DISINFORMATION

One of the strangest experiences a writer can have is to bang out a work of fiction and find the things he has made up are more accurate than the things most people think are real. It's even stranger when the thing he's writing about is one of the most sensational events of the 20th century.

But that happened when I worked on THE SATAN MACHINE. The book deals with the attempted assassination of Pope Paul II and the earlier, successful assassination of the editor of the leading newspaper of its day in Turkey. Since the killer was caught after he assassinated the editor, you'd think no one would have a problem dealing with reality.

But that's not what it happens when reality and power politics meet. Thirty odd years ago the world was divided into gigantic blocs—east-west, capitalist-communist, American-Russian. Each bloc got their fingers deep in the assassination pie, twisting the facts to suit their prejudices. The CIA in particular became involved in a large way, spreading immense lies that were, after all, told for a good purpose.

The good purpose had nothing to do with the truth of course. It so happened that it was a Polish pope who had been shot. At the same time, communist Poland had begun to come apart. The Solidarity movement headed by Lech Walesa was agitating against the Polish government on the world stage and all above board. Under the table, they were asking for money from the Vatican, which John Paul II was eager to supply.

So when an assassin tried to gun down the pope in St. Peter's Square, coming closer to accomplishing his goal than almost anyone knew, the propaganda wheels began to turn as soon as John Paul II got out of surgery. Actually, the wheels might have begun to turn a little before that. Almost no one in the competing intelligence services cared if he lived or died, though they pretended otherwise. Either way they could see that there was an important opportunity to be exploited.

The stage could not have been better set—and it was the greatest on earth, literally encompassing the whole earth. The victim could hardly have been more blameless—at least as most people understood his role in world affairs. On a clandestine level, the behavior of John Paul II could hardly have been more threatening to the communist bloc.

So there was motive. No doubt of it. The Soviet government would have been delighted to have the Polish pope off their back. It seemed a very short step to connect them to the attempted assassination.

But the facts were a bit off center. A bit weird in fact. The assassin was a Turk. That didn't fit the scenario. Furthermore, Mehmet Ali Agca was a member of the most extreme wing of a neo-fascist party. That didn't fit either. In fact, it was backwards.

Yet if a man thought about it long enough, there were things that could be brought out, fleshed out, and tied to that long communist tail. For one thing, Ali Agca had left Turkey and for a short period of time stayed in communist Bulgaria. That was suggestive. Very.

Anyway, it was start, a clue, an opening. The CIA stepped in so fast that the door couldn't possibly hit them in the ass.

Next, we'll look at what never really hit them in the ass but should have crippled them for life.