Pt. 1: Fas­cism and the Vat­i­can (AFA 17)

Part 1a 43:39 | Part 1b 43:33 | Part 1c 42:17 | Part 1d 44:13 | Part 1e 43:43
(Recorded May 1, 1986)

One of the last major intelligence-related con­tro­ver­sies of the Cold War, the shoot­ing of Pope John Paul II in May of 1981 was widely and mis­tak­enly blamed on the Soviet Union. The first in a series of pro­grams about the attempt on the Pope’s life, AFA-17 chron­i­cles the evo­lu­tion of the fas­cist ele­ments that appear to have per­pe­trated that act.

Ter­ri­fied of com­mu­nism, the Vat­i­can actively sup­ported Euro­pean fas­cism prior to, dur­ing and after the Sec­ond World War. The Vatican/fascist asso­ci­a­tion helped spawn insti­tu­tions and net­works which loom large in the inves­ti­ga­tion, such as the IOR (the Vat­i­can Bank), the P-2 lodge of Mus­solini sup­porter and for­mer Nazi offi­cer Licio Gelli and the Vatican’s his­tor­i­cal asso­ci­a­tion with reac­tionary Amer­i­can and Euro­pean intel­li­gence elements.

Much of the pro­gram focuses on Euge­nio Pacelli (later Pope Pius the XII), mem­bers of the Pacelli fam­ily and their role in the Vatican/fascist alliance. As the Papal rep­re­sen­ta­tive to Munich, then Arch­bishop Pacelli report­edly chan­neled Vat­i­can funds to Adolf Hitler as early as 1919. Pacelli and close fam­ily mem­bers were instru­men­tal in forg­ing the Lat­eran Treaty of 1929. In addi­tion to mak­ing Roman Catholi­cism the offi­cial state reli­gion of Mussolini’s Italy, the treaty estab­lished the Vat­i­can as a sov­er­eign state and led to the cre­ation of the IOR (Insti­tute for Reli­gious Works), the Vat­i­can Bank.

With the estab­lish­ment of the Vat­i­can as a finan­cial power, the stage was set for events lead­ing to the prob­a­ble mur­der of one Pope and the shoot­ing of another. It should be noted that the Pacelli fam­ily prof­ited hand­somely from the treaty. Euge­nio Pacelli’s cozy rela­tion­ships with fas­cists con­tin­ued after he became Pope. With Pius XI hav­ing died before issu­ing a con­dem­na­tion of Nazism, Pius XII (Pacelli) estab­lished a mutu­ally ben­e­fi­cial rela­tion­ship with the Fuehrer. The pope refrained from actively oppos­ing Hitler and Hitler, in turn, estab­lished a “Church Tax,” which added sig­nif­i­cantly to the Church’s cof­fers in Ger­many. This tax was still part of the Ger­man tax struc­ture in the mid 1980’s. (It should be noted that Catholic priests in Ger­many were being per­se­cuted by the Nazis, even as Pius XII and Hitler cooperated.)

The broad­cast high­lights other areas of pre-war and wartime coop­er­a­tion between fas­cists and the Vat­i­can, includ­ing the unqual­i­fied sup­port given by the Vat­i­can to Franco’s forces in Spain. One of the most overt instances of Vat­i­can sup­port for fas­cism came in wartime Croa­tia, where Catholic clergy blessed the death squads of the mur­der­ous pro-Nazi Ustashe and served in the Croa­t­ian Parliament.

As defeat loomed for the Third Reich and its allies, the Vat­i­can proved instru­men­tal in help­ing to engi­neer the escape and sur­vival of many noto­ri­ous war crim­i­nals. This did much to ensure the per­pet­u­a­tion of fas­cism itself. Dubbed “the Rat Line” by U.S. intel­li­gence offi­cers, the Vat­i­can escape route pro­vided numer­ous Nazi fugi­tives with safe pas­sage to polit­i­cal refuge in Latin Amer­ica. (Many of them later went to work for U.S. and British intel­li­gence, both of which actively aided the Vat­i­can in arrang­ing for the Nazis’ suc­cess­ful flight from Europe.)

