Word: bulgarias
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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...
Investigating the 1981 assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II is like putting together a maddeningly complex jigsaw puzzle. The picture remains far from complete, and there is no proof of the growing suspicion that the Soviet Union, acting through Bulgaria, was behind Turkish Terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca's effort to kill the Pope, or even aware of the attempt. But the latest fragments make the inquiry more tantalizing than ever...
...Martella last year, Agca contended that during a seven-week stay in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia in 1980, he was offered $1.5 million to kill the Pope. The man Agca said made the proposition is Bekir Çelenk, a shadowy Turkish businessman whose dealings often brought him to Bulgaria. Çelenk last week again denied that he had ever met Agca, but he admitted that the two had stayed at the same Sofia hotel at the same time in July...
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...
...remains unproven. But intriguing details keep emerging that support Agca's account of his activities before the shooting. In a meeting on March 3, 1981, at the Hotel Rŭtli in Zurich, Musa Serdar Çelebi, a right-wing Turkish activist with rinks to Çelenk and Bulgaria, also offered Agca $1.5 million to kill the Pope. Çelebi reportedly was acting as middleman for Çelenk, and may have been either simply renewing his fellow Turk's offer or actually paying Agca the money. Some time in late April or early May, according to Swiss...