MARGIN FOR TERROR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000200990001-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 9, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: February 12, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/09: CIA-RDP90-00845R000200990001-7
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WASHINGTON POST
12 February. 1984
Margin for Terror
THE TIME OF THE ASSASSINSf1By-'Claire Sterling.
Hot, Rinehart and Winston. 264 pp. $14.95
By ALLAN E. GOODMAN,
I ti THE WAKE of most assassination attempts against
political leaders, especially charismatic ones, there
usually is some element of doubt about what really hap-
pened and why. In the case of the attempted assassination
of Pope, John Paul II on May 13, 1981, the level of -doubt
far exceeds the level of certainty. - - -
At the center of the controversy is the issue of whether.
the self-confessed assassin, Mebmet All Agca, acted alone.
or with the help and under the influence .of the Soviet -:
Union. As early as September-1981, the Italian judge who --
sentenced Agcy to life imprisonment Concluded that "Agcy
was no more than the emerging point of a deep conspiracy,
complex and threatening. orchestrated by secret forces,
carefully planned and-directed down to the smallest de-
tail" But the evidence to back up .this conclusion has
never really come to light from government sources. The
closest we will probably get to seeing some of it is by read-
ing Claire Sterlings new book, The Time of theAssas-
Sterling has two stories to tell. The first is about the
assassin and how be might have come to be manipulated.
by the KGB. The second story is about why and how un-
named noncommunist intelligence cials appeared to
cover up for their KGB "brothers-in-arms." "The more
telling the evidence of the Soviet role coming to light,"
Sterling writes. "the more resolutely they discounted
it." Who lied and why turned out to be the "story of a
lifetime." In fact, the book is not that sensational.
Rather it is an extremely well-written account of a vet-
eran reporter's energy, imagination and frustration in
following up every lead and leak.
The starting point for Sterling's work on this case was
a contract from Reader's Digest: "Spend as much as you
must to get as close to the truth-as you can." The maga-
zine also contracted with Paul Henze, who served on the -
staff of the National Security Council during the Carter
administration and who conducted a separate investiga-
tion. Henze's book. The Plot to Kill the Pope, reaches
virtually the same conclusions about the role of the
KGB as does Sterling.
When it comes to the Soviet. Union and especially the
operations of the KGB, the Reader's Digest has a defi-
nite axe to grind. as does Sterling. She makes very clear
from her tone that she started out believing that the
Soviets were behind the attempt on the pope and that
her mission was to uncover as much as their tracks as
possible.
Chat struck her most and very early in her own inves-
tigation was that only the Italians appeared interested
in finding out how deeply Moscow might have been in-
volved. The more they (and she) probed, the more the
circumstances surrounding Agca's travels, finances and
STAT
behavior indicated that he had .not and could not have
',acted alone. And by the winter of 1983, the Italian au-
thorities had charged seven people with complicity in
the assassination attempt
The. Italian- police were guided in making these
charges and some arrests by clues Agca had given in pre-
trial and subsequent interrogations. Sterling admits
that Agca is a "practiced liar" and he has changed his
story several times not only about the assassination at-
tempt on the pope but also about other terrorist activi-
ties in which he has been involved. Consequently, the
Italian officials who investigated the leads Agca gave
them often encountered.-disbelief-and ridicule. Accord-
inQ t~erling: ~unnamed?CIA oi'Ficers`an'Th her Z .S.
and European- government officials have consistently
maintained that Agea was "a crazy" and therefore too
unreliable for really professional intelligence-operatives
-(such as those in the service of the KGB) to include in
an assassination plot
.
Sterling uncovers too -much -to leave such views un-
challenged. She builds "a-solid circumstantial case" that
Turkey was a fertile ground in which to nurture an as-
sassin, that Ages thought of himself as a terrorist and
that throughout his career he had numerous sources of .
help from countries (especially Bulgaria) and criminal
organizations involved in terrorism.
She also builds a good case for why ~-- --
Moscow was frightened by the pope.
John Paul was apparently seeu%..as a
harbinger of instability to Poland
(Soviet Foreign' Minister - Gromyko
said in 1979 that the pope's gavel to
Poland."would have the same effect
on the masses as the Ayatollah
Khomeini had in Iran") and through-
out Eastern Europe. He was regarded
as the instigator of an equally threat-
ening religious revival in the Ukrain-
ian and Lithuanian republics. i
Having set this context, Sterling 1';
_ suggests why it is conceivable that,
once KGB director Yuri Andropov be-
came the Soviet leader in November
1982, it might have been in the inter-
est of the United States and other gov-
ernments to remain silent if he had
ordered the pone killed. There was the
hope that fall and winter, she reports,
that Andropov would prove a leader
with whom the West and especially
the U.S. president could deal. Some
maintained that Andropov (who prob-
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/09: CIA-RDP90-00845R000200990001-7