Chapter 15
The Pope Must Die
For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum
have seized upon well-publicized incidents…to attack the Rockefeller family for the
inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic
institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best
interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as “internationalists”
and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global
political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand
guilty, and I am proud of it.
David Rockefeller, Memoirs, 2002
By the end of March 1981, events surrounding Gladio were spinning out of control. The raid on
Gelli's villa had provided Italian police officials with evidence of the covert operation, including
statements of payments, linking P2 to right-wing terrorist outfits and criminal organizations such as
Ordine Nuovo (New Order), Movimento d'Azione Rivoluzionaria (Revolutionary Action Movement),
and Banda della Magliana (Band of the Magliana—referring to the neighborhood most members were
from). The confiscated files also provided insight into Gelli's close ties to the CIA and SISMI.
Adding to the treasure trove of information came proof that Sindona, Calvi, and Marcinkus were
members of the secret society; that Gelli had been instrumental in setting up branches of Banco
Ambrosiano in Latin America; and that the Vatican's shell companies had been used by P2 as a means
of providing arms to right-wing regimes and rebel armies. The Italian police officials were now
aware that US political leaders, including the vice president, the secretary of state, and the US
ambassador to Italy were intricately involved in the inner workings of the lodge.
All of these discoveries were made possible by John Paul II's failure to provide assistance to
Sindona—a failure that led to the fake kidnapping, the visit to Arezzo, and Sindona's incarceration in
a New York prison, where he was beginning to break out in song. What's worse, the jailed don issued
a one hundred thousand dollar contract for the murder of John Kenney, who now served as the chief
prosecutor in his extradition hearings.1
GROWING CONCERNS
By refusing to shore up the losses incurred by the IOR's shell companies, the pope had been remiss.
The payments of the loans should have been made through the Holy See from the seemingly
bottomless reservoir of black funds, but John Paul II intransigently refused to acknowledge such debts
for fear that the common laity might come to learn that Holy Mother Church was a very worldly
institution. This refusal resulted in a massive investigation by the Bank of Italy into the affairs of
Calvi and Banco Ambrosiano and the revelation that hundreds of millions of dollars had been
illegally exported out of Italy to the Vatican's strange-sounding companies. What, the investigators
began to wonder, was the parochial purpose of the offshore firms that had received over $1.5 billion
in “loans” from Ambrosiano? Surely, the companies, now gorged with cash, couldn't be engaged
simply in selling rosary beads, scapulars, and garish backyard statuary to impoverished Latinos.
The probe, thanks to John Paul II's inaction, continued to gather steam with each passing day. And,
if the investigation was not halted, it would lead to the office of Stibam International, which was
located on Ambrosiano property, and the discovery of the massive drugs-for-arms deal that was
underway to make the world safe for democracy.
THE RAID'S RESULTS
The raid at Arezzo produced another devastating result: the loss of power for the Christian Democrats
in Italy. Since 1947, the CIA had bolstered the party with over $65 million in cash, making sure it
would remain in control of the Italian government.2
But the names of three leading members of the
cabinet of Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani were on the P2 list, along with the heads of Italy's military
intelligence, commanders of the Guardia di Finanza, prominent journalists (including the editors and
publishers of Corriere della Sera), powerful judicial officials, and leading military figures. The
government of Forlani, the geostrategists within the CIA realized, could not weather the crisis and
would collapse within the year, and the Agency would lose control of the financial police who were
in charge of the Ambrosiano investigation.3
The military intelligence would no longer be able to plant
evidence against the Italian Communists; judges would no longer issue the prescribed ruling; and
journalists would no longer provide the proper spin to the daily news.
The overseers of Gladio, at the bidding of the elite members of the Trilateral Commission, had
engineered the pope's election and catered to his every demand.4
They had directed covert action
against the proponents of Liberation Theology. They had bolstered the Christian Democratic Party so
that it would remain the dominant governing force in Italy. They had engaged in the arrest and
execution of troublesome laymen and priests, including Bishop Óscar Romero. And they had shelled
out more than $200 million in black funds to Solidarity.5
Elizabeth Wasiutynski, who ran the
Solidarity office in Brussels, expressed wonder at the galactic sums of money flowing through her
tiny office every day.6
John Paul II, in his naivety, simply assumed that such support was his proper
due as the Vicar of Christ. Ingratitude, while grating, was permissible, but the pope's sudden decision
to undermine the fundamental objective of Gladio by seeking a rapprochement with the Soviets was
intolerable.
SECRET NEGOTIATIONS
In January 1981, John Paul II met with Wałęsa and an eight-strong Solidarity delegation, who sought
his presence among the union workers to ward off any plans of Leonid Brezhnev for a Soviet invasion
of Poland. The pope said that he could not provide such personal intervention. He could only provide
spiritual solace to his fellow Poles during this time of turmoil. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a member of the
delegation, recalled the meeting:
The Pope was speaking about Solidarity directly to some of its founding fathers but I felt he was also speaking beyond us to the
wider world. He said: ‘Solidarity is a movement that is not only fighting against something but is also fighting for something.’ He
made it clear that he saw Solidarity as a movement for peaceful change.7
Neither Mazowiecki nor Wałęsa nor any other delegation member realized that John Paul II was
engaged in talks with the Kremlin to bring about a political rapprochement between the Soviet
leaders and the union organizers.8
The pope felt uniquely qualified to forge an accord. As Archbishop
of Krakow, he had dealt with Communist leaders on a pragmatic basis. He realized that the godless
Soviets and devout Catholics could live together under the same roof. The vast majority of Poles
espoused Marxist doctrine during the week and trooped off to Mass on Sunday morning. The pope
understood this peculiar brand of Christian humanism.9
In December 1980, Soviet Central Committee
chairman Vadim Zagladin made the pilgrimage to Vatican City where he secretly met with the Holy
Father to come to an agreement over the labor problems in Poland.10
But an accord between Solidarity and the Kremlin forged by the Holy See would violate the claims
and trust of the Reagan Administration, which spoke of the “evil empire” in order to spend $2.2
trillion on new weapons, including the Star Wars initiative, a fanciful technology supposed to
vaporize any Soviet missiles approaching the United States from outer space.11 What's more, John
Paul II's unwanted efforts would undermine the CIA's anticipated victory in the Cold War. The
Soviets, after all, had stumbled into “their own Vietnam,” and the Agency was very busy shipping to
Afghanistan not only missiles and weapons but also Tennessee mules uniquely capable of carrying the
munitions to the mujahideen in the mountains.12
To make matters worse, the Holy Father was negotiating with the Kremlin about other matters,
including an agreement for nuclear disarmament and recognition of the Palestine Liberation
Organization.13 He had entered a political arena, where his presence was neither warranted nor
welcomed.
THE SOLIDARITY CRISIS
On March 28, 1981, Solidarity mounted the largest strike in the history of the Soviet Union in protest
of the beating of four Polish workers by the communist security service. Between twelve and fourteen
million Poles took part in the protest.14 A general strike to shut down all labor and commerce was set
for March 30. The Soviets, in response, planned an invasion. The strikers, however, were not afraid.
They believed a report from a French diplomat that the pope would leave Vatican City to stand with
his people against the invaders.15
At the last moment, Wałęsa received a letter from John Paul II, who condemned the union's
intransigence and asked for the strikers to return to work. The effects of this communication were
immediate. The general strike was called off; Wałęsa toned down his inflammatory rhetoric; and
Solidarity became greatly weakened as a force in Polish affairs.16 A few days after this decision was
made, Wałęsa told interviewers:
The Pope wrote to us and the Primate, pleading for reason and reflection. Tomorrow we may achieve more, but we may not go to
the brink. At the same time I know what is good today may turn out tomorrow to be bad. And the historians, when they come to
judge may say: ‘But he was crazy, the authorities were bluffing, they were weak, their bark was worse than their bite, it would
have been possible at long last to put the country straight, they could have won and they flunked it.’ They can judge me like that in
10 or 50 years. And we don't yet know if I was right, or those who took the other view. In my opinion, the risk was too great.17
BAD TIMING
The pope's timing could not have been worse for Gladio. In Belgium, plans were being drawn for the
Brabant Massacre, which would result in the killing of eight people, including an entire family. The
same unit was training for an attack on a police station in the sleepy southern Belgian town of
Vielsalm, where they would steal weapons in order to plant them among communist agitators.18 In
Spain, the Gladio unit continued to hunt down and assassinate the leading members of the Basque
separatist movement.19 In France, the secret army was preparing to murder Marseilles police
inspector Jacques Massié and his entire family, since Massié had launched an investigation into drug
trafficking and Gladio.20 In Germany, the Gladio unit under Heinz Lembke had launched a major
terror attack in Munich. The weapons used in the attack came from a large arms dump in the
Lüneburger Heide district.21 In Italy, the gladiators had just completed the Bologna bombing. But
nowhere was Gladio at a more decisive stage than in Turkey.
