Word: balkanized
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Part of the cover package is a report on Bulgaria, written by Associate Editor Jim Kelly, which examines that Balkan nation's reputation as an espionage surrogate for the Soviets, perhaps even in the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II. Rome Correspondent Barry Kalb has followed the scenarios that have speculated on various countries' possible roles in the affair. In Washington, Correspondent Ross H. Munro canvassed the intelligence community and pored over the Soviet press. Rome Bureau Chief Wilton Wynn went to Turkey to assess "the amazing Bulgarian involvement in arms and drugs, and Bulgarian activities...
...deeds ascribed to the KGB, perhaps none has drawn more outrage than the allegation that the Soviet Union, acting through Bulgaria, was behind the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. Over the decades, the U.S.S.R. has forged a special relationship with Bulgaria, relying on the tiny Balkan nation to perform myriad tasks, some nefarious, some merely fraternal. A report from that littlenoticed, little-understood country...
After leaving Sofia in August 1980, Agca traveled freely throughout Western Europe, stopping several times in Rome. He claimed to have met three Bulgarians during these visits, including Sergei Ivanov Antonov, the head of the local office of Bulgaria's Balkan Airlines. With this trio, Agca said, he made final plans to murder the Pope...
...Said the Soviet newsman: "Half a century later, antisocialists are [again] preparing a war against the socialist community." A day later, Radio Moscow predicted confidently that Sergei Ivanov Antonov, one of the Bulgarians fingered by Agca, would be released after testimony from witnesses that Antonov had been at his Balkan Airlines office at the time of the shooting. TASS implicitly dismissed speculation that the Soviets were motivated to kill the Pope by his support of Poland's Solidarity trade union. In fact, the agency said, the Soviet Union was being victimized by John Paul, who is "conservative and rigid...
...that he escaped from a Turkish jail in 1979 with the aid of a Turkish terrorist who allegedly worked for the Bulgarians. Agca went to Bulgaria and then to Rome, where he met three Bulgarians, including Sergei Ivanov Antonov, the head of the local office of Bulgaria's Balkan Airlines. Later, apparently, he was offered $ 1.25 million to kill the Pope...