REAGAN REASSURES ITALIANS ON PAPAL PLOT PROBE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91B00135R000701270023-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 13, 2008
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: February 6, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/06/13: CIA-RDP91 B001 35R000701270023-1
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
6 February 1983
REAGA1 REASSURES ITALIANS ON PAPAL PLOT PROBE
WASHINGTON
The White House told Vice President George Bush to reassure anxious Italian
leaders that President Reagan supports their probe Into the alleged plot to kill
the Pope, even if the trail leads to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, NBC News
reported Sunday.
NBC, on its evening news, said Bush, during his visit to the American embassy
in Rome Sunday, also was charged with stopping "all leaks, principally from
CIA officials, that tended to dishearten the Italians and discourage the
investigation.''
Following the report, a White House spokesman said Reagan last month publicly
stated the U.S. position on the probe, expressing "full confidence that the
investigation is in capable hands, that the Italians.are carrying out a rigorous
Investigation."
''The various reports in this country that the U.S. is encouraging or
discouraging the investigation just are not true,'' spokesman Mart Allin said.
''We think the Italians should proceed without people prejudging them. The fact
is they are carrying it out and you accept the results of the Investigation.''
Ailin said the topic of the probe ''certainly is expected to come up during
Vice President Bush's meetings with Italian leaders, but he simply Is stating
U.S. policy in this matter."
A U.S. embassy spokesman in Rome said most of Bush's time Sunday was
''private time" with a few meetings with Italian leaders at the embassy. He
said no details of the meetings would be disclosed.
Allin said the White House would have no comment on stories regarding the
leaks.
''There have been stories the last couple of weeks that U.S. government
officials have been putting a little bit of cold water on the whole story, " he
said. ''We're just not taking a position. The Italians will make the decision on
the outcome of the whole Investigation.''
NBC said leaks from CIA officials in Washington appeared in the New York
Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal this past week, stating
that Mehmet All Agca, the Turk who tried to kill the Pope, was "crazy,'' and
therefore neither the Bulgarians nor the Russians would have used him.
"But on this point, either the CIA is badly Informed or chooses for
whatever reason-to badly Inform the public," NBC correspondent Marvin Kalb
said, "because the evidence suggests Agca was anything but crazy."
NBC quoted Roman magistrate Severino Santiapichi, who said In on the early
interrogations, as saying "all the Interrogations of Agca revealed a
lucidity.''
Wt UJ''
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Q
It quoted senior Vatican official Cardinal Silvio Oddi as saying, ' 'This man,
he was not a fool. That's proved. He's an intelligent man.'
Kaib said the White House was "so agitated'' that National Security Advisor
William Clark and CIA Director William Casey conferred last week and ordered a
full-scale investigation into the CIA leaks, ''and warned in messages to the
embassy in Rome that the leakers would be severely punished.''
Kaib said CIA officials' motives for going against company orders and
administration policy are unclear.
''What is clear is that the President's men have put out the ward that if
Andropov is found to be implicated in the Papal plot and if this damages the
arms control negotiations, then so be it. The president is described as wanting
the whole truth out and letting the chips fall where they may.''
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