In addi­tion to Bishop Alois Hudal and Father Drag­onovic (a Croa­t­ian priest), one of the most impor­tant fig­ures in the oper­a­tion of the Rat Line was Car­di­nal Gio­vanni Bat­tista Mon­tini. Mon­tini pro­vided many of the most heinous war crim­i­nals with Vat­i­can diplo­matic papers, assur­ing their escape. Mon­tini later became Pope Paul VI. It is worth not­ing that the Rat Line began as a wartime Ger­man intel­li­gence oper­a­tion and was per­pet­u­ated in the post-war period through coop­er­a­tion between the Vat­i­can and West­ern intelligence.

Pro­gram high­lights include: the appar­ent clan­des­tine coop­er­a­tion between the Nazi for­eign min­istry, the Vat­i­can and William Dono­van (head of the OSS, America’s wartime intel­li­gence ser­vice) to open up the West­ern Front to Amer­i­can and British armies, assur­ing their deep pen­e­tra­tion into Ger­many ahead of the Sovi­ets; the alleged role of even­tual P-2 Lodge head Licio Gelli in the oper­a­tions of the Rat­line; “Oper­a­tion Bern­hard” (an SS coun­ter­feit­ing oper­a­tion designed to wreck the British econ­omy while simul­ta­ne­ously financ­ing the oper­a­tions of the Rat­line); the con­nec­tions of the Opus Dei order to Franco’s Spain (John Paul II is close to Opus Dei); Pope John Paul II’s selec­tion of Nazi financier Her­mann Abs (chair­man emer­i­tus of the Deutsche Bank) to help straighten out the Vat­i­can Bank scan­dals of the early 1980s.

Pt. 2: The P-2 Lodge and the Vat­i­can Bank­ing Scan­dals (AFA 18)

Part 2a 43:22 | Part 2b 43:47 | Part 2c 43:41 | Part 2d 43:39 | Part 2e 43:59 | Part 2f 26:28
(Recorded May 8, 1986)

The sec­ond pro­gram in this five-part series ana­lyzes a series of bank­ing scan­dals involv­ing the Vat­i­can, as well as their effect on inter­na­tional and Vat­i­can polit­i­cal real­ity. Polit­i­cal rela­tion­ships evolv­ing from Vat­i­can entan­gle­ments dur­ing the Sec­ond World War fig­ure promi­nently in the dis­cus­sion (see AFA-17 for infor­ma­tion about Licio Gelli and Car­di­nal Gio­vanni Bat­tista Mon­tini, later Pope Paul VI.)

In par­tic­u­lar, the Vatican’s rela­tion­ship with mem­bers of the P-2 lodge deter­mined the course of events that pre­cip­i­tated the scan­dals. Founded by Mus­solini ally and Nazi offi­cer Licio Gelli, the P-2 lodge func­tioned as a de facto crypto-fascist gov­ern­ment in the 1960’s, 70’s and early 80’s. Uti­liz­ing black­mail and, as called for, mur­der to enforce obe­di­ence and loy­alty, Gelli recruited from among the Ital­ian elite. Promi­nent mil­i­tary and intel­li­gence offi­cials, busi­ness and media fig­ures, politi­cians and Mafiosi com­prised the mem­ber­ship of the avowedly fas­cist orga­ni­za­tion, mak­ing it a cen­ter of con­sum­mate, occult polit­i­cal power in Italy.

