30 years ago, on June 7, 1982, the most significant event in modern history took place in the Vatican - the meeting of US President Ronald Reagan (the son of a zealous Irish Catholic) with Pope John Paul II (in the world - the Pole Karol Wojtyla). The conversation, which lasted almost an hour, was mainly about Poland and "Soviet rule" in Eastern Europe. As a result of this meeting, the President of the United States and the head of the Roman Catholic Church came to an agreement on a joint covert operation, the purpose of which was "to accelerate the collapse of the communist empire." Richard Allen, who served as Reagan's national security adviser, would later say on this issue: "It was one of the greatest alliances of all time."
To symbolize this alliance, Reagan delivered a keynote speech in London the next day in which he announced a "crusade" against the "evil empire." This was followed by a special presidential edict proclaiming 1983 "the year of the Bible." (This decision was confirmed on April 18, 1983, when John Paul II accepted almost full membership - about 200 people - of one of the most influential parapolitical organizations of the planet, the "Trilateral Commission"). Thus, the next "Drang nach Osten" symbolically became the successor of the first "crusade of the Germans against the Slavs", proclaimed in 1147 by Pope Eugene III.
Poland was chosen as the center of all operations of the "new crusaders". Both Reagan and Wojtyla were convinced that if the Vatican and the United States joined forces to crush the Polish government and fully support the outlawed Solidarity movement in Poland, then Poland could be pulled out of the Soviet bloc. Under the auspices of the President of the United States and the Pope, a widespread network was created, which began to feed and widely advise Solidarity. Through it, money began to flow to Poland from the CIA, the US National Endowment for Democracy, as well as from the secret accounts of the Vatican. The key figures on the part of the United States were the CIA Director W. Casey and the ex-commander of the NATO armed forces in Europe A. Hague (whose brother, Father Hague, held a high position in the hierarchy of the "Papal Guard" - the Jesuit Order) - both "knights" of the Maltese orders.
It should be noted that the strategic interaction between Washington in the person of Reagan and the Vatican in the person of John Paul II, as well as between the heads of their special services, William Casey (CIA) and Luigi Poggi (Vatican intelligence, which Western researchers call the "Sacred Alliance") was established for a few weeks before the solemn ceremony of taking the oath in the Capitol by Ronald Reagan, who was elected president largely thanks to the support of Catholic voters. Since the end of 1980, the connection between the United States and the Vatican on the Polish issue was carried out by Zbigniew Brzezinski and the head of the Vatican's propaganda department, Cardinal Josef Tomko, who headed the Vatican counterintelligence service Sodalitium Pianum (until John Paul II unified both Vatican special services into one and appointed its head Luigi Poggi).
The priests and representatives of American and European "independent" trade unions and intelligence agencies conveyed to the "man of the people" Lech Walesa and other leaders of Solidarity, strategic recommendations reflecting the way of thinking of both the Vatican and the Reagan administration. Taken out by that time, like a devil out of a snuffbox, Walesa had managed to work for many years as an "electrician-mechanic" at the Gdansk shipyard for only a few months during the previous meeting between Reagan and Wojtyla. This was necessary to create the image of a "man of the people". Prior to that, the “people's leader”, together with his relatives, had been supported by the Catholic Church for ten years or, as they said in Soviet times, parasitized. Its activities were personally supervised by the head of the Vatican's intelligence through his agent, the Polish Jesuit priest Kazimir Přidatek.
Přidatek was initially tasked with assembling a group of Polish priests who could infiltrate potential strikers and trade union structures, among which Lech Walesa’s newly created union, dubbed Solidarity, became the object of particular attention. Every evening, the cassocked agents drew up first-hand reports gleaned from conversations with workers and other priests. One of the most informed informants was Henryk Jankowski, priest of the Church of St. Brigitte, a parish that Walesa attended in Gdańsk. Among other things, Přidatek persuaded Walesa to bring the editor of the Catholic newspaper “Wiez” Tadeusz Mazowiecki and the historian Bronislav Geremek into the leadership of Solidarity. From that moment, according to Western researchers, "the strike movement came under the control of the church."