TERROR IN TURKEY
In 1980, General Kenan Evren, the commander of the Counter-Guerrillas, a Gladio unit, had staged a
coup that toppled the government of Bülent Ecevit and the Democratic Left Party. Upon hearing the
news, President Jimmy Carter phoned Paul Henze, the CIA station chief in Ankara, and said, with
great relief, “Your people have made the coup!” Henze confirmed with enthusiasm, “Yes, our boys
have done it.” The takeover did not really come as a surprise to Carter. Before the coup, Zbigniew
Brzezinski, his national security advisor, had said: “For Turkey, a military government would be the
best solution.”22
Upon assuming power, Evren dissolved Turkey's parliament and suspended legislation governing
the civil liberties and human rights of Turkish citizens, stating that such acts were needed to establish
political stability.23 But the violence did not come to an end; it was transferred from the streets to the
prisons. Thousands were tortured while incarcerated. Dozens were executed and scores remain
missing.24
The coup was successful due to the intensive training the Gladio units, including the youth division
of Counter-Guerrilla, known as the Grey Wolves, had received in sabotage, bombing, killing, torture,
and rigging elections. This training was conducted at paramilitary centers set up by the CIA in
Ankara, Bolu, Kayseri, Buca (near İzmir), Çanakkale, and Cyprus. Select officers were sent for
advanced training at Fort Benning in Georgia and at the Ensenada Naval Base, near the Mexican
border.25
WOLVES EAT DOGS
Throughout the 1970's, Counter-Guerrilla and the Grey Wolves were responsible for ongoing terror
attacks in Turkey that resulted in the deaths of over five thousand students, teachers, trade union
leaders, booksellers, and politicians. At the time of the coup, there were seventeen hundred
organizations of Grey Wolves throughout Turkey. Total membership reached two hundred thousand
members and the movement had millions of admirers.
Although Evren expressed fear of the Wolves, the CIA unleashed them to fight the PKK—the
Kurdistan Workers Party. Formed in 1978, the PKK sought to establish a Marxist-Leninist state in a
swath of land encompassing eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, and northeastern Syria,
which they called Kurdistan—“land of the Kurds.”26 The Wolves were also deployed against the
Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), a group dedicated to putting an end
to NATO imperialism. Trained in the Beirut camps of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the
ASALA was responsible for the assassination of at least thirty-six Turkish diplomats.27 Both groups
represented an obstruction to Gladio's creation of a new world order.
The key to gaining control of northern Eurasia, according to Brzezinski and other members of the
Trilateral Commission, remained Turkey, once the heart of the great Ottoman Empire. The central
Asian republics—Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan—all shared a
common Turkish heritage and a common Islamic faith. Although they remained part of the Soviet
Union, the republics, in the eyes of geostrategists, could easily be united under a pan-Turkish
banner.28
THE WOLVES HOWL
The pan-Turkish banner was unfurled by the Grey Wolves, who published their statements of belief in
Bozkurt, their official newsletter: “Who are we? We are the Grey Wolves (Bozkurtcu). What is our
ideology? The Turkism of the Grey Wolf (Bozkurt). What is the creed of the Bozkurtcu? We believe
that the Turkish race and the Turkish nation are superior. What is the source of this superiority? The
Turkish blood. Are the Bozkurtcu Pan Turks? Yes. It is the holy aim of the Bozkurt Turks to see that
the Turkish nation grows to a nation of 65 million. What justification do you have for this? The
Bozkurtcu have long declared their principles on this issue: You do not receive right, you get it
yourself. War? Yes, war, if necessary. War is a great holy principle of nature. We are the sons of
warriors. The Bozkurtcu believe that war, militarism, and heroism should receive the highest esteem
and praise.”29 Believing this credo would unite central Asia, the Wolves became the favored lap dogs
of the bureaucrats at Langley and untold billions were spent upon the pack.
Although the Turkish people in large numbers esteemed the Wolves, they remained blissfully
unaware of Gladio, let alone that the right-wing youth group was a stay-behind unit. In 1978, Doğan
Öz, a public prosecutor in Ankara, uncovered the existence of such units and issued the following
report to President Ecevit:
There is such an organization. It includes people from security forces, such as the army and the secret service. During the first and second National Front governments, in particular, they largely adopted the state mechanisms to their own purposes. Their ultimate aim is to introduce a fascist system in Turkey, with all the associated organs.30
Within days of issuing this warning, Öz was gunned down and killed in front of his house. There
were several witnesses, and Ibrahim Çiftçi, a leader of the Wolves, was arrested and sentenced to
death. The Military Supreme Court immediately overturned the verdict and Ciftci was returned to his
lair.31 A similar scenario took place several years later when Haluk Kırcı, a Wolf known as “Idi
Amin,” was arrested for participating in the murder of Öz. He too was tried, convicted, and sentenced
to execution seven times only to be “conditionally” released from Bursa Prison.32
The Wolves were so integral to the drugs-for-arms enterprise that it became almost impossible to make a clear-cut distinction between this Gladio unit, the Turkish Mafia, and Turkey's National Intelligence Operation (MIT), a so-called unofficial arm of the CIA. All three organizations were interlocked in Ergenekon, a clandestine ultranationalist movement that operated as a shadow state.35
Ağca began his criminal career as a drug smuggler on the Balkan route. He rose to become one of Uğurlu's trusted couriers, making regular trips to deliver messages and payments to Henri Arsan at Stibam in Milan. Eventually, he became one of the baba's bodyguards and hit men, working with Çatlı and Oral Çelik.39
On February 1, 1979, Ağca took part in the murder of Abdi İpekçi, the editor-in-chief of Milliyet, one
of Turkey's leading daily newspapers. When taken into custody, Ağca quickly confessed, saying,
“Yes, I shot and killed İpekçi. I was alone and I fired four or five times.” But there was a problem
with his testimony. A total of thirteen spent cartridges were found at the scene of the crime.40
İpekçi was one of Turkey's most distinguished journalists and his assassination shocked the nation. Ağca received a life sentence and was incarcerated in an Istanbul prison. After serving six months, he “escaped” wearing an army uniform. There was, in fact, no flight. He simply strolled from the jail in August 1979, with Abdullah Çatlı as his escort.41 The babas needed him to get back to work.
Fearing that Turkey is attempting to realize a new political, military, and economic power with its Islamic brother countries in the Middle East during this highly sensitive time, the western imperialists are sending John Paul, who behind his religious mask is a commander of the cross, with all speed to Turkey. If this senseless and poorly timed visit is not canceled, then I will not hesitate to shoot the Pope. This is the only reason I escaped from prison. Revenge will be certainly taken for an attack on Mecca by the United States and Israel.42
Ağca was not only an experienced assassin, who already had spewed his hatred of John Paul II, but also a radical Islamist and pan-Turkish visionary, who longed for the return of the Ottoman Empire. Even better, he suffered paranoid delusions, at times professing that he was Jesus Christ.43
It was to be the ultimate false flag attack. The message came with a payment of $1.7 million.44 The arrangements had been made by members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, P2, and the Safari Club, a covert organization that had been established by Henry Kissinger. The gunmen would be Çatlı and Ağca.