P-2 mem­bers Michele Sin­dona and Roberto Calvi served as suc­ces­sive finan­cial con­sul­tants to the Vat­i­can. In that capac­ity, they worked with the head of the Vat­i­can Bank (the IOR.) Sin­dona was a Mafioso and Calvi the head of the Banco Ambrosiano, Italy’s largest bank at the time. The asso­ci­a­tion between the fas­cist P-2 and the Vatican’s finan­cial estab­lish­ment bred cor­rup­tion, scan­dal and mur­der, includ­ing what was almost cer­tainly the killing of a Pope–the short-tenured John Paul I. Both Sin­dona and Calvi were among peo­ple asso­ci­ated with the Vat­i­can bank­ing scan­dals who were either mur­dered or became “appar­ent sui­cides.” Pope Paul VI (for­merly Car­di­nal Gio­vanni Bat­tista Mon­tini) mid­wived the rela­tion­ship between the P-2 and the IOR.Under the stew­ard­ship of Arch­bishop Paul Marcinkus, the Vat­i­can Bank became involved in numer­ous ille­gal transactions.

In addi­tion to doc­u­ment­ing many of the Vatican/P-2 ille­gal­i­ties, the pro­gram high­lights the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the untimely and sus­pi­cious death of Pope John Paul I. Known for his devout and pop­ulist atti­tude as a Car­di­nal, the new Pope was mov­ing in the direc­tion of sev­er­ing the con­nec­tion between the Vat­i­can and the P-2 and dis­ci­plin­ing Marcinkus and oth­ers. Had the truth emerged about these scan­dals, many of the par­tic­i­pants would have gone to prison and the power pol­i­tics of the Vat­i­can (and much of the rest of the world) would have been fun­da­men­tally altered. The Pope’s sud­den death elim­i­nated an imme­di­ate threat. One of the most impor­tant parts of the pro­gram, the analy­sis of the facts con­cern­ing the Pope’s demise strongly sug­gests that he was poisoned.

When John Paul II took office, he per­pet­u­ated the rela­tion­ship between the IOR and the P-2 and then called in Her­mann Abs, for­merly of the Deutsche Bank, to help straighten out the finan­cial mess. Abs had been Nazi Germany’s most impor­tant banker and con­tin­ued his career unin­ter­rupted in the post-war years. In addi­tion to Abs, the Pope selected Swiss financier Philippe de Weck to help advise the IOR. De Weck had pre­vi­ously been linked to a scan­dal involv­ing a “petroleum-sniffing plane.” That scan­dal appears to have involved the World Anti-Communist League.

Pro­gram high­lights include: dis­cus­sion of the bad loans made by Banco Ambrosiano and guar­an­teed by the IOR (those loans brought about the col­lapse of Banco Ambrosiano); Roberto Calvi’s sus­pi­cious sui­cide in Lon­don fol­low­ing the col­lapse of Ambrosiano; Sindona’s charge that the bad loans were made to fund anti-communist activ­i­ties in Latin Amer­ica; Sindona’s involve­ment in the col­lapse of the Franklin National Bank; an attempted jail­break by Sin­dona (serv­ing time in the United States for the Franklin col­lapse); the mur­ders of jour­nal­ists and/or inves­ti­ga­tors into the shady finan­cial activ­i­ties of Sin­dona, Gelli & com­pany; the alleged “sui­cide” of Sin­dona in an Ital­ian prison; the alleged “sui­cides” of a Banco Ambrosiano col­league of Calvi and his per­sonal sec­re­tary (both “jumped” from the win­dow of the Ambrosiano’s Milan head­quar­ters); a Sindona-Marcinkus-Mafia scheme involv­ing stolen securities.

Pt. 3: The P-2 Lodge, con­tin­ued (AFA 19)

Part 3a 41:15 | Part 3b 43:21 | Part 3c 43:00 | Part 3d 43:22 | Part 3e 43:46 | Part 3f 29:51
(Recorded May 15, 1986)

Although not well known, Licio Gelli’s P-2 Lodge has wielded a pro­found influ­ence on the his­tory of the sec­ond half of this cen­tury. This broad­cast doc­u­ments and ana­lyzes some of the activ­i­ties of the P-2 in Italy and around the world. Much of the dis­cus­sion focuses on attempts by the P-2 milieu to desta­bi­lize Ital­ian democ­racy and bring fas­cism back to Italy.

