Cold Open

It’s May 13th, 1981, in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican City.

It’s a sunny afternoon and Mehmet Ali Agca, a young man from Turkey, lingers among the crowd of pilgrims and tourists packed into the shadow of St. Peter’s Basilica.

A white, open-top car crawls slowly across the cobblestones. Standing in the back is Pope John Paul II. And as the car moves through the square, the Pope reaches down and touches the outstretched hands of the faithful. He blesses the crowd, speaking in several languages.

All the while Agca carefully tracks the Pope’s movements. John Paul II is a relatively new Pope, having served only three years. And at 61, he’s the youngest Pope in centuries. That might be why he’s more willing to take risks than his advisors would like. Journalists have commented that this weekly open-top car rides leave him exposed to attack. But the Pope loves seeing his people face to face. It’s energizing for him, and he believes that God will protect him from harm.

Agca, doesn’t care about the Pope’s reasons for his weekly outings – only that they happen. Because unlike every other person in the square, Agca is no pilgrim.

As the Pope’s car draws near, Agca reaches into his jacket… and cocks a 9-millimeter Browning semi-automatic pistol hidden in his pocket. When the Pope is only feet away, Agca pulls out the gun… and fires four shots in quick succession.

The Pope cries out in pain, and St. Peter’s Square erupts into chaos. As the white car speeds off with the Pope, Agca pushes his way through the crowd.

He flings away his gun, hoping to escape in the chaos… but he feels a hand grabbing his shoulder and another snatching at his arm. A few brave pilgrims in the crowd are determined to stop him from escaping. Agca lashes out, trying to throw them off.

But as soon as he loosens one person’s grip, another takes hold. Agca wrestles desperately, but there are too many of them. The pilgrims force him to the ground and restrain him as Vatican security forces close in.

Of the four shots fired by Mehmet Ali Agca, one bullet passed through Pope John Paul II’s torso. Another struck his left hand. The remaining two bullets hit people in the crowd. None of these wounds proves fatal.

But in the aftermath of the shooting, people all over the world wonder why someone would want to assassinate the Pope. Some theorize that Agca was just a lone madman; others think he’s an agent sent by a foreign government. But no one knows for sure. And though in months and years that follow, new facts will come to light, to this day, there are still many unanswered questions about what drove Mehmet Ali Agca to shoot Pope John Paul II on May 13th, 1981. 

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is May 13th, 1981:“The Attempted Assassination of Pope John Paul II.”

Act One

It’s June 5th, 1979, at an airport in Warsaw, Poland, two years before the attempt on Pope John Paul II’s life.

Stepping out of a jet airplane the Pop stops at the top of a staircase. Waiting on the tarmac below, are dignitaries, camera crews - and thousands of adoring Poles. The Pope waves, walks down the staircase, kneels, and then kisses the ground. Seeing this, the crowd roars. For the first time since he's ascended to the Papacy eight months earlier, John Paul II has come home.

But it is a complicated homecoming. John Paul II is the first Polish Pope in history, and he understands that the sway he holds over his countrymen is a potential challenge to Poland’s Communist rulers.

The Pope was born Karol Wojtyła, in 1920, in a small city outside Krakow. He grew up middle class, the son of a military officer and a seamstress. But while his upbringing was initially comfortable, Karol was lucky to survive into adulthood. When he was fifteen, a friend jokingly fired a gun at him at close range, believing the pistol was unloaded. The bullet only just missed. And then, in 1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union both invaded Poland and divided the country between them. For four years, the teenage Karol had to work in a quarry in German-occupied Poland. He might have died during the war, like so many other Poles, were it not for the help of a local Archbishop. The support Karol received from the church, helped convince him that it was his calling to become a priest.

The USSR eventually joined the fight against Nazi Germany and drove the Germans out of Poland. But the young Karol never forgot how the Soviets had collaborated with the Nazis to invade his country. Now, thirty-four years after the end of World War Two, Poland is technically independent, but it is a Communist puppet state. And everyone knows that it lies firmly under the thumb of Moscow. Even the country’s traditionally strong Catholicism is frowned upon. Poland is officially an atheist nation.

