JAILHOUSE SCHLOCK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505100011-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 13, 2010
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: February 14, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/13 :CIA-RDP90-005528000505100011-0
AK 1 il.1.C nrrv+~ +-.+
OR PAGE
WASHItJGTON-TIMES
14 February 1986
Jailhouse sclilock
Soviet journalists in the United States like
to hang out at American prisons. A week
rarely passes without a story in the Soviet
press portraying some convicted felon as a
martyr to human-rights abuses in the United
States. Most often the articles amuse, but
sometimes they conjure things more sinister.
Take a recent story in Literaturnaya
Gazeta, filed by its New York correspondent
Iona Andronov, who got into the federal pen
in New York City and talked with one Fran-
cesco Pazienza, a former Italian intelligence
official now awaiting extradition to Italy to
face fraud charges. The Soviet publication
thinks Mr. Pazienza has stashed away a file
in Paris that can prove the May 1981 shooting
of Pope John Paul was ordered by the Italian
secret service and, ho-hum, the CIA.
This is another amazing gyration the So-
viet bloc media have gone through to pin the
papal shooting rap on someone, anyone, other
than the Bulgarians that Mehmet Ali Agca
said orchestrated the assault. First it was
Agra the lone anti-Christain fanatic; then
came Agra the fascist working for a Turkish
terrorist group. Now: John Paul, target of the
CIA and its imperialist lackeys. You get the
picture.
This garbage notwithstanding, how is it
that someone of Mr. Andronov's repute is
floating around freely? It's understandable
why he packs Literaturnaya Gazeta creden-
tials: he excels at fiction. 'l~vo years ago he
produced a screed attempting to prove the
KGB's CIA fabrication. And why are so many
KGB agents loose in America under the
guise of "working press"? They're working,
all right, but not just for the newspapers.
You'll not hear a call io shackle reporters
from this corner. But the scores of Soviet
"journalists" scouring the land are far from
legit. Like Mr. Andronov, most are disinfor-
mation artists whose masters are assuredly
.not typical newspaper publishers. Will the
State Department finally tighten the reg-
ulations that allow these characters to roam
the country?
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/13 :CIA-RDP90-005528000505100011-0