'YOU HAVE NO PROOF'

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP90-00552R000505140027-9
Release Decision: 
RIFPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
1
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
May 3, 2011
Sequence Number: 
27
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
December 27, 1982
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
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PDF icon CIA-RDP90-00552R000505140027-9.pdf96.75 KB
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Approved For Release 2011/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505140027-9 ARTICLE A i NEW YORK TIMES WASHINGTON - On Nov. 9, the day before Leonid Brezhnev died, Ital- ian Interior Minister Virginio Rognoni received d visit from the C.I.A.'s vices chief of station in Rome and a staffer from the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee. The Americans wanted to know about the Bulgarian connection to the shooting of the Pope. Mr. Rognoni explained that All Agca, the Turkish gunman, had been informed a few months before that Italy could not afford the cost of keep. ing him in solitary confinement much' longer. To Mr. Agca, that meant he would be transferred to an ordinary prison and would promptly be mur- dered. That induced him to talk about the Bulgarian Government officials who hired him to kill the Pope. ..What proof do you have?" asked the C.I.A. man. The man in charge of Italy's inter- nal security laid out the facts: that the gunman was a cold-blooded killer for hire, and not a fanatic or ideologue; that he was able to pass into Bulgaria easily on an Indian passport -and take up residence in a first-class hotel, which requires secret service knowl- edge; that he entered penniless and came out with $50,000 from what is hardly a land of opportunity; that be was able to describe accurately the living quarters of the Bulgarian offi- cials who Were his controls and con- tacts; and that a flurry of electronic communication came out of the Bul- garian Embassy Just before the at- tack on the Pope, similar to the ac- tivity that took place before an Ameri- can general was abducted. The C.I.A. man waved that all aside. "You have no proof," he said, and did his best to convey to the Ital- ia- rover ment a high degree of skep- ESSAY `You Have No . Proof By William afire this story? Why are we setting-bur- selves standards of proof that the Soviet bloc will make impossible to meet? One reason is humanly institution- al: most spooks, after the C.I.A.'s flat rock was flipped over in the post- Watergate era, don't want anybody to think that assassination is part of any ? nation's "dirty tricks," and so they come to the defense of the K.G.B. in grand le Carre fashion, hinting that the evidence is part of an anti-Andre. recctorr of Cent ral gence Richard Helms, who was pointing a finger at this "classic intelligence operation" from the start.) Another reason has to do with the workings of the American press: where does a story of such magnitude come off being broken in the Readers' . Digest, and developed in detail by NBC, a mere television network? Such a story needs establishment 1e. gitimacy; only a major newspaper can properly provide that. Than there is the bogglement fan tor: the story of the spymaster who gave the order to kill the Pope and thereby saved Poland from Solidarity and rose to the top in the Kremlin - that's a large lump of information to digest. Evil so audacious is unbeliev- able. The central reason for the shameful reluctance to urge. the Italians on is political: we have to deal with this an Andropov, say our doves, and if the chain of circumstance is drawn too tight we might not be able to trust the Soviets on arms control. That fear of not being able to briar back detente motivates most of those who wish this awful trail of circum- stance would vanish. We know enough; they do not want to know any more. That is why, after facts are pre : sented which compel common sense to lay the crime at the Kremlin door, we will hear the faceless . officials complain, "you have no proof." meat have at least guilty knowledge of the "`"`"~' . "What proof do you want?" asked plot was elevated to the top post in the Mr. Rognoni. The circumstantial evi. Kremlin - was . seen by Italians as dace already presented, along with further evidence ht ~U.S. wanted some more that the gunman was ex-the pected to reveal, was the best that Why do we require tangs to touch could be garnered an a covert opera- tion. Nobody would come forward with a fingerprint of Yuri Andropov an the gun, but it was certain that no such mission could be undertaken without the permission of the+K.G.B., than headed by Mr. Andropov. According to one report of the meet- ing, the C.I.A. representative contin- ued to +view with distaste the conclu- sions being reached by the Italian in- vestigators. Meanwhile, in other capi- tals - and in Washington - middle- level C.I.A. men with journalistic con- tacts have been pooh-poohing the story. In Rome, U.S. foreign service officers have been telling Italian dip- lomats that the investigation is an in- ternational embarrassment. This, the Italian Government found itself pursuing a can that caused it to strain relations with a Communist neighbor and profoundly offend the new Soviet leader without the moral support of the government of the United States. The lackadaisical atti- tude of most of the U.S. press on this subject throughout the. early winter - Approved For Release 2011/05/03: CIA-RDP90-00552R000505140027-9