In the opposite direction, i.e. to Washington and the Vatican, information from the field went not only through the “church fathers”, recruited trade unionists and Solidarity activists, but also from the “fifth column,” that is, agents located directly in the Polish government and the Ministry of Defense (one of the most efficient agents working for Vatican intelligence for more than 11 years was General V. Jaruzelski's adjutant, Colonel of the Polish General Staff Ryszard Kuklinsky).
Henry Hyde, a member of the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, later said: “… in Poland we did everything that is done in countries where we want to destabilize the communist government and increase resistance against it. We provided procurement support, including technical support, in the form of illegal newspapers, radio broadcasts, propaganda, money, instructions for setting up organizational structures, and other advice. Outward actions from Poland have inspired similar resistance in other communist countries in Europe."
American journalist Carl Bernstein, who investigated the relationship between the Vatican, Washington, the Polish Catholic Church and the Solidarity movement in the 1980s, testifies (published as a Holy Union article in the New York Times): American Embassy in Warsaw became the leading center of the CIA in the communist world, and by all measures the most effective … Casey became the chief architect of the policy developed in relation to Poland. In the meantime, Pipes and the US National Security Council officials have been preparing projects for the planned sanctions."
“The goal was to drain the Soviets and blame them for declaring martial law,” Pipes himself elaborates. - The issue of sanctions was developed jointly with the "Special Operations" (a CIA unit in charge of the groups involved in the implementation of covert operations), and the main task was to save the life of "Solidarity", providing it with money, communications, equipment "… In the very first hours of the crisis, Reagan ordered that American intelligence officers be delivered to John Paul II as quickly as possible … All the fundamental decisions Reagan, Casey, Clark made in close contact with John Paul II … Meanwhile, close relations were established in Washington between Casey, Clark and Archbishop Laghi ".
Robert McFarline, who was Clark and Haig's deputy, reported: “Almost everything about Poland went through the normal State Department channels and passed through Casey and Clark … I knew they were meeting with Laghey and that Lagi was supposed to be received by the president … “As for Laga, he went to the White House at least six times to meet with Clark and the President. Here is Laghi's own testimony: “My role was to facilitate the role between Walter and the Holy Father. The Holy Father knew his people. The situation was extremely difficult, and it was necessary to decide how to insist on human rights, freedom of religion, how to support Solidarity … I said: "Listen to the Holy Father, we have 200 years of experience in this matter."
Here we will make a small digression and explain what "experience" a Catholic archbishop could have in mind. The fact is that the term "propaganda" as a specific type of combined (informational and possible physical) influence in order to increase influence and power was introduced into circulation by the Catholic Church. It sounded in the modern sense on January 6, 1622, when the Vatican created for the first time in the history of mankind a "ministry of truth" - a special structural unit to intensify the struggle for its ideological and political influence. The word "propaganda" was used in the name of this special unit, which became one of the prototypes of modern special services, which was engaged in collecting intelligence information throughout Europe.
So it was not for nothing that the US Secretary of State A. Haig would later declare: "Without a doubt, the information that the Vatican supplied" there "was absolutely superior to ours in all respects - both in quality and efficiency." Wojciech Adamycki, who was in charge of organizing the underground publications of Solidarity, said: “The Church played a primary role in supporting Solidarity and actively and secretly … Secretly - supporting political activities, delivering printing equipment of all types, providing premises for secret meetings and rallies, preparation of demonstrations ". (The CIA, in turn, shared information with the cardinals based on overheard telephone conversations of Latin American priests and bishops expressing views opposed to American henchmen in their countries.)
Cardinal Silvestrini, former deputy secretary of state of the Vatican, testifies: “Our information about Poland was based on a very good basis, for the bishops maintained constant contact with the Holy See and Solidarity. Bernstein testifies: “On the territory of Poland, the priests created a communication network that was used to exchange messages between churches, where many leaders of Solidarity took refuge … All the key performers in this enterprise from the American side were devout Catholics - CIA chief W. Casey, Richard Allen, Clark, Haig, Walters and William Wilson."
Reading all these revelations, one might think that the covert operations that ultimately led to "the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century" are a thing of the past. Far from it! The cause of the "new crusaders" continues to this day, but this is a separate story.