Aided by the CIA in this effort, the P-2 was instru­men­tal in stag­ing two unsuc­cess­ful coup attempts in the early 1970’s, fol­lowed by a pro­gram of ter­ror­ist inci­dents. Accord­ing to infor­ma­tion devel­oped by the Pike Com­mit­tee (a con­gres­sional com­mit­tee inves­ti­gat­ing CIA mis­deeds), P-2 mem­ber Michele Sin­dona was the con­duit between the CIA and the archi­tects of “the Strat­egy of Tension.”

For­mal­ized by Ital­ian fas­cist Stephano Delle Chi­aie, the Strat­egy of Ten­sion was a pro­gram of ter­ror designed to dis­credit the Ital­ian left and pro­voke a reduc­tion of civil lib­er­ties and a broad­en­ing of police and sur­veil­lance pow­ers. Its ulti­mate goal was a restora­tion of fas­cism in Italy. Epi­cen­ter of the Strat­egy of Ten­sion and the coup attempts of the 70’s, the so-called “Super SISMI” group func­tioned as an intel­li­gence ser­vice within an intel­li­gence ser­vice. (SISMI is one of Italy’s intel­li­gence ser­vices.) Com­posed of P-2 mem­bers and their allies within the SISMI, the “Super SISMI” cyn­i­cally cre­ated and manip­u­lated ter­ror­ism of both the left and the right.

One of the appar­ent vic­tims of the Strat­egy of Ten­sion was for­mer Ital­ian Prime Min­is­ter Aldo Moro. Hav­ing invited the Ital­ian Com­mu­nist Party into a rul­ing coali­tion, Moro was kid­napped and mur­dered by the Red Brigades. (An Ital­ian par­lia­men­tary com­mis­sion inves­ti­gat­ing the activ­i­ties of the P-2 lodge found that Licio Gelli had helped to found the osten­si­bly left-wing Red Brigades, whose pro­gram of ter­ror­ism dis­cred­ited the Ital­ian left and weak­ened Ital­ian democ­racy.) The P-2 and its allies were very active else­where in the world as well.

With branches in Monaco, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, the P-2 sig­nif­i­cantly influ­enced the devel­op­ment of fas­cism in Latin Amer­ica. The Argen­tine branch of P-2 was par­tic­u­larly influ­en­tial, with P-2 mem­bers Jose Lopez Rega, Admi­ral Emilio Massera and Gen­eral Car­los Suarez Mason play­ing key roles in the fas­cist junta that ran Argentina in the 70’s and early ’80’s. Noted for its bru­tal “dirty war” against polit­i­cal oppo­nents, the junta influ­enced activ­i­ties in other Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries, includ­ing Bolivia, where it lent sup­port to the so-called “Cocaine Coup” of 1980. That coup brought to power a group of major cocaine traffickers.

It was engi­neered by for­mer Gestapo offi­cer (and U.S. intel­li­gence agent) Klaus Bar­bie and his “Bride­grooms of Death” mer­ce­nar­ies. That group included the afore­men­tioned Stephano Delle Chi­aie and P-2 mem­ber Pier­luigi Pagliai. Bar­bie, Delle Chi­aie & com­pany were, in turn, active with a Nazi emi­gre com­mu­nity in South Amer­ica that included for­mer SS Colonel Otto Sko­rzeny (who, like Bar­bie, worked for the CIA after the war) and Friedrich Schwend, the archi­tect of Oper­a­tion Bern­hard (see AFA-17.)