Known as “the blond ghost” because of his aversion to cameras, Theodore Shackley had been one of
the CIA's most infamous agents. He had helped to set up the heroin trade in Southeast Asia during the
Vietnam War and had overseen Operation Phoenix, which involved the killing of 40,000
noncombatant Vietnamese who were suspected of collaborating with the Viet Cong.1
The blond ghost
also served as a principal figure in Nugan Hand Bank, overseeing the deposit of billions in black
funds into the Australian laundry. From Australia, he went to South America, where he took an active
part in Operation Condor by organizing death squads. In Chile, he teamed up with Stefano Delle
Chiaie for the murder of Salvador Allende.2
In 1976, Shackley became the CIA's deputy director for operations, a position which placed him in charge of covert operations throughout the world.3 He used this position to set up corporations and subsidiaries throughout the world to conceal the Agency's involvement in the drug trade and its ties to Edwin Wilson and other notorious arms suppliers, who were providing highly sophisticated weaponry to Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Many of these firms were set up in Switzerland and came to include Lake Resources, Inc., the Stanford Technology Trading Group, Inc., and Compagnie de Services Fiduciaire. Others, such as CSF Investments, Ltd., and the Udall Research Corporation, were located in Central America. A few were established in the United States, including the Orca Supply Company in Florida and Consultants International in Washington, DC. All were funded by heroin proceeds and a few, including the US firms, were interlinked with the Vatican.4
After leaving the CIA in September 1979, Shackley formed Research Associates International, which specialized in providing intelligence to business. Such intelligence consisted of classified CIA files that the blond ghost had removed from the Agency.5
In 1980, Shackley's talents were sought by the Reagan-Bush election committee and he became a key operative in planning the October Surprise, by which the hostages remained in Iran until after the election.6
In 1981, Count Alexandre de Marenches, the chief executive of the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE—the French secret service), served as the leader of Safari. Marenches was also a member of the SMOM, along with CIA director William Casey, Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Treasury Secretary William Simon, US ambassador to the Vatican William Wilson, Licio Gelli, Fr. Felix Morlion, and General Santovito of SISMI.8 Through the SMOM, Marenches became aware of John Paul II's negotiations with the Kremlin and agreed that the Polish upstart had to be removed from the Holy Office.9
Santovito soon emerged as the lead character in the assassination plot. He would handle all aspects of the investigation. He would provide cover for the co-conspirators. He would grant shelter to the assassins. As the head of military intelligence and the commander of the Italian Gladio units, he was uniquely qualified for the role. By the time of his meeting with Shackley, the general was working closely with Stibam, ensuring safety to the massive arms for drugs operation that had been set up by the Sicilian Mafia, the Turkish babas, and the CIA.
The SISMI general was also implementing the strategy of tension by launching terror attacks throughout Italy with P2 puppetmaster Licio Gelli. He was diverting the financial police from probing too deeply into the transactions of Banco Ambrosiano and the ongoing flow of millions in cash to the Vatican shell companies. He was serving the CIA by commissioning underworld figures to conduct hits on troublesome politicians, magistrates, pentiti (informers), and journalists. Stretched to the limits, Santovito's network of connections extended to Giuseppe “Pippo” Calò, the Sicilian mob enforcer; Salvatore “Toto” Riina, the godfather of the Corleonesi clan; Giovanni Pandico, the leader of the Camorra; and Franco Giuseppucci, Maurizio Abbatino, and Alessandro d'Ortenzi, the founding fathers of Banda della Magliana.11 No man knew more about Gladio than Santovito. No official was more valuable to the operation. And no individual was more at risk of exposure.
As soon as the investigation of the holy homicide got underway, a team of CIA spin doctors, including Claire Sterling, Michael Ledeen, and Paul Henze, would circulate the “thesis” and manufacture connections between Antonov, the C.S.S, and the Kremlin. To make matters more believable, Antonov, with his sinister Russian-sounding name, could be depicted as an agent who also worked in tandem with East Germany's General Intelligence Administration (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung). This enhancement could be useful since a certain Antony Ivanov Antonov, a Turkish cog in the drug smuggling ring, was alleged to have served as an East German informant.13
Henze, who possessed a literary flair, served as the CIA station chief in Ankara. For this reason, he could be counted upon to provide manufactured “inside information” on Antonov. Ledeen, who acted as the CIA's contact with SISMI, had close ties to NBC and other major American news outlets. Sterling remained the CIA's leading agent of disinformation. In 1981, when the Bulgarian thesis was being developed, Sterling had published The Terror Network, which blamed the source of almost all acts of international terrorism on the Soviet Union.14
At the end of March 1981, Count Marenches passed a warning to the Vatican security services about a planned attack by an “unspecified foreign power” that was to take place in the immediate future. The count could not provide details. The warning had come to him from his agents within the Eastern Bloc. The security officials duly noted the warning, unaware that de Marenches was merely building a platform that would support the Bulgarian thesis. When the message was conveyed to the Holy Father, he merely dismissed it with the wave of his hand. He knew he had nothing to fear from his new friends in the Kremlin.15
In the months before the scheduled hit, Ağca and Çatlı were safe and secure in Munich. It was a perfect place of refuge. In 1981, West Germany was home to fifty thousand Grey Wolves, who acted as storm troopers for the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND—Germany's Federal Intelligence Service) to address any protest or problem with the 1.5 million Turkish workers.17 The BND was an outgrowth of Gladio. It had been set up by the CIA under former Nazi General Reinhard Gehlen, who became a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in 1956.18 The complicity of the BND in the assassination attempt on John Paul II has been widely ignored by the US press, even though Çatlı later testified to a judge in Rome that he had received three million marks by the German secret service to perform the hit.19
Within Munich Ağca and Çatlı were joined by Oral Çelik, a fellow Grey Wolf who would take part in the attempted papacide. Çelik had provided backup to Ağca in the İpekçi killing. Like Ağca, he, too, served the babas by providing protection for the TIR trucks along the Balkan route. In the winter of 1981, Çelik was the subject of a Red Bulletin from Turkey's Interpol for a string of murders, including the execution of a teacher in Malatya.20
On May 13, 1981, John Paul II appeared in the “papamobile,” an open-top jeep, before an adoring crowd of five thousand. As he was being driven around St. Peter's Square, he stood upright to return a young girl he had been holding to her mother. It was 5:19 in the afternoon. A series of shots rang out, with bullets striking the Holy Father and two women from New York. Chaos ensued and a small explosion went off in the corner of the square. Ağca fled, tossing his pistol under a truck, before he was collared by the Vatican security chief.23
The pope was rushed to the Gemelli, the teaching hospital of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome. He had been struck by four bullets—two remained lodged in his lower intestine; the others had hit his left index finger and his right hand. He slipped in and out of consciousness; his blood pressure fell dramatically; his pulse was weak and faltering. By the time he reached the operating room, John Paul II had lost between five and six pints of blood.24 “A moment or two later,” Dr. Francesco Crucitti later recalled, “it would have been too late.”25 One of the bullets had passed within a few millimeters of the central aorta. If that had been nicked, death would have been almost instantaneous. On exiting the body, the same bullet came within a centimeter of shattering the pope's spine. He had survived by a miracle.26
The arrest warrant, signed by Achille Gallucci, Rome's prosecutor general, stated that Ağca had acted “in collaboration with other individuals whose identity remains unknown.”28 By the end of the day, Luciano Infelisi, the magistrate who had been assigned to the investigation, concluded: “There are documented proofs that Mehmet Ali Ağca did not act alone.” The proof, in part, consisted of the variety of casings found in the vicinity. Such evidence did not appear in court, neither did the investigating magistrate. Infelisi, who came to know too much, was quickly removed from the case and assigned other duties.29
Neither the prosecutor nor the defense attorney made note of the sighting of two unlikely figures at the scene of the crime: former CIA agents Theodore Shackley and Tom Clines. The presence of such prominent spooks in St. Peter's Square at that particular time and at that particular hour remains unexplained.32 In his biography of Shackley, titled Blond Ghost, noted journalist David Corn does not mention Shackley being at the crime scene, or his clandestine meetings with Count de Marenches and General Santovito.33
By the fall of 1981, Ağca was singing a new song to Italian prosecutors—he had acted in service to the KGB; the assassination team had included an accountant and a military attaché from the Bulgarian Embassy in Rome; and the plans were drafted in the Rome apartment of Sergei Antonov.36
Antonov was arrested and subjected to daily and nightly interrogations by the Italian police. He proclaimed his innocence and denied any ties to the KGB or the CSS. The grilling continued with injections of psychotropic drugs. Antonov, although disoriented, continued to insist that he played no part in the assassination attempt. He was kept in prison for three years. By the time of his release he was psychologically damaged and physically disabled. For the rest of his life Antonov was unable to carry on a conversation or to perform a simple task. On August 1, 2007, he was found dead in a barren apartment in Sofia.37
But the story was unraveling almost as soon as it was being spun. Ağca had been able to describe every small mole and blemish of the Bulgarians he wished to implicate in the crime, but he remained unable to estimate their height. This proved telling since two of the alleged co-conspirators who worked at the Bulgarian Embassy in Rome resembled Mutt and Jeff from the comic strip. Their disparity in stature was almost comic.40
Another problem came from Ağca's description of Antonov's apartment. The distinctive features he described, including an ornate room divider between the living and dining areas, were not found in the Bulgarian's living quarters. They were unique to the flat one floor below, which was occupied by Fr. Morlion. Ağca also mentioned meeting Antonov's wife and children during the planning sessions in April. But the Bulgarian's family was not in Rome at that time. They had returned to Bulgaria.41
Mumcu, working with the Turkish police, established Ağca's ties to the Grey Wolves and rightwing terrorists. He realized that the would-be assassin had performed executions, including the murder of İpekçi, with Abdullah Çatlı and Oral Çelik. What's more, he was able to identify Çelik as the gunman who was running from St. Peter's Square with pistol in hand.43
The Turkish journalist made more discoveries, including the ties of Ağca, the Grey Wolves, and the babas to Stibam International and the CIA. He pinpointed Henri Arsan as a key figure in the massive smuggling operation and the Hotel Vitosha as the center of mob gatherings. He also established that Sergei Ivanov Antonov was neither an agent nor double agent. He was simply a dupe.44
Uğur Mumcu would pay for making these revelations. He was killed when a car bomb exploded outside his home on January 24, 1993. No arrests were made. When Mumcu launched his probe into the attack on John Paul II, Paul Henze tried to convince him that the would-be assassins were agents of the Soviet Union. The reporter refused to follow the information trail provided by the CIA station chief, opting instead to investigate the ties between Ağca and the babas. Henze advised him to abandon the probe, reportedly saying, “If you do not, you might find a nice surprise in store.”45
Next:A Raid and Redirection
Footnotes
1. David Yallop, The Power and the Glory: Inside the Dark Heart of John Paul II's Vatican (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2007), p. 67.
