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Soviet Defector Says KGB Plotted to Kill the Pope

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From Times Wire Services

A blond-wigged defector from the secret Soviet intelligence service claimed Friday that he had tipped off the CIA to an alleged plot to kill Pope John Paul II months before the 1981 assassination attempt.

At a press conference, former KGB Maj. Victor Ivanovich Sheymov fielded questions about the KGB, where he served as a communications and code expert before being spirited to Washington by U.S. agents in 1980.

Sheymov, 43, said that after his defection he told the Central Intelligence Agency in 1980 about a report suggesting that the Soviets were interested in assassinating the Polish-born Pope. He said he was motivated by admiration for his new country, and offered himself as a person able to detect the real from the false as the Soviet Union moves closer to democratic change.

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Sheymov also contended that the KGB assassinated Hafizullah Amin, the former Afghan president who was killed during the Soviet invasion of his country in December, 1979, and said the plane crash that killed Pakistani President Zia ul Haq in 1988 may have been caused by the KGB.

But Sheymov, an American citizen since 1985, also said he has written a book about his experiences and is looking for a publisher.

And, after a 78-minute session in which he dodged or declined to answer questions seeking specifics on Soviet espionage activities. At his press conference, Sheymov used the name Victor Orlov, a pen name that he used about 18 months ago when he wrote a story for the Washington Post. He was identified as Sheymov in a story in the Post Friday. The Administration official confirmed that he was known to the U.S. government as Sheymov.

His most sensational allegation was that while on a trip to Poland in 1979, the chief of the KGB’s Warsaw station showed him a cable from Yuri Andropov, then the KGB’s chief, reading: “Obtain all the information possible on how to get physically close to the Pope.”

Sheymov said he interpreted this as a directive from Andropov, later to become the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, to arrange the assassination of Polish-born Pope John Paul II.

“In KGB slang it was clearly indicated that there was only one reason to get close to a person and that was to assassinate him, kill him,” he said.

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“They would never say kill or assassinate directly,” he said. “There were gentler terms.”

He said that the order was given to obtain the requested information from data already contained in the KGB’s files with no outside inquiries to be made.

Allegations of Soviet involvement in a plot to murder the Pope surfaced after an attempt on the pontiff’s life in 1981 by a Turkish gunman, Mehmet Ali Agca. No connection to Moscow was ever firmly established.

Sheymov, whose 1980 defection was kept secret for a decade, said he told his story to the CIA but does not know what was done with the information.

Asked if he was unhappy with the CIA’s use of the information, he replied: “I certainly didn’t feel, ‘Gee guys, I told you and you didn’t take care of that.”’

Sheymov told the news conference that the Soviet spy agency had two sources inside the State Department.

Asked if he meant that two Americans were providing information to the Soviets about State Department activities, he replied: “Apparently, yes.”

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He was asked to provide specifics and declined, saying, “I cannot comment on these kinds of matters.”

He described the information he said was received from the alleged State Department sources only in the most general of terms, saying it included “policy matters, positions on negotiations, outlines of arms control positions--not only arms control, some other matters as well.”

In his meeting with reporters, Sheymov wore what appeared to be a bushy blond wig and tinted glasses.

The defector was often evasive, answering many questions with one-liners.

“I live in a wonderful section of the country,” he replied when asked where he resided.

When asked how much he had been paid by the CIA, he replied: “Are you a salesman for mutual funds?”

Asked about his personal life, Sheymov said: “What was unusual about me was that I came over with my own wife.”

When asked for a reaction to Sheymov’s allegations, David Denny, a State Department spokesman said, “As a matter of policy we do not comment on intelligence matters, such as this.”

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The department is currently trying to fire Felix S. Bloch, a career diplomat suspected of spying for the Soviet Union. No charges have been brought against Bloch, who was reportedly videotaped passing a suitcase to a Soviet agent in Paris.

Sheymov said he had no information about the identity of any Soviet agents inside the U.S. government and knew nothing about Bloch.

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