Manufacturing Consent_ The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Edward S. Herman [233]
Agca’s Stay in Bulgaria
This has always been critical in the Sterling-Times scenarios, and Tagliabue drags it in. It is given further emphasis with the heading “Spent 2 Months in Bulgaria.” Tagliabue does not mention that Agca stopped in eleven other countries. He fails to note here, and the Times suppressed throughout, Catli’s testimony in Rome that the Gray Wolves liked to go through Bulgaria to reach Western Europe because the heavy Turkish traffic made it easy to hide. Tagliabue fails to mention that bringing Agca for a long stay in Sofia would have been a violation of the rule of plausible deniability. Even more so would be using Bulgarians to help Agca in Rome. Tagliabue does not discuss the question of plausible deniability. He also fails to note that if Agca had stayed in Sofia for a while, this would allow a prima facie case to be made by a Western propagandist that the East was behind the shooting, and could provide the basic materials for working Agca over for the desired confession.
Bulgarian Involvement in Turkey
Tagliabue asserts that the Bulgarians were “purportedly” supporting both the extreme left and right in Turkey “to promote instability” in a conflict “that pitted violent leftist terrorists against their counterparts on the right.” This is a Sterling myth, with Tagliabue hiding behind “purportedly” to allow him to pass off myth as purported evidence. The equating of left and right in the Turkish violence of the 1970s is false: the great majority of violent attacks were launched by the Gray Wolves, under the protection of the police and military. Tagliabue also fails to discuss the fact that the extreme right actually participated in the government in 1977 and had extensive links to the army and intelligence services. The claim of Bulgarian support for both the right and left has never been supported by evidence. Tagliabue never mentions that the United States had more than “purported” links with the Turkish army, the secret services, and the Fascist Nationalist Action party, and that the terrorist events of the late 1970s eventually served U.S. interests well.
Key Question: How Agca Knew So Much
The “key question” for Tagliabue is “how Agca knew what he knew and when he knew it.” This is an important issue, but there are others that he might have raised if he had worked outside the SHK format. Why did it take Agca so long to name Bulgarians? Was he subject to any coercion or offered any positive inducements to make him talk. Why did he have to make major retractions? Is it not suspicious that when Agca finally talked, he said just what his interrogators wanted him to say? How are we to evaluate a judicial process where the witness (Agca) was in regular contact with outside sources of information, and where he could lie and retract evidence without penalty?
“Even the Attorneys for the Bulgarians . . .”
In assessing how Agca knew so much, Tagliabue allocates only one paragraph to the possibility that Agca was coached. On the other hand, he goes to great pains to stress that Agca knew an awful lot—telephone numbers, personal habits, nicknames. Tagliabue gives as the “simplest explanation” of Agca’s knowledge that he had access to books, newspapers, magazines, and other materials from the outside. Interestingly, he fails to mention the numerous prison contacts between Agca and secret service, Mafia, and Vatican agents and emissaries. Agca even wrote a letter to the Vatican complaining of the pressure from its representative in prison (also linked to the Mafia), a fact long blacked out by the Times. These visits would point to the ease with which Agca could have been fed information