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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, APRIL 8, 1983
PAGE 8
hurling periodic thunderbolts from Munich. Psychologically, Herr
Kohl has acquired a huge advantage over Herr Strauss by winning
the election so well four years after the latter failed so badly.
But the advantage is only relative, given Herr Strauss's outsize,
irrepressible personality, his command o�a sizable chunk of
the coalition and his unswerving conviction that he knows best.
Plot Against the Pope Thickens
Authorities in France have information that supports testimony given to
Italian authorities by a Turkish assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, that when he
tried to kill Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981, he was acting at the behest
of Bulgarian intelligence agents.
The evidence, though not conclusive, includes information from a Bulgarian
official who defected in France in July 1981. If true, it reveals how in
credibly paranoic the Soviets have been about the impact of John Paul II
upon their satellite empire--even to the point of believing that he was an
agent of the U.S. government--Zbigniew Brzezinski, in particular--in an
attempt to subvert Poland. Reports the NEW YORK TIMES of March 23, 1983:
The official, Ordan Mantarov, 48 years old, told French intel
ligence agents that the plot to kill the Pope was devised by the
K.G.B., the Soviet intelligence agency, and by the Bulgarian
secret service, which many Western intelligence specialists con
sider subservient to Moscow.
The plan was drawn up, Mr.
Mantarov said, because the two agencies believed that the Pope
� the keystone of� ·united States effort to subvert the Polish
Government and� it away from the Communist bloc••••
Mr. Mantarov, the Bulgarian who defected in France, ... [said that
Dimiter Savov, a top Bulgarian counterintelligence official] told
him that in 1979 the K.G.B. concluded that the election of Karol
Wojtyla as Pope the year before was engineered gy Zbigniew
Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser, who was
born in Poland.... The response to the election of Pope John
Paul II--made by the Soviet authorities and conveyed to the Bul
garians, according to Mr. Mantarov's account--was to "eliminate"
the Pope, and the assignment was given to the Bulgarian security
agency....
According to the French sources, Mr. Mantarov said.•.that when
unrest mounted in Poland and the Pope supported the aspirations
of Polish workers to organize into independent unions, Eastern
European intelligence agencies became concerned that their fears
were correct and the K.G.B. began discussions with the Bulgarian
intelligence service on a way to eliminate John Paul II.
But why the apparent Soviet phobia with John Paul II? Simply put, the
Pope's growing influence in the East--rnuch of it unreported in the general
press--extends far beyond Poland and even Eastern Europe, right into the
Soviet Union itself.
Here are excerpts from the article "The Battle
Between the Kremlin and the Pope" which appeared in the March 30, 1983 WALL
STREET JOURNAL. The author is Alex Alexiev, a Soviet/East European affairs
analyst with the Rand Corporation.