But the Polish people are restless. Wages have stagnated and the price of basic goods like butter, meat, and sugar have risen substantially. This led to widespread protests in 1976, when strikes, demonstrations, and looting took place throughout the country.

The Polish government responded brutally crushing the uprising. Helicopters circled overhead as tanks patrolled the streets, restoring order through brute force and intimidation. But no matter how much the Communist government tightens its grip, it cannot control the minds of the Polish people. And as the Pope begins touring his homeland today, Poland’s faith is soon on full display.

From the airport, Pope John Paul II is driven into Warsaw. Two million people line the streets as he drives by chanting, “Long live the Pope!”

And when he reaches Victory Square in the center of Warsaw, the Pope gets out of his car in front of another enormous crowd. He climbs a staircase to an altar at the base of a thirty-foot crucifix, erected especially for his arrival. After years of Communist rule, Poles are unaccustomed to such open displays of religion and many weep at the sight. Standing at the altar, the Pope declares that outlawing religion anywhere in the world is an act of cruelty. His speech is a direct challenge to Poland’s Communist government which only allowed the Pope’s visit because it feared that refusing it, would lead to another widespread rebellion. But just hours into the tour, it seems like things might get out of hand anyway.

Emboldened by the Pope’s speech, the crowd begins to chant, “We want God!”. And as the crowd whips into a frenzy, the Pope declares that those who fought to free Poland from Nazi Germany will never be truly honored until the country is truly independent. Again, the crowd erupts, and the Communist Government's officials squirm.

During his nine-day tour of Poland, the Pope delivers over forty sermons, lectures, and addresses all over the country. Where ever he goes people chant “We want God!”. And these words come to represent not only the Polish people’s desire for religion, but also their desire for political freedom. So, when the time comes for the Pope to board his plane and continue his European tour, he leaves behind an unspoken feeling that something has changed, that the Pope has reignited the flame of resistance in Poland.

Crucifixes and rosaries are suddenly transformed from Catholic tokens of faith into symbols of defiance. And a year after the Pope’s visit, a Polish labor movement with millions of members will encourage the nation’s industrial sector to strike and stand up to the Soviet Union.

This will cause concern in Moscow. And behind closed doors, Soviet officials will begin to discuss Pope John Paul II as a destabilizing force. So, when he is shot in 1981, many will blame the USSR for the attempted assassination. The truth though will turn out to be far more complicated.

Act Two

It’s May 13th, 1981, in a police station in Rome, just hours after Mehmet Ali Agca shot Pope John Paul II.

Agca sits in a windowless cell. Handcuffed, he stares across a metal table at two Italian police officers, who yell questions. Despite the bleak circumstances, though, Agca is smiling. He seems to enjoy being interrogated.

Agca has been acting unpredictably ever since he was arrested. When the police first started questioning him, he admitted to the crime immediately. But then he recanted and began confessing to other bizarre criminal plots which made no sense. He said he recently traveled to England with plans to assassinate the King, only to abandon the plot when he arrived and found that England has a Queen.

Realizing that Agca’s confessions might be unreliable, police began looking for clues in his background. In Agca’s hotel room in Rome, the police found a note which stated that by shooting John Paul II, he hoped to bring freedom to the people of El Salvador and Afghanistan. This, too, made little sense. It was the USSR who had invaded Afghanistan two years earlier, in 1979. They’d also backed an uprising in El Salvador the same year. But none of that seemed to have anything to do with the Catholic Church. It left investigators scratching their heads.

Now though, hours into the interrogation, Agca is finally telling what seems like a coherent story.

The Italian police learn that Agca is a Turkish Muslim, with ties to an ultra-rightwing group called the Gray Wolves. Two years ago, Agca murdered the editor of a major leftwing newspaper in Istanbul. Afterward, he went on the run for five months, before being captured and sentenced to life in prison.

But he escaped, leaving behind a note in which he called the Pope an imperialist and a crusader and promised to kill him. Coincidentally, Pope John Paul II was due to visit Istanbul just four days later. Local police searched everywhere for Agca, but he was nowhere to be found and the Pope’s visit passed without incident.