2. Penny Lernoux, In Banks We Trust (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), 187.
3. Staff, “Italy in Crisis as Cabinet Resigns,” BBC, May 26, 1981, http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/26/newsid_4396000/4396893.stm (accessed May 22, 2014).
4. Jack Blood, “Italian Supreme Court President Writes Book Linking Bilderberg to Operation Gladio and the CIA,” Deadline Live, April 12, 2013, http://deadlinelive.info/2013/04/12/italian-supreme-court-president-writes-book-linking-bilderberg-to-operation-gladio-andthe-cia-2/ (accessed May 22, 2014).
5. Richard Cottrell, Gladio: NATO's Dagger at the Heart of Europe (Palm Desert, CA: Progressive Press, 2012), p. 284.
6. Ibid.
7. Yallop, Power and the Glory, p. 106.
8. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 282.
9. Ibid.
10. Felix Corley, “Soviet Reaction to the Election of Pope John Paul II,” Religion, State and Society, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1994, http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/rss/22-1_037.pdf (accessed May 22, 2014).
11. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 283.
12. Robert Young Pelton, The World's Most Dangerous Places (New York: Harper Resource, 2003), p. 347.
13. Dave Emory, “The Pope's Shooting: Stibam,” For the Record #43, September 1996, https://archive.org/details/For_The_Record_43_The_Pope_Shooting_Stibam, accessed May 22, 2014.
14. Timothy Gorton Ash, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), pp. 165-166.
15. Yallop. The Power and the Glory, p. 106.
16. Ash, The Polish Revolution, p. 171.
17. Ibid., p. 172.
18. Daniele Ganser, NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe (London: Frank Cass, 2005), p. 138.
19. Ibid., p. 122.
20. Ibid., p. 100. 21. Ibid., p. 132.
22. The Insider from Turkey, “The Court Case against Generals behind Turkey's 1980 Coup,” Boiling Frogs, April 19, 2011, http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/04/19/the-court-case-against-generals-behind-turkey%E2%80%99s-1980-coup/ (accessed May 22, 2014).
23. Abbas Guclu, “61 Anayasasi Turkiye'ye Buyut Geldi,” Milliyet (Istanbul), September 25, 2003, http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2007/09/26/yazar/guclu.html (accessed May 22, 2014).
24. Insider from Turkey, “Court Case against Generals.”
25. Ganser, NATO's Secret Armies, p. 233.
26. Hussein Tahiri, The Structure of Kurdish Society and the Struggle for a Kurdish State (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publications, 2007), pp. 232 ff.
27. Pico Iyer, “Long Memories,” Time, August 8, 1983.
28. Sibel Edmonds, “Court Documents Shed Light on CIA Illegal Operations in Central Asia Using Islam and Madrassas,” July 11, 2008, http://letsibeledmondsspeak.blogspot.com/2008/07/court-documents-shed-light-on-cia.html (accessed May 22, 2014).
29. Ganser, NATO's Secret Armies, pp. 228–29.
30. Frank Bovenkerk and Yucel Yesilgoz, The Turkish Mafia: A History of the Heroin Godfathers (London: Milo Books, 2007), chapter 6, Kindle edition.
31. Ibid.
32. Human Rights Report, Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, 1998, http://www.tihv.org.tr/1998-insan-haklari-raporu/ (accessed May 22, 2014).
33. Cottrell, Gladio, pp. 272–73.
34. Bovenkerk and Yesilgoz, Turkish Mafia.
35. Erkan Acar, “Ergenekon Has Links to Security and Judiciary Bodies,” Today's Zaman (Istanbul), September 6, 2008.
36. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 398.
37. Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Pack: The People, Politics and Espionage Intrigue that Shaped the DEA (Springfield, OR: TrineDay, 2009), p. 140.
38. Ganser, NATO's Secret Armies, pp. 236–38.
39. Kendal Nezan, “Turkey's Pivotal Role in the International Drug Trade,” Le Monde Diplomatique (July 1998).
40. Bovenkerk and Yesilgoz, Turkish Mafia.
41. Cottrell, Gladio, pp. 288–90.
42. Bovenkerk and Yesilgoz, Turkish Mafia.
43. Yallop, Power and the Glory, p. 128.
44. Bovenkerk and Yesilgoz, Turkish Mafia.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE SHOOTING IN ST. PETER'S SQUARE
1. Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press (New York: Verso, 1998), pp. 247–48. See also, Mizgin Yilmaz, “Armitage—Part I: The Early Years and the Golden Triangle,” Boiling Frogs Post, November 11, 2009, http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/11/11/armitage-part-i-the-early-years-the-golden-triangle/#more-729 (accessed May 22, 2014).
2. Richard Cottrell, Gladio: NATO's Dagger at the Heart of Europe (Palm Desert, CA: Progressive Press, 2012), p. 291.
3. David Corn, “The Legacy of Theodore Shackley,” AlterNet, December 12, 2012, http://www.alternet.org/story/14767/the_legacy_of_theodore_shackley (accessed May 22, 2014).
4. John Simkin, “Ted Shackley and the Secret Team,” Education Forum, December 10, 2005, http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5597 (accessed May 22, 2014).
5. John Simkin, “Theodore (‘Ted’) Shackley,” Spartacus Educational, December 2013, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKshackley.htm (accessed May 22, 2014).
6. Robert Parry, “Bush and a CIA Power Play,” Consortium News, November 1996, http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile7.html.
7. Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror (New York: Harmony, 2005), pp. 84–85.
8. Staff report, “Nazis, the Vatican and the CIA,” Covert Action Information Bulletin, No. 25, Winter 1985.
9. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 267.
10. Dave Emory, “Who Shot the Pope? Part V: Western Intelligence Connections,” For the Record #21, May 29, 1986, https://archive.org/details/AFA21_Who_Shot_the_Pope_Part_V_Western_Intelligence_Connections (accessed May 22, 2014).
11. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 276.
12. Emory, “Who Shot the Pope?” See also, Matthew Brunwasser, “Sergei Antonov, 59, Bulgarian Accused in Plot to Kill the Pope Is Dead,” New York Times, August 3, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/obituaries/03antonov.html?_r=0 (accessed May 22, 2014).
13. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 275.
14. Wolfgang Actner, “Obituary: Claire Sterling,” Independent (UK), June 26, 1995, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-claire-sterling-1588401.html (accessed May 22, 2014).
15. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 269.
16. Emory, “Who Shot the Pope?”
17. Ibid.
18. Heinz Hohne and Hermann Zolling, The General Was a Spy: The Truth about General Gehlen and His Spy Ring (New York: Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1972), pp. 38–42.
19. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 290.
20. Hakan Aslandi, “Famous Terrorist Oral Celik in Turkey,” Hurriyet (Turkey's leading daily newspaper), September 20, 1996, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx?pageid=438&n=famous-terrorist-oral-celik-in-turkey-1996-09-20 (accessed May 22, 2014).
21. Frank Bovenkerk and Yucel Yesilgoz, The Turkish Mafia: A History of the Heroin Godfathers (London: Milo Books, 2007), chapter 6, Kindle edition. 22. Ibid.
23. Staff, “Security Chief Was ‘Guardian Angel’ to Pope,” Wall Street Journal, November 6, 2009, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB125746370679932197?mg=reno64- wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB125746370679932197.html (accessed May 22, 2014).
24. Henry Tanner, “Pope Is Shot in Car in Vatican Square; Surgeons Term Condition ‘Guarded’; Turk, an Escaped Murderer Is Seized,” New York Times, May 14, 1981, https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0513.html (accessed May 22, 2014).
25. David Yallop, The Power and the Glory: Inside the Dark Heart of John Paul II's Vatican (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2007), p. 123.
26. Ibid.
27. Bovenkerk and Yesilgoz, Turkish Mafia, chapter 6.
28. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 266.
29. Ibid.
30. Jesus Lopez Saez, El Dia de la Cuenta: Juan Pablo II, a Examen (Madrid: Meral Ediciones—Comunidad de Ayala, 2005), http://www.comayala.es/index.php/en/libros-es/el-dia-de-la-cuenta-ingles-texto (accessed May 22, 2014).
31. Henry Tanner, “Turk Says He Tried to Kill the Pope,” New York Times, July 21, 1981, http://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/21/world/turk-says-he-tried-to-kill-the-pope.html (accessed May 22, 2014).
32. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 291. See also, Emory, “Who Shot the Pope?”
33. David Corn, Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994).
34. Saez, El Dia de la Cuenta.
35. Ibid.
36. Matthew Brunwasser, “Sergei Antonov, 59, Bulgarian Accused in Plot to Kill a Pope Is Dead,” New York Times, August 3, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/obituaries/03antonov.html?_r=0 (accessed May 22, 2014).
37. Ibid.
38. Saez, El Dia de la Cuenta.
39. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 280.
40. Saez, El Dia de la Cuenta.
41. Ibid.
42. Uğur Mumcu, “West Europe Report, No. 2131: The Case Study of Agca's Activities,” Foreign Broadcast Information, April 22, 1983, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a333139.pdf (accessed May 22, 2014).
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. Otkay Eksi, “Mumcu Cinayet Aydinlanirken,” Hurriyet, December 27, 2008, http://hurarsiv.hurriyet.com.tr/goster/haber.aspx? id=-152724&yazarid=1 (accessed May 22, 2014).
There is such an organization. It includes people from security forces, such as the army and the secret service. During the first and second National Front governments, in particular, they largely adopted the state mechanisms to their own purposes. Their ultimate aim is to introduce a fascist system in Turkey, with all the associated organs.30
REASONABLE EXPENSES
The CIA's financial support for the Wolves was also necessitated by the need to protect the Balkan
route and the flow of heroin into the Anatolian plains from Afghanistan and Iran—said to be worth $3
million an hour.33 They also safeguarded the smuggling of weapons into the country. The scale of this
smuggling may be discerned from the fact that the following illegal arms were confiscated in Turkey
between 1980 and 1984: 638,000 revolvers; 4,000 submachine guns; 48,000 rifles; 7,000 machine
guns; 26 rocket launchers; and 1 mortar.34 The Wolves were so integral to the drugs-for-arms enterprise that it became almost impossible to make a clear-cut distinction between this Gladio unit, the Turkish Mafia, and Turkey's National Intelligence Operation (MIT), a so-called unofficial arm of the CIA. All three organizations were interlocked in Ergenekon, a clandestine ultranationalist movement that operated as a shadow state.35
THE BASTARD SON
Ergenekon was the bastard son of Gladio—the illegitimate offspring of US intelligence and the babas
—that would come to direct many of the critical events in Turkey and central Asia into the twenty first
century. In many ways, it represented the culmination of the dreams of Allen Dulles, William
Donovan, Paul Helliwell, and James Jesus Angleton. Ergenekon enabled street thugs, assassins, and
drug lords to act with impunity. Even if incarcerated, such criminals had little to fear. Ergenekon
could arrange their escape; it could create false identities; it could arrange the transfer of large sums
of cash. After its formation in 1978, Ergenekon, by controlling the heroin trade from the Golden
Triangle, became worth more than 20 percent of Turkey's earned income.36
NUTURING CUBS
Throughout the 1970's, Henry P. Schardt, Duane (“Dewey) Clarridge, and other CIA operatives in
Turkey allegedly had nurtured several of Abuzer Uğurlu's Wolf cubs, including Abdullah Çatlı and
Mehmet Ali Ağca.37 Çatlı, who became the vice-chairman of the Wolves, performed scores of highprofile
assassinations, including the murder of seven left-wing activists in 1978. Working with the
Agency, he became an agent provocateur in the 1980 coup.38 Ağca began his criminal career as a drug smuggler on the Balkan route. He rose to become one of Uğurlu's trusted couriers, making regular trips to deliver messages and payments to Henri Arsan at Stibam in Milan. Eventually, he became one of the baba's bodyguards and hit men, working with Çatlı and Oral Çelik.39
KILLING IPEKCI
İpekçi was one of Turkey's most distinguished journalists and his assassination shocked the nation. Ağca received a life sentence and was incarcerated in an Istanbul prison. After serving six months, he “escaped” wearing an army uniform. There was, in fact, no flight. He simply strolled from the jail in August 1979, with Abdullah Çatlı as his escort.41 The babas needed him to get back to work.
THE IDEAL CANDIDATE
Three days after his escape, Ağca wrote a letter to Milliyet, which made it clear that he was the
perfect choice for a hit on the Holy Father. He wrote: Fearing that Turkey is attempting to realize a new political, military, and economic power with its Islamic brother countries in the Middle East during this highly sensitive time, the western imperialists are sending John Paul, who behind his religious mask is a commander of the cross, with all speed to Turkey. If this senseless and poorly timed visit is not canceled, then I will not hesitate to shoot the Pope. This is the only reason I escaped from prison. Revenge will be certainly taken for an attack on Mecca by the United States and Israel.42
Ağca was not only an experienced assassin, who already had spewed his hatred of John Paul II, but also a radical Islamist and pan-Turkish visionary, who longed for the return of the Ottoman Empire. Even better, he suffered paranoid delusions, at times professing that he was Jesus Christ.43
THE GLADIO DIRECTIVE
Early in April 1981, Abuzer Uğurlu received word from Gladio: Kill the pope and blame the
Communists. It was to be the ultimate false flag attack. The message came with a payment of $1.7 million.44 The arrangements had been made by members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, P2, and the Safari Club, a covert organization that had been established by Henry Kissinger. The gunmen would be Çatlı and Ağca.
Chapter 16
The Shooting in St.Peters Square
Needless to say, writing about such matters as the İpekçi murder, the Underworld and
the conspiracy to assassinate the Pope has inevitably made me a target for wide
ranging attacks. These serious threats from certain enemies and even enemies of
enemies within the same circles all in all gave me the impression that at the very least
I was getting near the truth. Investigating the assassination conspiracy, I felt obliged
to study the İpekçi murder and the relationship between the banker Calvi and the
Vatican. This, in turn, led me to the scandal involving the P2 Mason's Lodge and the
connection between Calvi and the Italian Mafia. If I hadn't investigated the
connection between Ağca and the Nationalists, the smugglers of the Underworld and
their international associates, the Vatican and the banker Calvi, Calvi and the P2
Mason's Lodge and finally the P2 lodge and the Italian Mafia, I would never have
been able to get to the roots of the whole matter.
