The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB

A Politburo document concluded that the Vatican had embarked on an “ideological struggle against Socialist countries.” Since the election of John Paul II, papal policy towards Catholic regions of the Soviet Union—especially in Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia and Byelorussia—had become “more aggressive,” aiding and abetting “disloyal priests.” On November 13 the Central Committee secretariat approved a six-point “Decision to Work Against the Policies of the Vatican in Relation with Socialist States,” prepared by a subcommittee which included Andropov and the deputy chairman of the KGB, Viktor Chebrikov. The KGB was instructed to organize propaganda campaigns in the Soviet Bloc “to show that Vatican policies go against the life of the Catholic Church” and to embark on active measures in the West “to demonstrate that the leadership of the new Pope, John Paul II, is dangerous to the Catholic Church.”³⁴

One of the chief priorities of SB foreign operations was to build up an agent network among the Poles in Rome and the Vatican. On June 16, 1980 the KGB mission in Warsaw reported to the Centre:

Our friends [the SB] have serious operational positions [i.e. agents] at their disposal in the Vatican, and these enable them to have direct access to the Pope and to the Roman congregation. Apart from experienced agents, towards whom John Paul II is personally well disposed and who can obtain an audience with him at any time, our friends have agent assets among the leaders of Catholic students who are in constant contact with Vatican circles and have possibilities in Radio Vatican and the Pope’s secretariat.

The Centre responded by proposing a series of KGB/SB “joint long-term operations” with the following aims:

• To influence the Pope towards active support for the idea of international détente [as defined by Moscow], peaceful co-existence and cooperation between states, and to exert a favorable influence on Vatican policy on particular international problems;

• To intensify disagreements between the Vatican and the USA, Israel and other countries;

• To intensify internal disagreements within the Vatican;

• To study, devise and carry out operations to disrupt the Vatican’s plans to strengthen the Churches and religious teaching in Socialist countries;

• To exploit KGB assets in the Russian Orthodox Church, the Georgian and the Armenian-Gregorian Churches; to devise and carry out active measures to counteract the expansion of contacts between these Churches and the Vatican;

• To identify the channels through which the Polish Church increases its influence and invigorates the work of the Church in the Soviet Union.

Because of the Polish Politburo’s anxiety to avoid confrontation with the Catholic Church, however, the Centre had low expectations of what joint KGB/SB operations were likely to achieve: