll give you the positive
side first. I think there is a -- if the Italian press leaks are
substantiated and caught and stand up, the accusations against
the Bulgarians who have been accused, then I think there's a very
strong circumstantial case linking it to the Bulgarian
government, to the KGB, and to the top Soviet leadership,
including Brezhnev. I think the chain of evidence goes all the
way up to the top.
MACNEIL: And it would have to go through Yuri Andropov,
who was then the head of the KGB.
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GELMAN: Indeed. If Antonov and the other two
Bulgarians did in fact connive at the assassination of the Pope,
if that is proven -- and it has not yet been proven -- then these
people are almost certainly members of the Bulgarian intelligence
service, I would think. The Bulgarian government has to be aware
of this. The Bulgarian government and intelligence service, we
take for granted, is massively controlled by the KGB. The
Soviets, on their part, do not delegate authority of this kind.
If any Soviets were involved, it would have to have been passed
all the way up to the top of the KGB. And Mr. Andropov, at that
time, would not have done it on his responsibility. It would
have had to have been approved by Mr. Brezhnev. So the chain of
logic leads all the way up to the top almost immediately.
On the other hand, there are some points which give me
pause, and which I think others have been puzzled by.
MACNEIL: What ae they?
GELMAN: For example, is it plausible, is it really
plausible that the Soviets thought that killing the Polish Pope
would really solve their problem? It's conceivable, but I'd want
to see some more evidence, and I'm not sure I'll ever get it.
On the other hand, on that very point, one could argue
that in May of last year, the moment the assassination attempt
occurred, the Soviets were at their most desperate state in
Poland. And it must have seemed to them by no means as clear as
it now seems that they could wrap it up as easily as they have
done in practice.
As you remember, the Polish party was falling apart at
that time. And it seemed very likely to everybody that the
Soviets might in the end have to invade, that the present
solution was by no means as certain as it now seems, in retro-
spect.
So that is a partial answer to that question, but it
doesn't satisfy me.
The other thing that bothers me is, is it credible that
the Soviets were really such bunglers as to let the Bulgarians
take such a prominent role in running this operation? The
Bulgarians, of course, being so closely tied to the Russians,
historically and in every other way, and being associated with
the Russians in the public mind. It is not very much of a cover,
of a protection. It does not really give the Soviets much of an
excuse. And are the Soviets really -- were the Soviets really
willing to accept this kind of risk?
MACNEIL: Are you saying that if they had planned some-
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thing which would be so momentous, that they would have done it,
typically, in a more subtle way?
GELMAN: Yes. And I would imagine, I would suppose that
they would have wanted to keep the Bulgarian role somewhat
disguised, using still other people as intermediaries. It is
kind of naked to have Bulgaria that closely identified. Of
course, they didn't expect the Bulgarians to be caught.
MACNEIL: Well, thank you. We'll come back in a moment.
LEHRER: Another view of it now from Barry Carter, who
worked on U.S.-Soviet relations under Henry Kissinger at the
National Security Council and later was a staff member of the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which looked at U.S.
intelligence operations in 1975. He now is an associate
professor of law at Georgetown University, where one of the
courses he teaches is on the appropriate legal reactions to
international terrorism.
First, do you have an opinion on whether or not this
connection has been established, or does it add up to you?
BARRY CARTER: Well, as the three previous panelists
have said, there's a strong circumstantial case that the Soviets
might well be involved. But I'm not sure the case has been
proven yet. It's a highly risky operation, and why did they
trust the Bulgarians?
But I, as an old trial lawyer, I would like to see a
little more of the evidence. And I think there ought to be a
very thorough investigation into this. And we should withhold
our judgment for now, but clearly investigate it further.
LEHRER: All right. Let's talk about what the United
States -- how the United States should play this now. Columnist
William Safire and others have suggested that the United States
has gone -- is essentially telling the Italians, "Cool it. Back
off. We don't want an investigation. We've got to deal with
these Russians. Leave them alone. Go away."
Is that the way we ought to play it?
CARTER: I hope Safire's wrong. I hope this
Administration is encouraging the Italians to go forward as
aggressively as possible. But I hope we're doing it in a quiet
way. The Italians appear to be doing a fairly good investigative
job, and I think it's better that they do it, because our motives
are a little suspect in the area of Soviet relations. Our
language in the last few years has been a little shrill. And
also, when we get into this assassination area, our history isn't
entirely clean.
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So I think it's better to let the Italians go forward.
And any help that the CIA or the FBI or other agencies can give,
we should give it quietly.
LEHRER: What do we -- what are the pros and cons -- I
don't know how to put this. What does the United States
potentially have to gain if in fact a good circumstantial case
of Soviet involvement is in fact proved down the line?
CARTER: I think we might gain something from it; not as
much as one might wish. But what the Soviets did was truly
outrageous, if they did attempt to kill the Pope. And I think
it's something that the rest of the world will draw lessons from.
What I think we ought to do is if a case if proven --
it'll never be entirely clear because, as just pointed out,
there's no Freedom of Information Act that's going to say we've
got a case. But to the extent a good case can be shown, I think
the U.S. can use that as a tool or as a reminder to people, when
we are talking about East-West relations, just the kind of people
that we're dealing with and just what the new leadership might be
like.
Andropov is not a closet liberal. Andropov was head of
the KGB, who might well have been involved in this activity. And
we ought to remember who we're dealing with.
LEHRER: But should we adjust our own dealings with the
Soviet Union based on this?