Uğur Mumcu, Papa, Mafya, Agca, 1984
In 1976, Shackley became the CIA's deputy director for operations, a position which placed him in charge of covert operations throughout the world.3 He used this position to set up corporations and subsidiaries throughout the world to conceal the Agency's involvement in the drug trade and its ties to Edwin Wilson and other notorious arms suppliers, who were providing highly sophisticated weaponry to Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Many of these firms were set up in Switzerland and came to include Lake Resources, Inc., the Stanford Technology Trading Group, Inc., and Compagnie de Services Fiduciaire. Others, such as CSF Investments, Ltd., and the Udall Research Corporation, were located in Central America. A few were established in the United States, including the Orca Supply Company in Florida and Consultants International in Washington, DC. All were funded by heroin proceeds and a few, including the US firms, were interlinked with the Vatican.4
After leaving the CIA in September 1979, Shackley formed Research Associates International, which specialized in providing intelligence to business. Such intelligence consisted of classified CIA files that the blond ghost had removed from the Agency.5
In 1980, Shackley's talents were sought by the Reagan-Bush election committee and he became a key operative in planning the October Surprise, by which the hostages remained in Iran until after the election.6
THE SAFARI CLUB
Shackley was also a member of the Safari Club, an intelligence allegiance that was forged by Henry
Kissinger on September 1, 1976. Members included the heads of the intelligence agencies of the
United States, France, Egypt, Iran, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia and a host of CIA agents and former
agents. The primary function of the club was the orchestration of terrorists and proto-terrorists by
proxy groups throughout the world—from Renamo in Mozambique to Unita in Angola, and from the
Contras in Nicaragua to the mujahideen in Afghanistan and Central Asia.7 In 1981, Count Alexandre de Marenches, the chief executive of the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE—the French secret service), served as the leader of Safari. Marenches was also a member of the SMOM, along with CIA director William Casey, Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Treasury Secretary William Simon, US ambassador to the Vatican William Wilson, Licio Gelli, Fr. Felix Morlion, and General Santovito of SISMI.8 Through the SMOM, Marenches became aware of John Paul II's negotiations with the Kremlin and agreed that the Polish upstart had to be removed from the Holy Office.9
SHACKLEY AND SANTOVITO
Shackley arrived in Rome on February 3, 1981, for a series of meetings with General Santovito.10
The assassination, in keeping with the strategy of tension, would be blamed on the Soviets. The plan
would involve a multitude of CIA associates, including journalist Claire Sterling; Paul Henze, the
station chief in Ankara; Michael Ledeen, a consultant to the US National Security Council; Fr. Felix
Morlion of the right-wing Pro-Deo movement; Francesco Pazienza, a CIA informant and SISMI
official who helped engineer the Bologna bombing; and Frank Terpil, the agent who had been
assigned to work with the Grey Wolves. Santovito soon emerged as the lead character in the assassination plot. He would handle all aspects of the investigation. He would provide cover for the co-conspirators. He would grant shelter to the assassins. As the head of military intelligence and the commander of the Italian Gladio units, he was uniquely qualified for the role. By the time of his meeting with Shackley, the general was working closely with Stibam, ensuring safety to the massive arms for drugs operation that had been set up by the Sicilian Mafia, the Turkish babas, and the CIA.
The SISMI general was also implementing the strategy of tension by launching terror attacks throughout Italy with P2 puppetmaster Licio Gelli. He was diverting the financial police from probing too deeply into the transactions of Banco Ambrosiano and the ongoing flow of millions in cash to the Vatican shell companies. He was serving the CIA by commissioning underworld figures to conduct hits on troublesome politicians, magistrates, pentiti (informers), and journalists. Stretched to the limits, Santovito's network of connections extended to Giuseppe “Pippo” Calò, the Sicilian mob enforcer; Salvatore “Toto” Riina, the godfather of the Corleonesi clan; Giovanni Pandico, the leader of the Camorra; and Franco Giuseppucci, Maurizio Abbatino, and Alessandro d'Ortenzi, the founding fathers of Banda della Magliana.11 No man knew more about Gladio than Santovito. No official was more valuable to the operation. And no individual was more at risk of exposure.
THE “BULGARIAN THESIS”
In Rome, Shackley and Santovito worked with Francesco Pazienza, the second in command at SISMI,
and Fr. Felix Morlion, a Dominican friar and former O.S.S spook, in developing the “Bulgarian
thesis,” a bogus scenario to place the blame of the murder of John Paul II on the Soviets. Morlion had
discovered the perfect patsy. Sergei Ivanov Antonov, a Bulgarian communist working in Rome for the
Balkan Airlines, lived one floor above Morlion in the same apartment building. Since Antonov
constantly traveled back and forth from Bulgaria, he could be presented as an agent for Bulgaria's
Committee for State Security (C.S.S), who had been commissioned by the KGB director Yuri
Andropov to kill the Holy Father. The contract, according to the script, would have been necessitated
by the pope's support of Solidarity and his capacity to unite the Polish people in opposition to Soviet
rule.12 As soon as the investigation of the holy homicide got underway, a team of CIA spin doctors, including Claire Sterling, Michael Ledeen, and Paul Henze, would circulate the “thesis” and manufacture connections between Antonov, the C.S.S, and the Kremlin. To make matters more believable, Antonov, with his sinister Russian-sounding name, could be depicted as an agent who also worked in tandem with East Germany's General Intelligence Administration (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung). This enhancement could be useful since a certain Antony Ivanov Antonov, a Turkish cog in the drug smuggling ring, was alleged to have served as an East German informant.13
Henze, who possessed a literary flair, served as the CIA station chief in Ankara. For this reason, he could be counted upon to provide manufactured “inside information” on Antonov. Ledeen, who acted as the CIA's contact with SISMI, had close ties to NBC and other major American news outlets. Sterling remained the CIA's leading agent of disinformation. In 1981, when the Bulgarian thesis was being developed, Sterling had published The Terror Network, which blamed the source of almost all acts of international terrorism on the Soviet Union.14
At the end of March 1981, Count Marenches passed a warning to the Vatican security services about a planned attack by an “unspecified foreign power” that was to take place in the immediate future. The count could not provide details. The warning had come to him from his agents within the Eastern Bloc. The security officials duly noted the warning, unaware that de Marenches was merely building a platform that would support the Bulgarian thesis. When the message was conveyed to the Holy Father, he merely dismissed it with the wave of his hand. He knew he had nothing to fear from his new friends in the Kremlin.15
BND PROTECTION
After “escaping” from prison, Mehmet Ali Ağca made his way to the Hotel Vitosha in Sofia where he
met with Bekir Çelenk and other babas. He returned to his old job as an “enforcer” of the Stibam
pipeline that led from the Balkans into Western Europe. During this time, he made several trips to
Palermo where he met with Pippo Calò and Toto Riina. He also traveled to Milan for conferences
with Henri Arsan. As he crisscrossed through the Mediterranean region, he constantly changed his
passport and assumed new identities.16 In the months before the scheduled hit, Ağca and Çatlı were safe and secure in Munich. It was a perfect place of refuge. In 1981, West Germany was home to fifty thousand Grey Wolves, who acted as storm troopers for the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND—Germany's Federal Intelligence Service) to address any protest or problem with the 1.5 million Turkish workers.17 The BND was an outgrowth of Gladio. It had been set up by the CIA under former Nazi General Reinhard Gehlen, who became a member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in 1956.18 The complicity of the BND in the assassination attempt on John Paul II has been widely ignored by the US press, even though Çatlı later testified to a judge in Rome that he had received three million marks by the German secret service to perform the hit.19
Within Munich Ağca and Çatlı were joined by Oral Çelik, a fellow Grey Wolf who would take part in the attempted papacide. Çelik had provided backup to Ağca in the İpekçi killing. Like Ağca, he, too, served the babas by providing protection for the TIR trucks along the Balkan route. In the winter of 1981, Çelik was the subject of a Red Bulletin from Turkey's Interpol for a string of murders, including the execution of a teacher in Malatya.20
MEETING WITH MORLION
On April 18, Ağca, Çatlı, and Çelik traveled to Milan to meet with Bekir Çelenk at Stibam. They
stayed at the Hotel Agosta, where Ağca registered under the name Faruk Ozgun.21 From Milan, the
trio made their way to Rome for a visit with Morlion to learn the layout of the priest's apartment. On
April 23, the day John Paul II was holding a private audience with CIA director William Casey, the
Turks were provided with 9mm Browning Hi Power semiautomatic pistols with 13-round cartridge
clips. They had received training on the use of these weapons by CIA agent Frank Terpil. The
semiautomatics had been imported from East Germany by Horst Grillmayer, an arms dealer and
operative of the BND. The place of origin was significant since the pistols, when found, would
support the Bulgarian thesis.22