In addi­tion to dis­cus­sion of Skorzeny’s weapons deals, the pro­gram high­lights Skorzeny’s cre­ation of an “Inter­na­tional Fascista.” Join­ing together Euro­pean and Latin Amer­i­can fas­cists, this Fas­cist Inter­na­tional is the milieu within which Gelli, Delle Chi­aie and their ilk existed and oper­ated. Par­tic­u­lar empha­sis is on “Oper­a­tion Con­dor,” an inter­na­tional assas­si­na­tion con­sor­tium among Latin Amer­i­can fas­cist dic­ta­tor­ships. Aided by ele­ments of U.S. intel­li­gence, Oper­a­tion Con­dor claimed, among other vic­tims, Chilean diplo­mat Orlando Lete­lier, assas­si­nated in Wash­ing­ton D.C. with the appar­ent con­nivance of George Bush’s CIA. Oper­a­tion Con­dor was dis­tin­guished by attempts at blam­ing the killings on the left, much like the provo­ca­tions of the Strat­egy of Tension.

Pro­gram high­lights include: Gelli’s atten­dance at Ronald Reagan’s inau­gu­ra­tion; involve­ment of the P-2 milieu in the “Bil­ly­gate” scan­dal that tar­nished the Carter admin­is­tra­tion; the CIA-assisted Borgh­ese coup attempt of 1970; the Rosa Dei Venti coup attempt of 1973; Skorzeny’s sup­ply­ing of weapons to the Borgh­ese and Rosa Dei Venti coup attempts; the 1969 Piazza Fontana bomb­ing; the 1980 Bologna rail­way sta­tion bomb­ing; the Anon­ima Sequestri group — a kid­nap­ping con­sor­tium con­nected to the P-2 and orga­nized crime; P-2 mem­bers and Ital­ian intel­li­gence offi­cers Vito Miceli, Giuseppe San­tovito, Pietro Musumeci and Mas­simo Pugliese; P-2 links to Nixon and Rea­gan cab­i­net mem­ber Alexan­der Haig; links between the Skorzeny-linked Merex weapons firm to the BND (Germany’s intel­li­gence ser­vice); Skorzeny’s Pal­adin Mer­ce­nary Group (co-financed by Libyan dic­ta­tor Moham­mar Khadafy); Abscam sting­man Mel Weinberg’s con­nec­tions to the Red Brigades; “Ex” CIA agents Ed Wil­son and Frank Terpil’s train­ing of the Red Brigades; assas­si­na­tions com­mit­ted as part of the Strat­egy of Tension.

Pt. 4: Stibam (AFA 20)

Part 4a 43:20 | Part 4b 43:55 | Part 4c 41:47 | Part 4d 42:47 | Part 4e 41:15 | Part 4f 21:33
(Recorded May 22, 1986)

Com­par­a­tively few know the name “Stibam.” Obscure, even in the annals of the guns-for-drugs busi­ness, this arms and drug-smuggling out­fit fig­ured promi­nently in the world of 1980’s covert operations.

With con­nec­tions to intel­li­gence agen­cies of many coun­tries (includ­ing the United States) and over­lap­ping the P-2 lodge, Stibam was report­edly involved with the attempt on the Pope’s life. Run by Syrian-born Henri Arsan (a DEA infor­mant), Stibam was con­nected to many promi­nent indi­vid­u­als, and was impli­cated in numer­ous scan­dals, includ­ing the Iran-Contra and Iraq­gate affairs.

One of the prin­ci­pal fig­ures in Stibam was a Turk­ish national named Bekir Celenk, described as being very close to the fas­cist Grey Wolves and heav­ily involved with Stibam’s nar­cotics busi­ness. (For more about the Grey Wolves, see AFA #‘s 14, 21.) Mehmet Ali Agca iden­ti­fied Celenk as the pay­mas­ter of the plot to shoot Pope John Paul II. This pro­gram exam­ines the oper­a­tions of Stibam, its com­po­nent ele­ments and its polit­i­cal connections.

Mas­querad­ing as a “con­struc­tion com­pany,” the Milan-based firm was head­quar­tered right above the Banco Ambrosiano’s head­quar­ters. (For more on Banco Ambrosiano and its P-2 chair­man, Roberto Calvi, see AFA-18.) Ele­ments asso­ci­ated with the P-2 fig­ure promi­nently in Stibam’s affairs. Ronald Rea­gan, Richard Nixon and actor Rossano Brazzi were involved with Stibam deals, in the com­pany of vet­eran intel­li­gence offi­cer and P-2 mem­ber Giuseppe Santovito.

