Manufacturing Consent_ The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Edward S. Herman [275]
4. The reasons why this was important to Begin are discussed in the works cited in the previous footnote.
5. Tying the assassination attempt to the Soviet Union and KGB was especially helpful in discrediting the Soviet leadership in 1982 and early 1983, as Yuri Andropov, who had just succeeded Brezhnev as head of state, was at one time head of the KGB. The Bulgarian, Sergei Antonov, was arrested in Italy within three weeks of Andropov’s assuming power.
6. See Herman and Brodhead, Bulgarian Connection, pp. 102–3, 206–7.
7. For an analysis of these NBC-TV programs, see Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead, “The KGB Plot to Assassinate the Pope: A Case Study in Free World Disinformation,” Covert Action Information Bulletin 19 (Spring–Summer 1983), pp. 13–24.
8. Both Sterling and Henze asserted this many times, without providing any evidence and without attempting to explain how destabilization would serve Soviet interests, given the likelihood—eventually realized, in fact—that instability and internal disorder in Turkey would bring into power a military regime even more closely aligned with the United States. Sterling and Henze were fortunate that they were never called upon to explain these things to Western audiences.
9. Marvin Kalb expounded this precise sequence, without the benefit of a single piece of evidence beyond the fact that Agca had had a brief stay in Bulgaria—among twelve countries—asserting that “it seems safe to conclude that he had been drawn into the clandestine network of the Bulgarian secret police and, by extension, the KGB—perhaps without his even being aware of their possible plans for him” (transcript of the Sept. 21, 1982, show, pp. 44–45).
10. See how Sterling handles the problem of Agca’s gun, in the text below.
11. SHK regularly assume that the Soviet leadership is wild, and regularly engages in “Dr. No”–type plots, and the mass media do not challenge this image. On the conservative reality, see George Kennan, The Nuclear Delusion: Soviet-American Relations in the Nuclear Age (New York: Pantheon, 1982); John Lowenhardt, Decision-Making in Soviet Politics (New York: St. Martin’s, 1981); and Jerry Hough and Merle Fainsod, How the Soviet Union Is Governed (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979).
12. NBC-TV stressed an alleged note sent by the pope to Brezhnev threatening that in case of a Soviet invasion, the pope would give up his papal crown and return to Poland to lead the Polish resistance. Thus the assassination attempt was to get the pope out of the way to clear the ground for a prospective invasion. This note has never been produced, and the Vatican has denied its authenticity. See page 151. For a further discussion of these issues, see Herman and Brodhead, Bulgarian Connection, pp. 14–15, 200.
13. Papa, Mafya, Agca (Istanbul: Tekin Yayinevi, 1984), pp. 213–20. Mumcu also wrote a substantial volume on Agca and his record, Agca Dosyasi (Ankara: Tekin Yayinevi, 1984).
14. After Agca decided to “confess,” he explained to the Italian magistrates that he was a killer for hire by anyone who wanted a reliable “international terrorist.” He sounded just as Claire Sterling said he ought to sound. This was taken quite seriously by the Italian judiciary and Western press. See Herman and Brodhead, Bulgarian Connection, pp. 113–14.
15. For a full analysis of this theory, see Herman and Brodhead, Bulgarian Connection, pp. 138–40.
16. Michael Dobbs, “Child of Turkish Slums …,” Washington Post, October 14, 1984. Agca’s shooting of the pope may have been motivated in part by his quest for notoriety.
17. For a full account of this strategy and the other matters dealt with in this paragraph, see Herman and Brodhead, Bulgarian Connection, pp. 71–98.
18. Criminal Court of Rome, Judgment in the Matter of