CARTER: Well, I think right now -- we're taking a
fairly strong anti-Soviet position as is, and in fact might have
gone too far in recent months on occasion. But I think right now
we're engaged in some sensitive negotiations with our European
allies and with Japan over trade and economic relations with the
Soviet bloc. And in those negotiations, about whether we should
do high-technology trade with the Soviets, whether we should sell
them oil and gas equipment, whether we should give them
commercial credits, what should be our relations with the
Soviets -- in those negotiations, I think the U.S. should be able
to say to its allies, Japan, Western Europe, "My God, look at who
we're dealing with. This is yet another reason for us to be
fairly strong in terms of limiting the trade we do with the
Soviets."
LEHRER: Finally, let me ask you this. There is another
theory going around that Andropov's enemies in the Soviet Union
have set this whole thing up to discredit him. I mean this is a
disinformation thing at work, a domestic political problem in the
Soviet Union. Do you buy that?
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CARTER: Well, it seems that they really planned well in
advance, if there's this whole train of evidence that we've heard
that ties the Soviets back. Someone had to expect Andropov was
going to get into power. And then, the information isn't even
leaking from the Soviet Union. It's coming from other places,
including Italy, which I'm not sure that Andropov's enemies have
a control over.
LEHRER: In other words, you don't buy that.
CARTER: Right.
LEHRER: Thank you.
MACNEIL: Mr. Hinsey, finding this plot story credible,
as you do, how do you think Mr. Reagan and other Western leaders
should behave towards the Kremlin, with this knowledge?
HINSEY: Well, they should certainly behave with a great
deal of circumspection and care. I think, for the time being,
the posture of being relatively quiet and letting the
investigations proceed is the wisest posture. I don't think
there's any need for Mr. Reagan to say anything at this point,
because enough other people are saying things.
MACNEIL: Mr. Ledeen, you want to add to that?
LEDEEN: Well, I think the point is this, long-term:
that if the evidence stands up and if the case is finally
demonstrated, then isn't it time, finally, for us to get serious
about anti-terrorism? And isn't it time, finally, to go back and
take a look at all the stuff that's been going on for so many
years where the Soviet connection has been so resolutey pooh-
poohed in so many corners, and start asking what must we do to
defend the West against this kind of systematic organization?
MACNEIL: Mr. Gelman, does this, in your view, taking
the -- for the moment supposing that this case is believed, is
this a case for a very serious reevaluation of Western attitudes
towards the Soviet leadership?
GELMAN: Yes, I would think so. The essential problem,
however, is what constitutes proving. The amount of proof that
may be available is subject to different evauations by different
groups in the society. I think it's going to be rather difficult
to get a consensus in firm agreement that the Soviets and
Brezhnev and Andropov did it, even in the United States, let
alone in the West.
I hope I'm mistaken. I hope there'll be sufficient
evidence that will show the matter clearly one way or another
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before we're finished. But at all costs, we've got to establish
a consensus as to what it is, and build our policy on that. It
should not be allowed to be another issue on which the West
founders in great disarray.
I think there are a lot of people in the West who will
be most reluctant to come to this conclusion, because the
consequences are very, very grave indeed.
MACNEIL: Well, let's ask about them. Does anyone, Mr.
Hinsey, Mr. Ledeen, Mr. Carter, think that it would be better
policy for the West, since it has got to deal with Mr. Andropov
and the others, simply to say this information isn't true and to
disregard the case and pretend it hasn't happened?
Mr. Hinsey, what do you think?
HINSEY: I really don't see why we should conclude that
we have to deal with Mr. Andropov. He's only been in office a
very short period of time. He certainly is not a closet liberal.
It's entirely possible that some of Mr. Andropov's colleagues
might find that he is not the man to continue to represent their
country.
After all, when Richard Nixon was found guilty of far
less grave misdeeds, the processes of our society, the
congressional investigation process, the free press, brought Mr.
Nixon down, brought him to the point of resignation.
MACNEIL: Are you suggesting this could bring Mr.
Andropov down or make him somehow ineligible?
HINSEY: I don't see why we should rule that out.
MACNEIL: Do you have a view on that, Mr. Ledeen?
LEDEEN: I don't. I'm not a Soviet expert.
But I want to make just one minor point, and that is
that I don't think that documenting this case is an earth-shaking
event in one's understanding of the Soviet system. Since if it's
not this case, it's one of another case, one of a whole series of
cases. The point is that Soviet society, and the KGB in
particular, is a society and an organization that do this kind of
thing. That is what it is there to do. They have four million
people in a gulag, and Mr. Andropov ruled over that gulag.
So, I don't see the drama of this event in terms of
reassessing the nature of the Soviet system. It's a tremendously
important case...
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MACNEIL: Well, it was the Pope, after all.
LEDEEN: Well, sure it was the Pope. The point that has
to be made in terms of assessing the evidence, I think, is that
Italy, which has been one of the most prudent and soft-spoken
countries in the world on this subject, even though it's been run
over by terrorists for years, is on this case, the only one on
which it has the firsthand evidence, very outspoken. And I am
very much persuaded by the outspokenness of these three
independent Italian judges. And I would add this to Mr. Gelman's
lists of things to evaluate. Remember, it's not an intelligence
service that's investigating it for the Italians, it is a series
of independent judges who have discovered an interlocking series
of facts from three independent investigations. This is, I
think, important to keep in mind.
MACNEIL: Well, thank you, Mr. Ledeen, Mr. Hinsey, Mr.
Carter, and also Mr. Gelman in Los Angeles.
Approved For Release 2007/05/21: CIA-RDP88-0107OR000100510005-4