Another Stibam oper­a­tion involved the sale of AK-47 rifles for the Nicaraguan Con­tras. Other gam­bits involved the sale of Amer­i­can arms to the Khome­ini regime in Iran, to use against the Iraqis in the Iran-Iraq war. Other Stibam pro­grams con­sti­tuted part of what has popularly-termed “Iraq­gate,” the arm­ing of Sad­dam Hus­sein by the West.

One of the most spec­tac­u­lar and dan­ger­ous of the Stibam under­tak­ings involved the sale of ther­monu­clear weapons to an Arab nation (believed to have been either Syria or Saudi Ara­bia.) This oper­a­tion involved an indi­vid­ual named Glauco Par­tel, described in the Ital­ian press as being a “mis­sile expert” and work­ing for “the NSA.” One of Partel’s com­pan­ions was a U.S. intel­li­gence vet­eran named Eugene Bartholomeus, whose cur­ricu­lum included work with the much-traveled “ex-” CIA agent Ed Wil­son, as well as for the Nugan Hand Bank in Aus­tralia. (For more on Ed Wil­son, see AFA-4, and for infor­ma­tion about the Nugan Hand, see AFA-25.)

Asso­ci­ated with numer­ous intel­li­gence ser­vices (includ­ing and espe­cially Amer­i­can) Stibam had, as Mr. Emory says “more con­nec­tions than a switch-board.” When inves­ti­ga­tions into the oper­a­tion pro­duced a mas­sive series of arrests in Novem­ber of 1982, peo­ple involved with the inves­ti­ga­tion began to die.

Pro­gram higlights include: Details about Sutas, Stibam’s Los Ange­les Branch; the story of the Broggi Izzar arms oper­a­tion of Renato Gamba, partly financed by the Banco Ambrosiano; analy­sis of the Stibam net­work as an exten­sion of the “Balkan Route” heroin con­nec­tion of Cor­si­can gang­ster Auguste Ricord; Ricord’s World War II Nazi col­lab­o­ra­tion, includ­ing the begin­ning of his life-long asso­ciate with Gestapo offi­cer and Gehlen agent Klaus Bar­bie; Stibam deals involv­ing arms cap­tured by Israel in numer­ous con­flicts; the untimely deaths of Stibam-connected fig­ures Henry Arsan, Giuseppe San­tovito and Bekir Celenk (among oth­ers); the bomb attack on Judge Carlo Par­lermo, whose inves­ti­ga­tion of Stibam on behalf of the Ital­ian author­i­ties has yielded dev­as­tat­ing dis­clo­sures; con­nec­tions between Palermo’s inves­ti­ga­tion and Nazi Gold from World II; evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries run­ning in the direc­tion of Colo­nia Dig­nidad, an emi­gre Nazi con­clave in Chile.

Pt. 5: West­ern Intel­li­gence Con­nec­tions (AFA 21)

Part 5a 41:47 | Part 5b 43:21 | Part 5c 43:53
Part 5d 44:01 | Part 5e 44:23 | Part 5f 38:46
(Recorded May 29, 1986)

The pro­gram sets forth abun­dant evi­dence sug­gest­ing the involve­ment of ele­ments of West­ern intel­li­gence agen­cies in the for­mu­la­tion and dis­sem­i­na­tion of the so-called “Bul­gar­ian Con­nec­tion” to the attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II. (This “Con­nec­tion” com­prised an alleged con­spir­acy between the KGB and their Bul­gar­ian allies designed to kill the Pope, pre­sum­ably because of his sup­port for the Sol­i­dar­ity move­ment in Poland.) In addi­tion, the broad­cast high­lights a num­ber of impor­tant facts that indi­cate how some of these same West­ern intel­li­gence ele­ments may have arranged the crime themselves.

