The Eternal City of Spies
From the Cold War to Cyber-Espionage, Rome Has Long Been a City of Secrets
The 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square sent ripples across Rome. The sudden crack of gunfire, blood on a white cassock, the pontiff collapsing into the arms of his aides.
The city held its breath as surgeons worked for nearly six hours to save the pope’s life. Even before John Paul returned from a three-week convalescence at Gemelli Hospital, the Vatican had implemented sweeping security reforms that are still in place. Changes included a permanent police presence in the square and airport-style screenings before entering Vatican buildings.
By then, the rumors had already begun. Was Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Ağca ordered to kill the pope by the neo-fascist Grey Wolves group he belonged to? Was he sent by the Bulgarians? The Iranians? The Soviets? There were even whispers in the press about the involvement of English extremists or militant factions within the Vatican itself.
The most tenacious investigator was Claire Sterling, a Rome-based American journalist convinced Ağca was a “tool” of the Bulgarian Secret Service, which was acting under orders from the KGB. To Sterling, the attempt on John Paul’s life was another front in the intensifying Cold War.
According to Freck Vreeland -- a diplomat, sometimes spy, and man about Rome (more on him below) -- Sterling’s reporting had “provoked some dangerous people.” Vreeland and Sterling both lived in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood, and so he volunteered to warn her.
“The deputy chief of Rome’s CIA unit learned from Italian intelligence services that Claire’s life was in danger,” Vreeland writes in his yet-unpublished memoir, Call Me Freck. “I took the report seriously and Claire seemed to as well. When she asked what I thought she should do, I suggested she should leave Rome for a while. She seemed grateful for the warning and immediately started to pack.”
But Sterling later told the story differently. In her 1983 book The Time of the Assassins, she accused the CIA of covering up the KGB’s involvement in destabilizing events, including the attempt on John Paul’s life. She cast Vreeland as a central player.
“She wrote about my warning in a completely distorted way,” Vreeland writes. “She was essentially accusing me of being part of a CIA cabal” seeking to influence Soviet succession, even if it was at the cost of turning a blind eye to crimes.
Whose version of events was accurate? Of course, nobody will ever know for sure.
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