THE ATTEMPTED HIT
On May 13, 1981, John Paul II appeared in the “papamobile,” an open-top jeep, before an adoring crowd of five thousand. As he was being driven around St. Peter's Square, he stood upright to return a young girl he had been holding to her mother. It was 5:19 in the afternoon. A series of shots rang out, with bullets striking the Holy Father and two women from New York. Chaos ensued and a small explosion went off in the corner of the square. Ağca fled, tossing his pistol under a truck, before he was collared by the Vatican security chief.23
The pope was rushed to the Gemelli, the teaching hospital of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome. He had been struck by four bullets—two remained lodged in his lower intestine; the others had hit his left index finger and his right hand. He slipped in and out of consciousness; his blood pressure fell dramatically; his pulse was weak and faltering. By the time he reached the operating room, John Paul II had lost between five and six pints of blood.24 “A moment or two later,” Dr. Francesco Crucitti later recalled, “it would have been too late.”25 One of the bullets had passed within a few millimeters of the central aorta. If that had been nicked, death would have been almost instantaneous. On exiting the body, the same bullet came within a centimeter of shattering the pope's spine. He had survived by a miracle.26
THE CRIME SCENE
At the scene of the attempted assassination, a Dutch coach driver said that the pope had been shot by
Ağca and two other gunmen. Other onlookers provided the same testimony. Some mentioned a
diversionary explosion that had gone off in a corner of the square.27 The arrest warrant, signed by Achille Gallucci, Rome's prosecutor general, stated that Ağca had acted “in collaboration with other individuals whose identity remains unknown.”28 By the end of the day, Luciano Infelisi, the magistrate who had been assigned to the investigation, concluded: “There are documented proofs that Mehmet Ali Ağca did not act alone.” The proof, in part, consisted of the variety of casings found in the vicinity. Such evidence did not appear in court, neither did the investigating magistrate. Infelisi, who came to know too much, was quickly removed from the case and assigned other duties.29
SPEEDY TRIAL
The trial lasted only three days. Ağca rejected the jurisdiction of the Italian court, claiming that the
incident occurred in Vatican City, a sovereign state. When his demand for a change in venue was
rejected, Ağca said, “I shall not answer questions. I do not acknowledge this court. The trial has
ended. Thank you.”30 During the trial, Sister Letizia, a Franciscan nun from Genoa, identified Ağca as
the would-be killer and stated her belief that he acted alone. But the nun's testimony was undermined
by a photograph that had been taken by an American tourist. The photo showed a man running away
from the scene with a pistol in his hand. In light of this evidence, the court ruled that there existed “no
valid elements permitting to confirm or exclude” the possibility of other gunmen.31 Neither the prosecutor nor the defense attorney made note of the sighting of two unlikely figures at the scene of the crime: former CIA agents Theodore Shackley and Tom Clines. The presence of such prominent spooks in St. Peter's Square at that particular time and at that particular hour remains unexplained.32 In his biography of Shackley, titled Blond Ghost, noted journalist David Corn does not mention Shackley being at the crime scene, or his clandestine meetings with Count de Marenches and General Santovito.33
UNEXPECTED VISITORS
Ağca was sentenced to life in prison with one year of solitary confinement. Despite this sentence, the
prisoner soon received an ongoing stream of surprising visitors, including Francesco Pazienza,
General Santovito, Fr. Morlion, members of the Camorra (including fellow prisoner Raffaelo
Cutolo), agents from the CIA, and Monsignor Marcello Morgante, who represented Archbishop
Marcinkus of the IOR.34 The visits were choreographed by Pazienza to advance the Bulgarian thesis.
During his daily visits, Pazienza, with Cutolo at his side, showed Ağca photographs of Antonov and
several Bulgarians they wished to implicate in the assassination attempt. For hours, Ağca poured over
the photos, memorizing distinctive characteristics and receiving information about the personal habits
and tics of the fall guys.35 By the fall of 1981, Ağca was singing a new song to Italian prosecutors—he had acted in service to the KGB; the assassination team had included an accountant and a military attaché from the Bulgarian Embassy in Rome; and the plans were drafted in the Rome apartment of Sergei Antonov.36
Antonov was arrested and subjected to daily and nightly interrogations by the Italian police. He proclaimed his innocence and denied any ties to the KGB or the CSS. The grilling continued with injections of psychotropic drugs. Antonov, although disoriented, continued to insist that he played no part in the assassination attempt. He was kept in prison for three years. By the time of his release he was psychologically damaged and physically disabled. For the rest of his life Antonov was unable to carry on a conversation or to perform a simple task. On August 1, 2007, he was found dead in a barren apartment in Sofia.37
THE STORY UNRAVELS
At the start of 1982, the disinformation campaign was in full swing. Claire Sterling published articles
on the KGB's involvement in the attempt on John Paul II's life, and the articles appeared in Reader's
Digest and other national periodicals; Michael Ledeen issued a barrage of “insider” reports for Il
Giornale Nuovo; and Marvin Kalb presented special reports on the Soviet connection to the
sacrilege.38 The theory soon became accepted as fact by such influential media outlets as the New
York Times.
39 Operation Mockingbird, once again, was living up to its name. By 1985, Claire
Sterling's The Time of the Assassins (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston) and Paul Henze's The Plot to Kill
the Pope (Scribner's) were published to widespread critical praise. Few noted that the basis of these
works was a strategic mendacity and that both authors were in the employ of the CIA. But the story was unraveling almost as soon as it was being spun. Ağca had been able to describe every small mole and blemish of the Bulgarians he wished to implicate in the crime, but he remained unable to estimate their height. This proved telling since two of the alleged co-conspirators who worked at the Bulgarian Embassy in Rome resembled Mutt and Jeff from the comic strip. Their disparity in stature was almost comic.40
Another problem came from Ağca's description of Antonov's apartment. The distinctive features he described, including an ornate room divider between the living and dining areas, were not found in the Bulgarian's living quarters. They were unique to the flat one floor below, which was occupied by Fr. Morlion. Ağca also mentioned meeting Antonov's wife and children during the planning sessions in April. But the Bulgarian's family was not in Rome at that time. They had returned to Bulgaria.41
A REPORTER'S DISCOVERIES
Despite these discrepancies, the Bulgarian thesis might have remained credible save for the work of
Uğur Mumcu, one of Turkey's leading journalists. Digging into Ağca's background, he uncovered the
fact that the would-be assassin was a lackey for Bekir Çelenk. He discovered that Çelenk was
engaged in the smuggling of arms and drugs through his fleet of cargo ships, which sailed under a
Panamanian flag. Interviewing workers and crew members of the Vasoula, he obtained testimony that
the ship had carried 495 rocket launchers and 10,000 missiles from the Bulgarian port of Burgos to
Istanbul, where it was received by leading figures from the Turkish underworld, including Abuzer
Uğurlu.42 Mumcu, working with the Turkish police, established Ağca's ties to the Grey Wolves and rightwing terrorists. He realized that the would-be assassin had performed executions, including the murder of İpekçi, with Abdullah Çatlı and Oral Çelik. What's more, he was able to identify Çelik as the gunman who was running from St. Peter's Square with pistol in hand.43
The Turkish journalist made more discoveries, including the ties of Ağca, the Grey Wolves, and the babas to Stibam International and the CIA. He pinpointed Henri Arsan as a key figure in the massive smuggling operation and the Hotel Vitosha as the center of mob gatherings. He also established that Sergei Ivanov Antonov was neither an agent nor double agent. He was simply a dupe.44
Uğur Mumcu would pay for making these revelations. He was killed when a car bomb exploded outside his home on January 24, 1993. No arrests were made. When Mumcu launched his probe into the attack on John Paul II, Paul Henze tried to convince him that the would-be assassins were agents of the Soviet Union. The reporter refused to follow the information trail provided by the CIA station chief, opting instead to investigate the ties between Ağca and the babas. Henze advised him to abandon the probe, reportedly saying, “If you do not, you might find a nice surprise in store.”45
Next:A Raid and Redirection
Footnotes
1. David Yallop, The Power and the Glory: Inside the Dark Heart of John Paul II's Vatican (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2007), p. 67.
2. Penny Lernoux, In Banks We Trust (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), 187.
3. Staff, “Italy in Crisis as Cabinet Resigns,” BBC, May 26, 1981, http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/26/newsid_4396000/4396893.stm (accessed May 22, 2014).
4. Jack Blood, “Italian Supreme Court President Writes Book Linking Bilderberg to Operation Gladio and the CIA,” Deadline Live, April 12, 2013, http://deadlinelive.info/2013/04/12/italian-supreme-court-president-writes-book-linking-bilderberg-to-operation-gladio-andthe-cia-2/ (accessed May 22, 2014).
5. Richard Cottrell, Gladio: NATO's Dagger at the Heart of Europe (Palm Desert, CA: Progressive Press, 2012), p. 284.
6. Ibid.
7. Yallop, Power and the Glory, p. 106.
8. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 282.
