THE UNDIPLOMATIC BULGARIAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404090002-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: April 4, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000404090002-4
STAT
r1,1'L' i p TIME
3_ 4 April 1983
THE VATICAN
The Undiplomatic Bulgarian
A defector points the finger toward Moscow
From the start, the evidence has come
in bits and pieces, with each new
shred making the mystery only more in-
triguing. Was the Soviet Union. acting
through Bulgaria, behind the attempted
assassination of Pope John Paul II by
Turkish Terrorist Mehmet All Agca on
that sunny May afternoon in 1981? The
latest fragment does not answer that ques-
tion once and for all, but it tightens the
web of circumstantial evidence around
the Kremlin. A Bulgarian embassy work-
er who defected to France in 1981 has told
French intelligence officials that the KGB
devised the plot to kill the Pope out of fear
that the Polish-born prelate was part of a
zinski's supposed purpose: to use the Pope
to inspire further unrest in Poland and
eventually to wrench the country out of the
Soviet orbit. Mantarov claims that he was
told that as the troubles in Poland mount-
ed. and as the Pontiff came to be identified
with the budding Solidarity movement, So-
viet authorities gave the command to
"eliminate" the Pope. They allegedly
handed the assignment to the Bulgarians,
long known for their subservience to the
Kremlin's wishes.
The Bulgarians, according to Man-
tarov, picked Agca as the assassin because
he was known as a right-winger with
no ties to any Communist country. In
gave Fren
that the KGB ordered the papal assassina.
tion. TIME has also learned that Mantarov
did not have diplomatic status at the Bul-
garian embassy; he was, in fact, a techni.
cian attached to the commercial section.
And at least one important detail in the
Times story may be wrong: Bulgarian
emigres living in Paris insist that Man-
tarov defected on April 11, 1981, not the
following July. If the earlier date is correct,
Mantarov would have defected before the
assassination attempt. The timing is cru-
cial, since Mantarov then could have told
French authorities about the plot before
the attempt took place. What makes this
speculation important is that Alexandre
de Marenches, then head of French intelli-
gence, has said he had solid evidence in late
April 1981 that an assassination attempt
against the Pope was imminent. He was so
confident of his information that he dis-
A mosaic of terrorism: Mehmet All Agca, left, who shot loin Paul 11 in May 1981; Sergei Antonov, upper right, and Luigi Scricciolo
Details ofa Bulgarian agent named Dimiter, orders from Zbigniew Brzezinski and a contract on a papal assassin.
US.-inspired scheme to undermine the
Polish government.
According to an account published in
the New York Times, the talkative official
is lordan Mantarov, 48. who was last post-
ed as deputy commercial attache at the
Bulgarian embassy in Paris. The Times
said that Mantarov defected in July 1981,
two months after the failed assassination.
While being debriefed by French intelli-
gence officials. Mantarov reportedly said
that a close friend in the Bulgarian state se-
curity agency named Dimiter Savov had
given him details about a KGB plan to mur-
der the Pontiff.
Savoy is said to have told Mantarov
that the KGB concluded in 1979 that Zbig-
niew Brzezinski. President Jimmy Carter's
Polish-born 'National Security Adviser.
had somehow erb;-r..A ,1 e,_-?:__
November 1979, unknown accomplices
slipped Agca out of a Turkish prison.
Agca then began a murky trek that ended
in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981. Ac-
cording to Mantarov. the Turk was to
meet his own fate there as well: he was
supposed to be killed immediately after
shooting the Pope.
The Bulgarians. predictably, dis-
missed Mantarov's account. An embassy
spokesman in Rome described Mantarov
as nothing more than a mechanic formerly
employed by a Bulgarian firm in France.
Mantarov, meanwhile, has dropped out of
sight. French intelligence officials refused
to admit last week that they had ever spo-
ken to him, let alone that he had told them
anything about the Bulgarian connection.
Mantarov is most likely still in French cus-
patched a pair of deputies to the Vatican to
advise papal aides of the plot.
Even though it is not known when
Mantarov told French authorities about
the alleged KGB involvement, Paris has
been remarkably stingy in sharing its in-
formation. The French are believed to
have briefed Washington only after they
knew that what Mantarov had to say was
going to be made public. Nor does it appear
that the French told Italian authorities
about Mantarov, despite the fact that Ital-
ian Judge Ilario Marcella has been con-
ducting a meticulous investigation into the
assassination attempt for the past 17
months. When TIME Rome Correspon-
dent Barry Kalb asked Martella last week
if he had been told about Mantarbv, Mar-
tella replied flatly: "Never."
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/21 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000404090002-4