THE DEEP TERROR PLOT: A THICKENING OF SILENCE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606030002-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2011
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: June 24, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000606030002-6
ARTICLE APP&MM
ON YAGEI, .--
The deep terror plot: a trnning
of silence
W ASHINGTON - A CIA
stratagem to test the
veracity of a high-level
Communist defector has back-
fired and is today in part re-
sponsible for con-
tinuing suggestions
that the Soviet KGB
plotted the assassina-
tion attempt on Pope
John Paul three years
ago.
There is no evi-
dence to demonstrate a
KGB connection to the
shooting of the Pope
in St. Peter's Square
on May 13, 1981.
Rather, there is clear
evidence that the ac-
cused assassin. Meh-
met Ali Agca, con.
sorted with several
Polish Pope. The Bulgarian offi of plotting the murder attempt.
Why isn't it doing so? There
ciais who met.Agca must.have must be some kind of U.S. cover-
been members of the Durzhava up of the KGB involvement,
Sigurnost, the Bulgarian secret maybe to avoid worsening rela-
police. The Durzhava Sigurnost J tions with Moscow.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
24 June 1984
has close relations I A .key actor in this drama is a
with' the KGB, and former Czechoslovak major gen-
would never have eral, Jan Sejna, who defected to
dared to plot an the West in March 1968. Sejna
assassination without was debriefed for a -period of
clearing it with the several years.by the CIA, but in
KGB. Yuri Andropov, the early _ 1970s,. CIA officials
the late Soviet Presi- suspected he may have run out
dent, was head of the .of things to say, and was simply
KGB. Therefore, Yuri. telling stories to keep his
Androoov must have
Lars-Erik
Nelson
Bulgarian officials just before
the shooting. From these facts,
speculation has flourished along
the. following lines:
The Kremlin was worried
about the rise of the Solidarity
movement in Poland and
alarmed at the election of a
plotted to kill the
-Pope. -
The Reagan admin-
line of speculation on
the grounds that it
hurts the Kremlin. But
h. yaycLI La VU111119 in. ,
As a test, he was_ asked to
verify a document that allegedly
proved the KGB was the master.
mind of virtually all of the
world's terrorist groups: the
Japanese Red Army, the Baader-
Meinhoff gang, the Italian Red
Brigades, the Argentine Mon-
toneros. The document looked
plausible enough, and Sejna
pronounced it authentic. He was
thereupon quietly fired. The
document was a phony, con-
cocted by the CIA.
of late, Reagan officials have
been chagrined to find that they
too are being included in the
conspiracy theory.
The new line of logic is this:
The Bulgarian connection to the
KGB is so obvious that the U.S.
should be accusing the Kremlin
Sejna was never told the
reason the CIA let him go-and
he was never told the document
was a phony. On his own, he
went off to Western Europe and
told a startling tale: He had seen
proof that the KGB was the.
mastermind of all international
terror. He gave this information
to the French and Italian intelli-
gence services, and some of it
wound up in a book by an Amer-
ican author in Rome, Claire Ster-
ling, called "The Terror
Network."
When President Reagan came
to office in 1981, his secretary of
state, Alexander Haig, declared
Soviet-sponsored international
terrorism to be his No. I con-
cern, and demanded that the CIA
produce the kind of evidence
that Ms. Sterling had cited in her
book. The CIA shamefacedly
confessed that it was being
asked to confirm its own phony
document-and Haig had to let
the issue drop.
But it has not died. A variety
of authors have since specialized
in elaborating on Sejna's "evi-
dence"--among them Ms. Ster-
ling, who was been one of the
foremost investigators of the
plot to kill the Pope. The KGB-
BulgariaTurkish terrorist con-
nection seems plausible in the
light of Sejna's testimony-but
Sejna's testimony is false.
WHAT IS THE TRUTH? It
is hard to tell at this
point. But the best
guess of serious analysts is that
the Bulgarians were using All
Agca as an enforcer in a gun-
running and drug-smuggling
racket-and that-he went amok.
They doubt that the Bulgarian
government plotted to murder
the Pope, or that the KGB was
involved, or that Ronald Reagan
is involved in a cover-up of the
KGB to protect U.S.-Soviet
relations.
But the administration re-
fuses to comment on any of
this-and it only invites further
speculation. The irony is that
the speculation comes from peo.
ple who regard themselves as
Reagan's friends.
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