It was a portrait of a man whose religious fervor could be so intense that he would cry out when praying and would often be found on the marble floor of his private chapel, face down, arms extended to form a cross, as still as in death. He could spend hours in that prone position. Yet his anger could be eruptive and fearful to behold; then he would storm and shout. His grasp of geopolitics was formidable and he could be as unflinching as any dictator. John Paul was also not afraid to confront the Curia, the Vatican’s civil service, or his long-serving secretary of state, Agostino Casaroli. The profile concluded that John Paul was “highly politicized from his Polish experiences and that he relishes being a player on the world stage.”
For Nahum Admoni, one matter was clear: the close and self-serving ties between the CIA and the pope had played a crucial role in John Paul coming to accept the American view that the attempt on his life had been organized by the Kremlin.
Yet, supposing that standpoint could be demonstrated to be wrong? How would the pope react? Would that shatter his faith in the CIA? Make him wary of all intelligence services? And would it allow Mossad—if it could show there was another hand behind the attempted assassination—to finally find a way past the Vatican’s Bronze Door and, if not be admitted as a fully fledged secret secular adviser to the papacy, at least be granted a hearing for its information and, in return, hopefully be able to revise the Holy See’s attitude to Israel?
Six months later the answer to Admoni’s first question—had someone else masterminded the attempted assassination?—was established to his satisfaction.
The plot had been prepared in Tehran with the full approval of Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini. Killing the pope was intended as the opening move in a jihad, holy war, against the West and what Khomeini saw as its decadent values being approved by the largest Christian Church.
A report prepared for Admoni said: “Khomeini remains the classic example of religious fanaticism. He has cast himself in the role of God-instructor to his people. To maintain that myth, he will need to act increasingly in a manner more dangerous to Israel, the West and the whole world.”
Anticipating that Agca could fail, his Iranian controllers had ensured he would be seen as a fanatical loner by leaking details of his background. Mehmet Ali Agca had been born in the remote village of Yesiltepe in eastern Turkey and had been raised in a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism. At the age of nineteen he joined the Gray Wolves, a pro-Iranian terrorist group responsible for much of the violence in a Turkey clinging to democracy. In February 1979, Agca murdered the editor of an Istanbul newspaper renowned for its pro-West policies. Arrested, Agca escaped from prison with the help of the Gray Wolves. The next day the newspaper received a chilling letter about the pope’s visit to Turkey, then three days away:
“Western imperialists, fearful that Turkey and her sister Islamic nations may become a political, military and economic power in the Middle East, are sending to Turkey at this delicate moment the Commander of the Crusades, John Paul, designed as a religious leader. If this visit is not called off, I will deliberately kill the Commander Pope.”
Admoni became convinced the letter had been composed in Tehran: in style and content it was certainly far above the writing skills of the almost illiterate Agca. Mossad’s computer search of Khomeini’s speeches revealed he had previously referred to the “Commander of the Crusades” and “Commander Pope” in describing John Paul.
In the end the pontiff’s visit passed without incident. Agca’s name and photograph went on to the computers of a number of intelligence services, though not Mossad’s. Otto Kormek, a case officer with the Austrian security service who had been in charge of its inquiries into the papal shooting, felt it was “not necessary to inform Mossad. Israel would be the last place Agca would go.”
Mossad’s investigation had discovered that after his prison escape, Agca was spirited into Iran, where he spent months in various training camps being indoctrinated. From its own sources in those camps, Mossad had pieced together a picture of Agca’s life at that time.
He arose before dawn, his small, red-rimmed eyes set deep in a long face, watchful as the other recruits awoke. The first light of day showed posters on the walls of their hut: photographs of the Ayatollah Khomeini and revolutionary slogans, each designed to fire their fantasies. Songs piped through the huts’ loudspeakers reinforced this.
