WITH A FORGED MEMO, THE SOVIETS COUNTERATTACK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505120049-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 49
• Publication Date: March 30, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505120049-7
WASHINGTON POST
30 MARCH 1983
Rowknd" Evans and Robert Novak
e Soviets Counterattack
sudden publication iii Warsaw's major-C'om=
"1978,'inemorandum from Zhigniew: Brzezinski---dated five years--strongly argues for-the Rest
to President Carter, detailing a plan to destabi- gan administration to expose and denounce it.
he Poland,. looks like the start of a, desperate Shortly after the October 1978 election of Pope
;Soviet defense in the ease of the attempted as- John Paul II, US. intelligence agents uncovered-
sassinatioi:of Pope.JohnPaul I[ an undoubtedly-'authentic but wholly erroneous
o - IZGi3'= analysis portraying in elaborate detail`
The -forged "tali, secret". communication to----'
Carter from his national. security adviser was a 'how the U.S. had plotted to, elevate the Polish
detaailed plan on how the then-rising discontent cardinal to pope.
.against Poland's.: communist regime. could be According to this KGB analysis, BrreAnski, a
joined to Poland's powerful Catholie-Church to native of Poland, and Cardinal John Krol of:
create, revolutionary turmoiL'1he-U.S. objec- Philadelphia, an ethnic Pole, were alleged to
,tive, the forged Brzezinski memorandum told have organized the -American cardinals to vote-
'Carter, was to pull Poland. out of the. Soviet in a bloc for Cardinal Wojtyla when the College
Orbit of Cardinals met. in the Vatican in mid-October
Soviet-.specialists here regard the sudden for the papal election. Publication of the-spurious memorandum, five Further, the _ Carter administration, with
years - after- it was. purportedly written, by Brzezinski leading the way, was. portrayed by
Brzezinski "as having aving -two- purposes: deflecting__ the KGB as cultivating West German Catholic
attention fm- m- U.S. media campaign charg leadersto line up behind Wujtyla.'['he purpose,
an Soviet complicity. in the pope's attempted as the KGB reported it back to then-KGB chief i
'murder-in 1981; and providing new "evidence'-' .. Yuri-Andropovond'the-Kremnlin, was. to sec the-'
`against Solidarity leaders soon to be put on trial stage- for ? auiti-.SOtviet revolt in Poland- anti l
in Warsaw for crimes "against the Polish state. "reconciliation".., betwee'nPoland and West Ger-.-1
Soviet disinformation gambits are scarcely many.
unusual. What sets the Briezirski-Carter for- Intelligence specialists who have read this 4
very apart is its veiled implication that Brzezin- KGB analysis told us its authenticity is beyond1
ski's alleged Plot to destabilize Poland included question.. Even though its purpose could have 4
the installatiain of Polish Cardinal Karol Woj been disinformation, it appears to have been .
tyla as the first Polish leader of the Catholic based on no facts?atalt: Nothing iarthe written
Chun h /,. record of either Carter or Brvinski gears re-
Top State i epxartment.ofhcials have not yet. mote ..resemblance- to the KGB, analysis...
decided whether to publicly denounce.the.for- Brzezinski's . recgntly published memoirs,
`.gery. It raw apparently first published recently "Power and; Principle," -'mention=_ Pope -John
in a center/left-wing Madrid weekly, Hl 'riem- ? Paul II only twice, saying he-was"struck" in his
L p6, then-picked up by. the Washington acre- second..meeting- with. "how political the. pope's
sp ondent of Zycie IN ars twy anid published in thinking was."
that newspaper last month under a Washington Now` that" the- Polish 'Communist Party's
.:dateline. principal newspaper has published the forged
The sequence of events leading up to the for- Brzezinski memorandum to Garter, most ofti-
claps believe an American response is needed. If
not,, the implication that the. U.S. government;
embarked on a?deliherate-em" urse of interventioi
into the most intimate affairs of the papacy of-
fers- Andropov a"counterattack to charges of
-Soviet complicity in the attempt to murder the
pirpe., Indeed, 'Andropov's attack oil'
last weekend as a "liar" may have been
intended to set-the stage for just such a coun-
terattack..-..
gery-a sophisticated) job obviously done by the
monist Party'newspaper of a barged March 13, KGB in the last few. months and then back-
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505120049-7