FORMER SPY SAYS HE WARNED THE VATICAN OF ASSASSINATION TRY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505100044-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 44
• Publication Date: August 8, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/23 :CIA-RDP90-005528000505100044-4
ART1ClE APPEARED WALL STREET JOURNAL
8 August 1985
ON PAG ~
Former Spy Says He
Warned the Vatican
O f Assassination Try
,~~
Name of Pazienza Crops Up
At Trial of the Bulgarians
In Attempt to Kill Pope
B~/Q WALL STREET JOURNAL SfC4(,(RCpOTLCT
With a propensity for being at the scene
of impending scandal, Francesco Pazienza
recently popped up in the case of the as-
sassination attempt on Pope John Paul II
in May 1981.
At the continuing trial of the Bulgarian
officials in Rome, the judge attempted to
quiet the courtroom June 19 by shouting
"Patience!", or, in Italian, "Pazienza!"At
this point, the star prosecution witness-
Mehmet Ali Agca, the one-time Turkish
neo-Nazi already convicted of shooting the
Pope-interjected, "Yes, Francesco Pa-
zienza!"Asked to explain, Mr. Agca made
headlines here and in Italy by saying that
in 1982, Mr. Pazienza had come to him in
prison offering freedom if he would impli-
cate the Bulgarians in the crime-as he
has.
Mr. Pazienza, who had left his job with
SISMI, the Italian spy agency, in 1981, says
he never met Mr. Agca-but was involved
in the case in other ways involving the
spreading of information on terrorism.
(Ironically, he and other former SISMI of-
ficers face charges that they illegally used
SISMI to try to blame right-wing terrorism
on leftists.l
Mr. Pazienza sa s that as a terrorism
ex ert or a an is c ose associ-
ate A exan re a Marenc es, t e now-re-
tired head of French intelli ence, warned
the Vatican o an i~n~ vet attac
on~t i-Te~~~ six mont~is-before Iw~r.-Agca
actually pull-~t~ trigger. (Mr. de
Marenches has told a British newspaper he
issued such a warning; he didn't return
telephone messages from The Wall Street
Journal.l
Second, Mr. Pazienza says, he helped
supply information to the person who be-
sides Mr. Agca is perhaps most associated
with the issue: Claire Sterling, who re-
ported the case for Bulgarian responsibil- ,
ity in a book and in the New York Times.
Ms. Sterling is a friend and sometime jour-
nalistic collaborator of Michael Ledeen,
who has been associated with Mr. Pa-
zienza, but she angrily denies she ever met
Mr. Pazienza. Asked about a lunch to-
gether that Mr. Pazienza describes in de-
tail, she calls his statement "a total, abso-
lute lie:"
But she does acknowledge two meetings
witll Mr. Pazienza's boss at SISMI, the late
Gen. Giuseppe Santovito. She angrily
hangs up the phone without answering af-
ter being asked questions about whether
she knew Mr. de Marenches. At any rate,
she, Mr. Ledeen, and Arnaud de Borch-
grave, who used material Mr. Pazienza
helped supply, became in 1981 the three.
leading journalistic exponents of the theory
that the Soviet Union is responsible for
Western European terrorism. On April 24,
1981, their testimony on that subject
opened the hearings of a new U.S. Senate
subcommittee on terrorism.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/23 :CIA-RDP90-005528000505100044-4