Clad in vest and shorts, Agca was an unprepossessing figure; large hands and feet were all out of proportion to his body with his concave chest, protruding shoulder blades, and skinny arms and legs. The first thing he did each morning, like the other recruits, was to spread his prayer rug and prostrate himself three times, each time touching his forehead to the ground, murmuring the name of Allah, Master of the World, the All-Meaningful and All-Compassionate, the Supreme Sovereign of the Last Judgment. Afterward he began to recite his long list of hatreds, which his instructor had encouraged him to write down. The list had grown long and diverse and included all imperialists, NATO, and those Arab countries that had refused to cut off oil from the West. He especially called upon Allah to destroy the United States, the most powerful nation on earth, and its people, praying that their way of life, their values and customs, the very wellspring of their existence, would be squeezed from them.
Finally only his religious hatreds remained. They were the most virulent, consuming him like a cancer, eating into his brain. He saw all other faiths as threatening to overthrow the one to which he subscribed. His instructors had taught him to reduce that hatred to one instantly recognizable image: a man, dressed in white, living in a huge palace far beyond the mountains. From there he ruled like a caliph of old, issuing decrees and orders many millions obeyed. The man spread his hated message the way his predecessors had done for over nineteen centuries. Supported by pomp and glory, rejoicing in even more titles than Allah, the man was known variously as Servant of the Servants of God, Patriarch of the West, Vicar of Christ on Earth, Bishop of Rome, Sovereign of the State of Vatican City, Supreme Pontiff, His Holiness Pope John Paul the Second.
Mehmet Ali Agca had been promised that, when the time came, he would be given a chance to kill the pope. His instructors drummed into him that it was no coincidence the pope had come to office at almost the same time as their beloved Khomeini delivered Iran from the shah’s regime. The “infidel in Rome,” as Agca was taught to refer to John Paul, had come to destroy the revolution the ayatollah had proclaimed in the name of the Holy Koran.
There was a grain of truth in the accusation. John Paul had increasingly spoken harshly about Islam and the dangers he believed it contained in its fundamentalist form. Visiting the Olivetti factory at Ivrea, Italy, John Paul had astonished the workers by inserting into his speech an impromptu passage:
“What the Koran teaches people is aggression; what we teach our people is peace. Of course, you always have human nature which distorts whatever message religion is sending. But even though people can be led astray by vices and bad habits, Christianity aspires to peace and love. Islam is a religion that attacks. If you start by teaching agression to the whole community, you end up pandering to the negative elements in everyone. You know what that leads to: such people will assault us.”
In January 1981, Agca had flown to Libya. Initially Mossad had been puzzled by that part of his journey, until an informer in Tripoli discovered that a renegade CIA officer, Frank Terpil, had been in the country at that time. Terpil had been indicted by a grand jury in Washington for supplying arms to Libya, conspiring to assassinate one of Gadhafi’s opponents in Cairo, recruiting former U.S. military pilots to fly Libyan aircraft, and Green Berets to run Gadhafi’s training camps for terrorists. In Libya he was instructing terrorists how to evade detection by Western security agencies. Terpil had moved on to Beirut—where he had disappeared. Mossad believed he had been murdered when he had outlived his usefulness.
Mossad knew Agca’s contact with Terpil had been arranged by Agca’s controllers in Tehran and leaked to the KGB
after the attempted John Paul assassination, allowing for the Russians to claim the plot had been orchestrated by the CIA. Like Mossad, the KGB had an effective psychological warfare department. The fiction about the CIA filled thousands of column inches and many hours of broadcast time. To further muddy the waters, the Tehran mullahs arranged for Agca, after he left Libya in February 1981, to travel to Sofia, Bulgaria, to meet men who told him they were members of the country’s secret service: no convincing proof ever emerged they were. Furious at the KGB’s attempts to smear the Agency, the CIA countered by claiming the Bulgarians had controlled Agca on behalf of the Kremlin.
For Mossad the situation was perfectly poised to exploit the adage “We divide to rule.” Not only would Mossad be able to discredit the CIA with the Vatican, but at long last, by promoting their version of the plot as the correct one, Mossad had found a way to gain the pope’s ear. All else would flow from that: its officers could have access to the secretary of state’s own formidable information-collecting network; it would enable katsas to work with, and if need be, exploit priests and nuns; and, when the opportunity arose, those electronic bugs could finally be planted in all those holy places in the Vatican Zvi Zamir had indicated.
