THE CIA--COVERING UP MOSCOW' S TRAIL OF MURDER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000403950001-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: February 26, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000403950001-1
NEW YORK NEWS-WORLD
26 February 1983
PEON
T-- he CIA-covering up
Moscow's trail of murdEr
of the U.S. Senate Intelligence
ALLAN
BROWNFELD
The controversy is growing -
as well it should - over allegations
that the CIA has been downplaying i
the growing evidence which
involves the KGB in the attempted
assassination of Pope Paul II.
In a nationwide TV program
which aired Jan. 25, NBC corre-
spondent Marvin Kalb said that
CIA officials were trying to cover
up the matter because evidence of
KGB involvement in the plot would
"shar.er hopes for detente, trade
and arms agreements" with the
Soviets.
Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, D-N.Y.,
accused CIA Director William
Casey cf covering up the Soviet-
Bulgarian connection. Upon his,
return from Rome on Feb. 9, he
revealed that Italian authorities'
told him they were "shocked" by,
the way. the CIA was trying to!
"obstruct and deflect" the inves-'
tiga:ion of the Bulgarian connec-
tion to the assassination attempt. "I
was told that the CIA is using dis-
information and all sorts of other
tactics to divert, dissuade and actu-
ally block this investigation:'
D'Amato said.
D'Amato warned
Asked if he thought that CIA
Director Casey himself was
involved in the coverup, D'Amato
said, "Yes:' He reported that U.S.
Embassy officials in Rome did
everything they could to prevent
him from investigating the matter
himself. He said that U.S. Ambas-
sador Max Raab sent him a tele-
STAT'm before he left saying, "Don't
.ne." In addition, a staff member
Committee was prevented from
going with him on the trip, because
of CIA pressure.
Sen. D'Amato called the CIA's
efforts "shockingly inept" and said
that he had been told by a senior
agency official in Rome that "not
-one person has been assigned to
follow developments in the case."
Another member of Congress,
Rep. Larry McDonald, D-Ga., has
called upon the Reagan adminis-
tration and the Congress to investi-
gate allegations that the United
States attempted to suppress inves-
tigations linking the attempted
assassination of Pope John Paul II
to the KGB. In letters to President
Reagan, CIA Director Casey and
Rep. Edward Boland, D-Mass.,
chairman of the Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence,
McDonald said that there is mount-
ing evidence that the KGB was
either directly involved in the
attempt or at least knew the
attempted assassination would
occur. He said that there is also
evidence that the CIA tried to sup-
press the efforts of newsmen and
Italian authorities to link the KGB
with the attempt on the pope's life.
Those in the know
Those in a position to know
express little doubt that Moscow is
deeply involved. Former Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger and for-
mer National Security Adviser
Zbigniew Brzezinski have both said
that the well-established Bulgarian
connection of Mehmet Ali Agca,
the man who pulled the trigger,
leads directly to the Soviet Union
and its current leader, Yuri Andro-
pov, who was then head of the KGB.
"It had to be the Soviets;' Kissinger
said. "The Bulgarians had no inter-
est in coming after the Pope:'
himself - seems to be ignoring the
growing body of evidence leading
to the conclusion that Moscow was
indeed involved in the assassina-
tion attempt. In an interview with
the French newspaper Le Figaro,
the former No. 2 man in Bulgaria's
state spy service said that he is
certain that Moscow was b h'
n
the shooting of the a a
pope. Steffan
Svertle' who in 1972 became sec-
ond in command of the KDS, which
is directly tied to the KGB, said: "I
haven't the least doubt about the
participation of the Bulgarians in
this plot:'
Svertlev, who defected to the
West in the late 1970s, pointed out
that this operation would not have
been decided by the Bulgarians
alone since Bulgaria had no par-
ticular reason to eliminate the
pope. The Russians, he declared,
were certainly behind it. Asked if
Bulgaria could have undertaken
this operation alone, he replied:
"Absolutely not ... The depart-
ments I and II - specializing in
espionage and counter-espionage
- are both completely controlled
by Soviet advisers ... All the
secret services of the Eastern bloc
are simply branches of the KGB,
which we call the center ... Based
on my experience in the secret
service, I am certain that the plot
against the life of John Paul II
came from an order from Leonid
Brezhnev and was organized by
Yuri Andropov ... This isn't in any
way the first time such a procedure
was followed:'
Strangely incredulous
Why does the CIA - and others
in this administration - believe
that it is unlikely that the KGB was
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000403950001-1