Polish Communist Military Intelligence

New evidence about the plot to kill John Paul II in 1981

By David Dastych

Monday, February 5, 2007

Polish Communist Military Intelligence (WSW) knew about a plot to assasinate John Paul II, several weeks prior to the attempt on St. Peter's Square, on May 13, 1981. And the Polish secret service did nothing to prevent the plot.

The generally well-informed Polish weekly Wprost (read: vprost) found a witness, whose testimony deposited in the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) could make a break-through in the present investigation about the attempt on the late pope. He is a former Colonel of the Military Intelligence (WSW). The witness told  Wprost that this information came to his hands from a Polish intelligence officer, operating in one of  the Arab countries in early Spring of 1981. A short report from that officer informed that a [Turkish nationalist organization] The Grey Wolves was planning to assassinate the pope. The colonel brought this information to a senior officer of the Second Directorate of the Polish General Staff, Colonel Karol Szelag. The following events showed that the head office of the then Polish Military Intelligence did nothing to warn the Polish Church or the Vatican about a planned action and it saw to it that the warning from an Arab country never came out. Officers, who knew about this information were transferred to other departments or were sent abroad. The Polish Military Intelligence did nothing about that sensitive information.

An Italian KGB "mole"

Several years after the attempt on May 13, 1981, in November of 1985, the intelligence officer, who informed Wprost weekly, was serving as a military attache in the Polish Embassy in Cairo. There, he took a chance to inform representatives of the NATO countries about the note the Polish Military Intelligence received in 1981, several weeks prior to the attempt on the pope's life. He chose an Italian military attache, Colonel Giuseppe Cucchi. But, at that time,  he was not aware that the information about his conversation with Col. Cucchi would be passed on to the secret services of the communist countries. About two months after his visit to the Italian Embassy in Cairo, in Summer of 1986, he was urgently ordered to return to Poland, without a definite reason. In Warsaw, the Polish Colonel was informed about an internal secret investigation conducted against him. He was dismissed from the Second Directorate of the General Staff and he was transfered to the Inspectorate of Civil Defense. Later on, after the regime change in Poland, for a brief period, the Colonel returned to the Ministry of Defense , headed then by an opposition member, Dr. Janusz Onyszkiewicz. Now he is pensioned.

Did the Soviet secret services have a "mole" in Rome, in the then Italian secret services, by whom they quickly learned about the Polish colonel's conversation in Cairo, in 1986? His interlocutor then was Colonel Giuseppe Cucchi, who was then chief of the Italian military center for strategic studies (in the 1990s) and an advisor to two leftist prime ministers of Italy: Romano Prodi and Masimo d'Alema. Then, a three-star General Cucchi was  the representative of Italy in the Military Committee of NATO in Brussels, at the same time when Romano Prodi headed the European Commission. As a close aide to Romano Prodi, in November of 2006, General Giuseppe Cucchi became head of CESIS, a coodinating committee of the  Italian special services - the military SISMI and the civilian SISDE.

Was Prime Minister Romano Prodi linked to the KGB?

Two British TV stations (the ITV and the BBC TV), investigating the murder of Alexander Litvinenko,  dislosed a supposition, coming from Mario Scaramella (an advisor to the so called Mitrokhin Commission of the Italian Parliament, investigating the activities of the secret services of the former Soviet Bloc in Italy), that Prime Minister Prodi could be connected to the KGB. Prodi strongly denied.  Could General Giuseppe Cucchi be a "link" between the KGB and Romano Prodi?  When journalists of Wprost tried to reach General Cucchi by phone and e-mail, he replied: "I think that neither I, nor you, Getlemen, would be satisfied with my short e-mail responses to your questions concerning the history of a Polish Colonel [he mentioned his name] and a far-away episode of my own life, which I remember very well".

Will General Giuseppe Cucchi be ready to answer these questions of Wprost in a personal meeting with a weekly's journalist? We shall see...

[ An article about this problem is to be published in the print version of Wprost weekly, marketed in Poland on Monday, February 5.

© David Dastych, 2007

David Dastych, 66, is a veteran journalist, writing for Polish and foreign media. He was also a businessman and consultant to foreign business, one time an associate director of Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) in Poland. Now he owns and operates an international media agency in Warsaw. Ý He can be reached at: davids@aster.pl

Other articles by David Dastych