At some point, Agca fled Turkey and traveled to Bulgaria, where he picked up a pistol and a fake passport. From there, he traveled between Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy, never staying in one place too long. When he arrived in Rome, he waited for the Pope’s weekly public appearance and tried to make good on the threat he’d made two years earlier.

But Agca’s story leaves police with more questions than answers. And the investigators demand to know if he acted alone, or if he’s following orders from someone. But at this stage, Agca has grown tired of the interrogation and refuses to say more until he stands trial.

In the meantime, new theories begin circulating in the international media. A month after the attack, the Washington Star publishes an article alleging that the Soviet security agency, the KGB, hired Agca to shoot the Pope, hoping to prevent an uprising in Poland. Once these allegations gain traction, the Soviets then spread their own accusations that it was the United States behind the plot.

But there is no concrete evidence for either theory. So, two months later, all eyes are on the Italian courtroom where Mehmet Ali Agca is to stand trial and maybe provide some answers.

In court, Agca confesses once again. He declares himself a terrorist who makes no distinction between right and leftwing ideologies. He claims he acted alone, received no outside support, and paid his own way across Europe by extorting people for money.

The prosecution though, contests this. They ask how he managed to pay for transportation, food, housing, how he secured a fake passport and a pistol through extortion alone, without having a single run-in with police in five different countries. They contended it just doesn’t seem possible. Someone was surely helping him. But Agca refuses to elaborate. He’s said all he’s going to say.

After that, Agca threatens to go on a hunger strike, which brings the proceedings to an abrupt halt after just a few days. Since he has confessed in court, though, the investigation is closed, and Agca is sentenced to life imprisonment.

For many, that’s the end of the matter. But others continue to speculate, with suggestions that Agca was a Muslim extremist, working for the KGB or the CIA or maybe he was just a mad man. Agca himself appears to resolve the mystery a year later, when he abruptly announces that he did not act alone, after all, and was in fact hired by the Soviets. But by now he’s changed his story so many times that no one knows what to believe.

Despite his latest confession, there will be no new trial or official investigation into the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II and Agca will remain in prison. But in 1983, he will be suddenly be thrust back into the spotlight by an unexpected visit from the man he tried to kill.

Act Three

It’s December 27th, 1983, in a prison on the outskirts of Rome, two and a half years after the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II.

The shooter, Mehmet Ali Agca, sits alone in a bare, white-walled cell. He wears a blue sweater, jeans, and white running shoes without laces. His face is unshaven. Since being handed a life sentence two years ago, Agca has been left to languish in solitude. He rarely receives visitors.

But today, the door to his cell opens, and the guards lead in an unlikely guest: Pope John Paul II. The Pope is fully recovered from the shooting and asks if Agca speaks Italian. The would-be assassin nods and kisses the Pope’s outstretched hand. The two men then sit down together in folding chairs in the corner of the cell while a camera crew films the ensuing conversation.

For months, the Pope has been delivering sermons on the theme of reconciliation. His visit to Agca is intended to be the ultimate public display of forgiveness.

John Paul II and Agca speak for twenty minutes. They lean their heads close together, clasping hands with Agca even laughing several times. Neither of them is wearing a microphone, so the cameras only capture the image of the men speaking. Later that night, when the footage is broadcast around the world, the Pope states that the details of their conversation will remain a secret between himself and Agca. He does admit, though, that he forgave Agca, and now trusts him like a brother.

The Pope then stays in touch with Agca and befriends his family. Seventeen years later, Agca is pardoned and released from prison at the Pope’s request. And after John Paul II’s death in 2014, Agca returns to Rome and places flowers on the tomb of the man he attempted to murder.

The truth behind why Agca shot the Pope or who he worked with may never be fully understood. But John Paul II’s decision to forgive his would-be-assassin sent a clear message to the world. By embracing tolerance and mercy, both politically and personally, the Pope was able to make a valuable lesson out of the most harrowing experience, the darkest moment of his life, when he was shot in St. Peter’s Square on May 13th, 1981.

Outro

Next on History Daily. May 14th, 1643. A four-year-old prince ascends to the throne of France, beginning a decades-long reign that will change the country forever.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Owen Long.

Edited by Joel Callen.

Managing producer Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.