THE MERRY-GO-ROUND
Ronald Reagan had his Evil Empire
speech prepared long before he became president. When he appointed
William Casey as head of his CIA, he showed the world that he was
serious about fighting the Soviet Empire on its own terms—propaganda.
Much of the reason for the huge gaps in
the record of the assassination of John Paul II can be traced to the
appointment of Casey as Propagandist-in-Chief. That was his job. The
US had been getting its ears beaten in for years by sticking to the
truth in roundabout ways. Casey meant to scourge the Russians with
their own weapons—deception, disinformation and blitzkrieg
dissemination.
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| William Casey |
The 3Ds became a potent weapon under
Casey’s hand, but none more so than the circumstances surrounding
the Plot to Kill the Pope. He made the offensive against the
truth—which was also an offensive against the Russians—one of the
priorities of his agency. The CIA was to make war on the Soviets and
was not to let things like facts stand in its way.
No one was in a position to question
the facts anyway. When Claire and Paul went out on their media
rounds, their arguments were not seriously questioned by anyone. Who
could possibly question them? The only real sources for information
on terrorism were the CIA and agencies like them. Since they supplied
the information, they could hardly be contradicted. Besides, no one
in the media wanted to contradict them.
Where does a writer or researcher get
information on the secret workings of terrorists except from the
people who make it their business to investigate the secret workings
of terrorists? Anyone who cried conflict of interest didn’t
understand the principle of the merry-go-round. Or any other kind of
circle.
In the end that’s all there was.
Casey was so taken with Claire’s book that he recommended it be
read by all the people in his CIA.
Think of that. The research had been
fed to Claire by the CIA and other intelligence agencies, so the
folks at Langley were being told to read a book whose facts they had
largely provided. This was an echo chamber for sure. And that’s
precisely what happens when the truth is deliberately buried.
It becomes madness.
But some people within the agency knew
better. Melvin Goodman, a CIA official who testified before Congress,
said that the analysts at the agency considered Sterling’s claims
fiction. The CIA enjoyed a window into the workings of the Bulgarian
secret police due to penetrations of that agency, he said. They were
sure nothing like that had happened.
Goodman also said that analysts at the
CIA had been pressured into slanting their reports in the direction
that higher-ups wanted them to go, which was toward the Bulgarian-KGB
complex. The CIA, believe it or not, "had no evidence linking the KGB to the plot."
Never mind. Events conspired to promote
Casey’s thesis. The Solidarity movement had begun in Poland in the
summer of 1980. With a Polish pope already in place, that provided a
tremendous opportunity to exploit the weaknesses in the monolithic
communists bloc. John Paul II did his best to cooperate, funneling
money to the movement and providing himself as a beacon of hope. The
attempt on his life in May of 1981 was such a logical event—an
answer by the Soviets to his interference—that it simply could not
be anything else.
That’s what almost everyone thought
and certainly what they wanted to think. The Bulgarian line was
enthusiastically taken up by various Catholic presses and parroted
all over the world until it became a virtual chorus of righteousness.
The same was true of the irreligious publications of the liberal and
illiberal West.
No one even cared if it was wrong.
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