Gorbachev absolves KGB

A NEW dawn in Rome-Moscow relations was heralded this week when President Mikhail Gorbachev gave Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti his assurance that KGB agents were not involved in any way in the 1981 attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul 11.
The statement, contained in a letter handed over to the Italian government, brings to an end ten years of controversy and allegations which have cast a shadow over relations between Moscow and both the Italian and Vatican authorities.
It was during a visit to Moscow earlier this year that Mr Andreotti asked Mr Gorbachev to hold an inquiry into whether Russian agents had played any role in events of May 13 1981, when Turkish terrorist All Agca shot (he Pope in St Peter's Square. The gunman is now
serving a life sentence in an Italian prison for his crime.
Mr Gorbachev's investigation, in which he commissioned some of his most (rusted advisers to open secret KGB files dating back to 1981, was described by him in the letter as "rigorous". Retired former KGB chiefs, who had worked under the then head of the Soviet secret service Yuri Andropov, were interrogated.