The Bul­gar­ian con­nec­tion first sur­faced in a 1983 mag­a­zine arti­cle authored by Paul Henze, a for­mer CIA sta­tion chief in Turkey. As noted in the Ital­ian press, the attempt on the Pope took place as the Vat­i­can and the Soviet Union were mov­ing toward diplo­matic rap­proche­ment on sev­eral key issues: the need for nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment, diplo­matic recog­ni­tion for the PLO and a de-fusing of the Sol­i­dar­ity cri­sis in Poland. (In late 1980 and early 1981, Lech Walesa’s pro-Western Sol­i­dar­ity move­ment had pre­cip­i­tated a dec­la­ra­tion of mar­tial law in Poland and the threat of mil­i­tary inva­sion by the Soviet Union.) The attempt on the Pope’s life pre-empted this rap­proche­ment and height­ened Cold War ten­sions, pro­mot­ing dis­cord between the Vat­i­can and the for­mer U.S.S.R.

Sig­nif­i­cantly, for­mer CIA offi­cial Theodore Shack­ley was reported to be in Italy at around this time, work­ing with ele­ments of the P-2 Lodge and the Ital­ian secret ser­vices. One of the agency’s most impor­tant oper­a­tives, Shack­ley had numer­ous con­nec­tions to the milieu of the Iran-Contra scan­dal and the Stibam arms-for-drugs ring. (The Stibam oper­a­tion and the Iran-Contra machi­na­tions over­lap the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the shoot­ing of the Pope.)

Ital­ian intel­li­gence ele­ments close to the Shackley/P-2 milieu reported the alleged KGB/Bulgarian con­nec­tion at the same time that they knew about the Vatican-Kremlin rap­proche­ment! The pos­si­bil­ity that the shoot­ing of the Pope may have been a provo­ca­tion intended to dis­rupt the Vatican-Kremlin rela­tion­ship should not be too read­ily dis­counted. (It should be noted that the P-2 milieu involved with Shack­ley & com­pany was deeply involved in the “Strat­egy of Ten­sion” provo­ca­tions described in AFA 19.)

The Grey Wolves (the fascist/pan-Turkist party to which con­victed would-be assas­sin Mehmet Ali Agca belonged) had strong con­nec­tions to the CIA and was used by the Agency against the Turk­ish left in the 1960’s and 1970’s. (For more on this rela­tion­ship, see FTR-59.) As CIA sta­tion chief, Paul Henze was involved with the CIA/Grey Wolf axis. Turk­ish jour­nal­ist Ugur Mumcu (assas­si­nated in a 1992 car bomb­ing) reported that the CIA had a man inside the National Action Party at the time of the assas­si­na­tion attempt on the Pope. (The National Action Party was the par­ent orga­ni­za­tion of the Grey Wolves. For more on the NAP and the pan-Turkist move­ment, see AFA-14.)

The alleged CIA liai­son with the NAP was Ruzy Nazar (nee Nazaroff), a for­mer Waf­fen SS man. Nazar served as an ABN del­e­gate to the 1984 con­fer­ence of the for­mer World Anti-Communist League.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: pos­si­ble con­nec­tions of the CIA-connected Father Felix Andre Mor­lion to the devel­op­ment of the Bul­gar­ian the­sis; Agca’s asser­tion that he did not want to kill the Pope; alleged links between the U.S. embassy in Italy and Agca’s “con­fes­sion;” pos­si­ble con­nec­tions of the “Super-Sismi” milieu described in AFA-19 to the attempt on the Pope; con­nec­tions between the P-2 and the Knights of Malta (see M-6); links between for­mer Sec­re­tary of State Alexan­der Haig and the source for alle­ga­tions that the KGB tried to kill the Pope; the sus­pi­cious deaths of fig­ures involved with the West­ern intel­li­gence milieu impli­cated in the attempt on the Pope.