YOU HAVE NO PROOF

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91B00135R000701270039-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 13, 2008
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: December 27, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

11 `~
Approved For Release 2008/06/13: CIA-RDP91 B001 35R000701270039-4
AP.TxCL$ Ari'? 27 DECKER 1982
?:i T'A,GE
WASHINGTON - On Nov. 9, the
day before Leonid Brezhnev died, Ital-
ian Interior Minister Virginio Rognoni
ESSAY
this story? Why are we setting our-
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
t 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-Andro-
pov plot. (An exception is former Di-
d
hief tLion from the
and a s vi
c ce- V o l.ll Ha.. V e
chief of of station in Rome and a stonier from the U.S., Senate Intelligence
Committee. The Americans wanted to
know about the Bulgarian connection AT to the shooting of the Pope. 1
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--' ~i
'
..ing him in solitary. confinement much'
longer. To )Ar. Agca, that meant he
would be transferred to an ordinary By William Satire
prison and would promptly be mur-
dered. That induced him to talk about
the Bulgarian Government?officials could be garnered on a covert. Opera-
Whohued him to kill the Pope. tion. Nobodwould Yuri Ae forward
orwv on
"What proof do you have?" asked with a fingerprint
the C.IA man. - the gut,, but it was certain that no such
The man in charge of Italy's inter-. mission could be undertaken without
nal security laid out the facts: that the. the permission of the! K.G.B., then
gunman was a cold-blooded killer for beaded by Mr. Andropov.
hire, and not a fanatic or ideologue; According to one report of the meet-
that be was able to pass into Bulgaria ing, the C.I.A. representative contin-
easily on an Indian passport-and take. ued to view with distaste the conclu-
up residence in a first-class hotel, sions being reached by the Italian in-
which requires secret service knowl- vestigators. Meanwhile, in other capi-
edge; that he entered penniless and tals -- and in Washington -
.middle-carne out with $ 0.000 from what is level C.I.A, men with journalistic con-
hardly a land of opportunity; that he tacts have been pooh-poohing the
was able to describe accurately the story. In Rome, U.S. foreign service
living quarters of the Bulgarian offi- officers have been telling Italian dip-
cia's who were his controls and con- lomats that the investigation is an in-
!acts; ant that a flurry of electronic.. ternational embarrassment-
carsmunication came out of the Bul- Thus, the Italian Government found.
garan Embassy ? Past before the. at. - itself pursuing a case that caused it to
tack on the Pope, similar to the ac- strain relations with a Communist
tivity that took place before an Ameri- neighbor and profoundly offend the
csngeneral wasabducted. - new Soviet leader without the.moral
The C.IA man waved that. all .: support of the government of the
aside. "You have no proof,,, he said, -United States. The lackadaisical atti-
and did his best to convey to the Ital- tude of most of the U.S. press on this
ian Government a high degree of skep- subject throughout the early winter-
especia 1v after the man who had to
rector of Central Intelhgence cud an
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 le-
gitimacy; only. a major newspaper
can properly provide that. ,
Then there is the boggiement fac-
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
man 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 -61 not being able to bring
back detente motivates most of those
who wish this awful trail of circum-
stance would vanish. We know
enough; they do not want to )wow any
ricisrn from the American Govern- have at least guilty knowledge of the more.
meat plot was elevated to the top post in the - That is why, -after facts are pre.
"What proof do you want?" asked Kremlin - was seen by Italians as. seated which compel common sense
Mr. P.ognaad The circumstantial evi- further evidence that the U.S. wanted to lay the crime at the Kremlin door,
dente already presented, along with we will bear the faceless, oftic sls
some more that the gunman was ea- the investigation shut down. " roof."
best that Wiry do we require tongs to touch complain, younave nop
petted to reveal, was the _ ?:,:; -- ?- -. ? ... --.: r .. - _ . .... . , .. ? - : _ .
Approved For Release 2008/06/13: CIA-RDP91 B001 35R000701270039-4 IF