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the Italian extreme right. The Italian Fascist and head of P-2, Licio Gelli, hiding in Uruguay, instructed one of his accomplices to convey a manuscript to Ledeen. Pazienza claimed (and SISMI head Santovito confirmed) that Ledeen was a member of the Italian intelligence agency SISMI, with code number Z-3. Ledeen received over $100,000 from SISMI for services rendered, including the supplying of stale U.S. intelligence reports that SISMI then passed off as its own. Ledeen funneled this money into a Bermuda bank account. His manipulative activities in Italy were on such a scale that in the summer of 1984 a newly appointed head of SISMI told the Italian parliament that Ledeen was a “meddler” and persona non grata in Italy.42 None of these points was ever disclosed in the Times.43

4.6. THE PROPAGANDA AGENDA: QUESTIONS UNASKED,

SOURCES UNTAPPED

There is a close linkage among sources used, frames of reference, and agendas of the newsworthy. When the mass media chose to use Sterling, Henze, and Ledeen heavily, they simultaneously adopted a frame of reference in which the Bulgarians and Soviets were presumed guilty, Agca was an apolitical mercenary, and justice was being promoted by diligent Judge Martella in free-world Italy. In the propaganda campaign that ensued, hard questions about the quality of the SHK model were simply not asked, and alternative sources and frames were ignored.

A distinction between matters on and off the agenda, such as we used in the previous chapter, is once again applicable and illuminating. “On the agenda” are statements by Agca and Martella about Agca’s latest claims and proofs of Bulgarian involvement, Brzezinski’s opinion on whether the Bulgarians are likely to have engaged in such an escapade (they were), or Judy Woodruff ’s question to Paul Henze as to whether the Soviets “would have any notion, any desire to try this again” (they do this kind of thing all the time—just got a little careless here because “they had got away with so much in Italy”).44 As in the Third World election cases described in chapter 3, the media prefer to focus on superficial detail about the participants and opinions within a narrow range of establishment views (plus bluff denials by Bulgarian and Soviet officials), along with each development supporting the accepted case (a defector’s accusations, a further Agca confession, an investigator’s or prosecutor’s report, and leaks of alleged claims or expected new developments), whatever its credibility.

“Off the agenda” are arguments and facts that would call into question the validity of the basic SHK model, and those relating to the “alternative model” (which starts with the question of why Agca confessed so late and the likelihood that he was encouraged and pressed to talk). We will run through only a few of the important questions and points of evidence that the mass media put off the agenda.

The basic SHK model rested its case on the Soviet motive, Agca’s stay in Sofia, and the high professionalism of the Soviet and Bulgarian secret police, which made it likely that they were manipulating Agca if he stopped off in Bulgaria. Only the ABC “20/20” program of May 12, 1983, explored the Soviet motive in any depth, despite the constant mass-media reiteration of the SHK line. ABC went to the trouble of asking the Vatican about the validity of Marvin Kalb’s claim that the pope had written a note threatening to resign and to return to Poland to lead the resistance to any Soviet invasion. Cardinal John Krol, speaking for the Vatican, said that “Not only was there not such a letter, but such a letter directly from the Pope to Brezhnev would have been a total departure from all normal procedures. In no way could you conceive of the Holy Father saying, ‘I would resign.’” ABC’s information from the Vatican too was that the pope’s spoken message to Brezhnev was conciliatory. This spectacular repudiation of an important element in the SHK case was unreported in the rest of the media, and simply died with the ABC broadcast. And any balancing of supposed gains against the costs