When Mossad’s account of Mehmet Ali Agca’s odyssey had been fully pieced together in Tel Aviv, Nahum Admoni set out to answer the one question that would make all that happen. Once more a computer search found the solution. One of Rafi Eitan’s “survivor spies,” a Catholic living in Munich, had described the extraordinary role Luigi Poggi played in the papacy. Nahum Admoni had sent for Eli and told him to make contact with Poggi.
Now, a full two years after Agca had shot the Pope, the archbishop sat far into the night, explaining completely to John Paul what Eli had told him.
A month later, on December 23, 1983, at 4:30 A.M., almost three hours before the lights on the Christmas tree in St. Peter’s Square would be switched off for the day, the pope was awoken by his valet.
The bedroom was surprisingly small, its walls still lined with the pastel linen covering his predecessor favored. The wooden floor, gleaming from being polished, was partly covered by a rug woven by Polish nuns. On the wall above the bed, in which four of John Paul’s predecessors had lain waiting for death, was a crucifix. On another wall was a fine painting of Our Lady. Both were gifts from Poland. In addition to the pope’s valet, those who saw him at this hour—usually one of his administrative priests with news that could not wait—were relieved to see John Paul had regained some of his old vigor and vitality.
As always, the pope began his day by going to his prie-dieu to kneel in private prayer. Afterward he shaved and showered and dressed in the clothes the valet had laid out: a heavy woolen white cassock caped around the shoulders, white clerical shirt, knee-high white stockings, brown shoes, and white skullcap. He was ready to go to see Agca in Rome’s Rebibbia Prison.
The meeting was arranged at the pope’s request, intended, he said, as “an act of forgiveness.” In reality, John Paul wanted to find out if what Mossad had said was true. He was driven to the prison by the very man who was at the wheel of the popemobile in St. Peter’s Square when Agca shot him. Accompanied by a Roman police escort, the limousine sped northeastward across the city to the prison. In a backup car was a small group of journalists (they included the author of this book). They had been invited to witness the historical moment when the pope and his assassin came face-to-face.
Two hours later, John Paul was admitted to Rebibbia’s maximum-security wing. He walked alone down the corridor to the open door of cell T4, where Agca stood waiting inside. The reporters waited farther up the corridor. With them were prison guards, ready to run to Agca’s cell should he make any threatening move to his visitor.
As the pope extended his ring hand, Agca moved to shake it, hesitated, then bent to kiss the Fisherman’s Ring. Next he took the pope’s hand and placed it briefly against his forehead.
“Lei è Mehmet Ali Agca?” The pope framed the question softly. He had been told Agca had learned Italian in prison.
“Sì.” A quick smile accompanied the word, as if Agca was embarrassed to admit who he was.
“Ah, lei abita qui?” John Paul looked around the cell, genuinely interested in the place where his would-be killer might well spend the rest of his life.
“Sì.”
John Paul sat on a chair positioned just inside the door. Agca sank onto his bed, clasping and unclasping his hands.
“Come si sente?” The pope’s question as to how Agca felt was almost paternal.
“Bene, bene.” Suddenly Agca was speaking urgently, volubly, the words coming in a low torrent only the pope could hear.
John Paul’s expression grew more pensive. His face was close to Agca’s, partially shielding him from the guards and journalists.
Agca whispered into the pope’s left ear. The pope gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head. Agca paused, uncertainty on his face. John Paul indicated, with a quick chopping motion of his right hand, that Agca should continue. Both men were so close their heads almost touched. Agca’s lips barely moved. On John Paul’s face there was a pained look. He closed his eyes, as though it would help him to better concentrate.
Suddenly, Agca stopped in midsentence. John Paul did not open his eyes. Only his lips moved; only Agca could hear the words.