9. Ibid.
10. Felix Corley, “Soviet Reaction to the Election of Pope John Paul II,” Religion, State and Society, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1994, http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/rss/22-1_037.pdf (accessed May 22, 2014).
11. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 283.
12. Robert Young Pelton, The World's Most Dangerous Places (New York: Harper Resource, 2003), p. 347.
13. Dave Emory, “The Pope's Shooting: Stibam,” For the Record #43, September 1996, https://archive.org/details/For_The_Record_43_The_Pope_Shooting_Stibam, accessed May 22, 2014.
14. Timothy Gorton Ash, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), pp. 165-166.
15. Yallop. The Power and the Glory, p. 106.
16. Ash, The Polish Revolution, p. 171.
17. Ibid., p. 172.
18. Daniele Ganser, NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe (London: Frank Cass, 2005), p. 138.
19. Ibid., p. 122.
20. Ibid., p. 100. 21. Ibid., p. 132.
22. The Insider from Turkey, “The Court Case against Generals behind Turkey's 1980 Coup,” Boiling Frogs, April 19, 2011, http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/04/19/the-court-case-against-generals-behind-turkey%E2%80%99s-1980-coup/ (accessed May 22, 2014).
23. Abbas Guclu, “61 Anayasasi Turkiye'ye Buyut Geldi,” Milliyet (Istanbul), September 25, 2003, http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2007/09/26/yazar/guclu.html (accessed May 22, 2014).
24. Insider from Turkey, “Court Case against Generals.”
25. Ganser, NATO's Secret Armies, p. 233.
26. Hussein Tahiri, The Structure of Kurdish Society and the Struggle for a Kurdish State (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publications, 2007), pp. 232 ff.
27. Pico Iyer, “Long Memories,” Time, August 8, 1983.
28. Sibel Edmonds, “Court Documents Shed Light on CIA Illegal Operations in Central Asia Using Islam and Madrassas,” July 11, 2008, http://letsibeledmondsspeak.blogspot.com/2008/07/court-documents-shed-light-on-cia.html (accessed May 22, 2014).
29. Ganser, NATO's Secret Armies, pp. 228–29.
30. Frank Bovenkerk and Yucel Yesilgoz, The Turkish Mafia: A History of the Heroin Godfathers (London: Milo Books, 2007), chapter 6, Kindle edition.
31. Ibid.
32. Human Rights Report, Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, 1998, http://www.tihv.org.tr/1998-insan-haklari-raporu/ (accessed May 22, 2014).
33. Cottrell, Gladio, pp. 272–73.
34. Bovenkerk and Yesilgoz, Turkish Mafia.
35. Erkan Acar, “Ergenekon Has Links to Security and Judiciary Bodies,” Today's Zaman (Istanbul), September 6, 2008.
36. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 398.
37. Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Pack: The People, Politics and Espionage Intrigue that Shaped the DEA (Springfield, OR: TrineDay, 2009), p. 140.
38. Ganser, NATO's Secret Armies, pp. 236–38.
39. Kendal Nezan, “Turkey's Pivotal Role in the International Drug Trade,” Le Monde Diplomatique (July 1998).
40. Bovenkerk and Yesilgoz, Turkish Mafia.
41. Cottrell, Gladio, pp. 288–90.
42. Bovenkerk and Yesilgoz, Turkish Mafia.
43. Yallop, Power and the Glory, p. 128.
44. Bovenkerk and Yesilgoz, Turkish Mafia.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE SHOOTING IN ST. PETER'S SQUARE
1. Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press (New York: Verso, 1998), pp. 247–48. See also, Mizgin Yilmaz, “Armitage—Part I: The Early Years and the Golden Triangle,” Boiling Frogs Post, November 11, 2009, http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2009/11/11/armitage-part-i-the-early-years-the-golden-triangle/#more-729 (accessed May 22, 2014).
2. Richard Cottrell, Gladio: NATO's Dagger at the Heart of Europe (Palm Desert, CA: Progressive Press, 2012), p. 291.
3. David Corn, “The Legacy of Theodore Shackley,” AlterNet, December 12, 2012, http://www.alternet.org/story/14767/the_legacy_of_theodore_shackley (accessed May 22, 2014).
4. John Simkin, “Ted Shackley and the Secret Team,” Education Forum, December 10, 2005, http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5597 (accessed May 22, 2014).
5. John Simkin, “Theodore (‘Ted’) Shackley,” Spartacus Educational, December 2013, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKshackley.htm (accessed May 22, 2014).
6. Robert Parry, “Bush and a CIA Power Play,” Consortium News, November 1996, http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile7.html.
7. Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror (New York: Harmony, 2005), pp. 84–85.
8. Staff report, “Nazis, the Vatican and the CIA,” Covert Action Information Bulletin, No. 25, Winter 1985.
9. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 267.
10. Dave Emory, “Who Shot the Pope? Part V: Western Intelligence Connections,” For the Record #21, May 29, 1986, https://archive.org/details/AFA21_Who_Shot_the_Pope_Part_V_Western_Intelligence_Connections (accessed May 22, 2014).
11. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 276.
12. Emory, “Who Shot the Pope?” See also, Matthew Brunwasser, “Sergei Antonov, 59, Bulgarian Accused in Plot to Kill the Pope Is Dead,” New York Times, August 3, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/obituaries/03antonov.html?_r=0 (accessed May 22, 2014).
13. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 275.
14. Wolfgang Actner, “Obituary: Claire Sterling,” Independent (UK), June 26, 1995, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-claire-sterling-1588401.html (accessed May 22, 2014).
15. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 269.
16. Emory, “Who Shot the Pope?”
17. Ibid.
18. Heinz Hohne and Hermann Zolling, The General Was a Spy: The Truth about General Gehlen and His Spy Ring (New York: Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1972), pp. 38–42.
19. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 290.
20. Hakan Aslandi, “Famous Terrorist Oral Celik in Turkey,” Hurriyet (Turkey's leading daily newspaper), September 20, 1996, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/default.aspx?pageid=438&n=famous-terrorist-oral-celik-in-turkey-1996-09-20 (accessed May 22, 2014).
21. Frank Bovenkerk and Yucel Yesilgoz, The Turkish Mafia: A History of the Heroin Godfathers (London: Milo Books, 2007), chapter 6, Kindle edition. 22. Ibid.
23. Staff, “Security Chief Was ‘Guardian Angel’ to Pope,” Wall Street Journal, November 6, 2009, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB125746370679932197?mg=reno64- wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB125746370679932197.html (accessed May 22, 2014).
24. Henry Tanner, “Pope Is Shot in Car in Vatican Square; Surgeons Term Condition ‘Guarded’; Turk, an Escaped Murderer Is Seized,” New York Times, May 14, 1981, https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0513.html (accessed May 22, 2014).
25. David Yallop, The Power and the Glory: Inside the Dark Heart of John Paul II's Vatican (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2007), p. 123.
26. Ibid.
27. Bovenkerk and Yesilgoz, Turkish Mafia, chapter 6.
28. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 266.
29. Ibid.
30. Jesus Lopez Saez, El Dia de la Cuenta: Juan Pablo II, a Examen (Madrid: Meral Ediciones—Comunidad de Ayala, 2005), http://www.comayala.es/index.php/en/libros-es/el-dia-de-la-cuenta-ingles-texto (accessed May 22, 2014).
31. Henry Tanner, “Turk Says He Tried to Kill the Pope,” New York Times, July 21, 1981, http://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/21/world/turk-says-he-tried-to-kill-the-pope.html (accessed May 22, 2014).
32. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 291. See also, Emory, “Who Shot the Pope?”
33. David Corn, Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994).
34. Saez, El Dia de la Cuenta.
35. Ibid.
36. Matthew Brunwasser, “Sergei Antonov, 59, Bulgarian Accused in Plot to Kill a Pope Is Dead,” New York Times, August 3, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/obituaries/03antonov.html?_r=0 (accessed May 22, 2014).
37. Ibid.
38. Saez, El Dia de la Cuenta.
39. Cottrell, Gladio, p. 280.
40. Saez, El Dia de la Cuenta.
41. Ibid.
42. Uğur Mumcu, “West Europe Report, No. 2131: The Case Study of Agca's Activities,” Foreign Broadcast Information, April 22, 1983, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a333139.pdf (accessed May 22, 2014).
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. Otkay Eksi, “Mumcu Cinayet Aydinlanirken,” Hurriyet, December 27, 2008, http://hurarsiv.hurriyet.com.tr/goster/haber.aspx? id=-152724&yazarid=1 (accessed May 22, 2014).
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