17.
Vatican Connections
Curious report in IHT (14th April 1983) that an Italian radical mag., Peace and War, had received photocopies of telegrams indicating that the US Ambassador to Italy had worked out a plan to link the Bulgarians to the shooting of the Pope. The US embassy says they’re fakes. It certainly sounds implausible that anything so sensitive would be transmitted by telegram. But then Reagan has appointed a lot of dummies as ambassadors. See the list – and comments – in IHT 31st March 1983.
18.
William Pfaff in IHT (14th April 1983) gives an account of what is said to be a Soviet intelligence document alleging that Brzezinski and Cardinal Koch (both of Polish origins), with the assistance of the West German Cardinals, organised the election of Wojtyla, the current Pope. An earlier report (IHT 16th February 1983) that the Bulgarian news agency had a report claiming that the previous Pope had been poisoned.
Pfaff comments that the Soviet analysis shows “an astonishing fear of American power, of the effectiveness of CIA conspiracies”.
Astonishing, and, in Pfaff’s view, quite absurd of course.
On Brzezinski’s role in all this I have seen nothing, and on the machinations behind the election of the present Pope I know only one account so far – Andrew M. Greeley’s The Making Of The Popes (London, 1979) though the recent Pontiff, which I haven’t read yet, might be of interest.
But a quick flip back through Greeley revealed that not only was Rome awash with rumours that the first Pope John Paul had been poisoned (rumours not helped by inconsistencies in the stories issuing from the Vatican), but also, on pp 236-7 he gives an account of a memo -” a series of notes from the Italian government’s spy in the Secretariat of State (in the Vatican)”. This memo reports that Wojtyla’s candidacy was “pushed especially by the West Germans, the English-speaking North Americans and the representatives of the Third World”.
Which proves nothing, of course, but which does suggest that those particular views from the East are not that fanciful.
(RR)
19.
God’s Banker
Articles on Calvi et al will no doubt appear in future issues of The Lobster. At the moment we would appreciate information on the following aspects:
- The big four UK banks were left holding large losses when Banco Ambrosiano folded. Information?
- The man who safe-housed Calvi in London was Freemason, Michael Morris, known to Carboni. Carboni, it is said, flew to Edinburgh with the help of British Freemasons, after Calvi’s death. (T 14th April 1983) Italian Freemason, Salvini, (an extreme right-winger) and De Steffano, Grand Sec. of the Gran Orient of Italy, both had ties to British Freemasons. De Steffano was in London 24 hours after Calvi’s death.(City Limits 8th July 1983). Information on British Freemasons and their links to other Masonic organisations?
- John McCaffery, of Rorsburg, Scotland. A former war-time British intelligence agent, McCaffery died in February. Just before his death he made out an affidavit stating that he had plotted with Sindona in an attempt to overthrow the Italian government. (Parapolitics (US) Spring 1981) McCaffery was linked to Sindona’s Banca Privata Italiana which entered an international banking partnership with Hambros. In 1974 BPI collapses with 26 million dollars on deposit from IOR, the Vatican Bank. Information on McCaffery, Hambros, Sindona connections?
- Embassy International. Based in London, headed by American Gareth Reynolds. Reynolds is an arms dealer, and disappeared in 1980. He is also linked to Syrian arms dealer Henri Arsan, who is tied to the Bulgarian arms/drugs ring which leads to the assassination attempt on the Pope.
See Helbert Hellerstein in ST 5th December 1982.
The Bulgarian Connection and the Media
Michael Ledeen (Commentary, June 1983)
Survey of the mainly (but not exclusively) American media’s response to the Reds-Shot-The-Pope story, basically slagging off the “elite” (his word) press for their reluctance to see the Bulgarian (i.e. Soviet) connection.
Ledeen is one of the most prolific of the Georgetown Centre for Strategic and International Studies’ roster of apologists for the new Cold War: a professional liar, in short. His piece includes this, for example:
“In the U.S. not only an explicit Presidential but Congressional approval is required for any covert act.”
Nothing quite like the big lie, is there?
(RR)
21.
The Vatican Connection
Richard Hammer (Penguin, London, 1983)
An enjoyable read but really a “faction”. Some of the dialogue and settings seem to have been created for artistic rather than factual content. Contains material on some Mafia figures not well known before, and a good background to the activities of (Bishop) Paul Marinkus and his friend Sindona. Includes hints that counterfeit stocks were bought by the Vatican to shore up the Italian state; and a suggestion that John Connally is linked to Mafia figures.
(SD)
22.
Two large articles by ex-BBC Journalist Tom Bower on Klaus Barbie and his links with US intelligence. (ST 3rd July, IHT 6th July, 1983). The articles are similar, though the IHT version is longer and more detailed, and are trailers for Bower’s forthcoming Barbie: Butcher of Lyon.
The Barbie episode has created considerable excitement in some conspiracy research circles in the US, where evidence of an enormous invisible Nazi sub-structure has long been sought. On that this writer is sceptical. There is no question that Bormann and a whole clutch of Nazis got to South America after WW2, some with the help of various members of the Vatican bureaucracy. William Stephenson’s Bormann Brotherhood (London, 1973) and Ladislas Farago’s Aftermath (London, 1972) make that very clear.
But the wider significance of all this remains unclear to me.
I’m still inclined to the view that on the subject of the Nazis and their post-war relationship with the superpowers, Bob Hope got it about right with his wisecrack on the launch of the first Soviet Sputnik: “Their Nazi scientists are better than ours.”
(RR)