Once more Agca resumed speaking. After a few more minutes, the pope made another little chopping motion of the hand. Agca stopped talking. John Paul placed his left hand to his forehead, as if he wanted to shield his eyes from Agca.
Then John Paul squeezed the younger man’s upper arm, almost as if to thank him for what he had said. The exchanges lasted for twenty-one minutes, and then the pope slowly rose to his feet. He held out a hand, encouraging Agca to do the same. The two men stared into each other’s eyes. The pope ended this moment of near perfect drama by reaching into a cassock pocket and producing a small white cardboard box bearing the papal crest. He handed it to Agca. Puzzled, Agca turned the box over in his hand.
The pope waited, the gentlest of smiles on his lips. Agca opened the box. Inside was a rosary crafted in silver and mother-of-pearl.
“Ti ringrazio,” thanked Agca. “Ti ringrazio.”
“Niente. Niente,” responded the pope. Then he leaned forward and spoke again words only for Agca.
Then, saying no more, the pontiff walked from the cell.
Later, a Vatican spokesman said, “Ali Agca knows only up to a certain level. On a higher level, he doesn’t know anything. If there was a conspiracy, it was done by professionals and professionals don’t leave traces. One will never find anything.”
Not for the first time, the Vatican had been economical with the truth. Agca had confirmed what Luigi Poggi had been told by Mossad. The plot to kill the pope had been nurtured in Tehran. The knowledge would color John Paul’s attitude toward both Islam and Israel. Increasingly, he told his staff that the real coming conflict in the world was not going to be between the East and West, the United States and Russia, but between Islamic fundamentalism and Christianity. In public he was careful to separate Islam, the faith, and Islamic fundamentalism.
In Israel, Mossad’s analysts saw the pontiff’s new attitude as the first sign that the evidence presented to Poggi had been accepted. But while there was no immediate move made to invite Mossad to contribute to John Paul’s understanding of the world, the pope had become convinced of the value of Poggi’s dialogue with Eli. In Tel Aviv, Admoni told Eli to remain in contact with Poggi. They continued to meet in various European cities, sometimes at an Israeli embassy, other times in a papal nunciature. Their discussions were wide-ranging, but almost always focused on two issues: the situation in the Middle East and the pope’s wish to visit the Holy Land. Linked to this was John Paul’s continued effort to find a permanent homeland for the PLO.
Poggi made it clear the pope had both a liking for, and a fascination with, Yasser Arafat. John Paul did not share the views of men like Ra
fi Eitan, David Kimche, and Uri Saguy, that the PLO leader, in Eitan’s words, was a ruthless killer and “a butcher of our women and children, someone I would kill with my own bare hands.”
To the pontiff, raised against the background of the heroic Polish resistance against the Nazis, Arafat was an appealing underdog, a charismatic figure continuously able to escape Mossad’s various attempts to kill him. Poggi recounted to Eli how Arafat had once told John Paul he had developed a sixth sense—“and some measure of a seventh”—when he was in danger. “A man like that deserves to live,” Poggi had said to Eli.
Through such glimpses, Eli obtained a clearer view of the pope’s mind-set. But John Paul also paid more than lip service to the historical truth that the Jewish roots of Christianity must never be forgotten, and that anti-Semitism—so rife in his own beloved Poland—must be eradicated.
In May 1984, Poggi invited Eli to the Vatican. The two men talked together for hours in the archbishop’s office in the Apostolic Palace. To this day no one knows what they spoke about.
In Israel, this was once more a time of scandal involving the nation’s intelligence community. A month before, April 12, four PLO terrorists had hijacked a bus with thirty-five passengers as it headed for the southern town of Ashqelon. The official version of the incident was that Shin Bet agents had stormed the bus, and in the ensuing gunfight, two terrorists were shot dead and the two who had been wounded died on their way to the hospital.
Newspaper reports showed them being led from the bus, visibly not seriously injured. It emerged they had been so severely beaten in the ambulance by Shin Bet officers that both men died. Mossad, although not directly involved, was tarnished by the international condemnation of the incident.
Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad Page 29