Seat 12, also known as Operation Seat 12, was an alleged disinformation campaign conducted by the Soviet Union during the Cold War to discredit the moral authority of the Vatican because of its outspoken anticommunism. [1] [2] [3] claims of the operations existence were first made in 2007 by Ion Mihai Pacepa, a general who headed the Romanian secret service before defecting to the West in 1978.
According to Pacepa, in February 1960, Nikita Khrushchev authorized a covert operation to discredit the Vatican's moral authority in Western Europe with a campaign of disinformation due to its fervent anticommunism, Pope Pius XII being the prime target. [1] [4] [3] The motto of Seat 12 was "Dead men cannot defend themselves", since Pius died in 1958. [5] Pacepa states that General Ivan Agayants, chief of the KGB's disinformation department, created the outline for what was to become a play mischaracterizing the Pope as a Nazi sympathizer, The Deputy; that the purported research for the play consisted of forgeries; [6] that the research was done not by its author Rolf Hochhuth, but by KGB agents; and that the play's producer, Erwin Piscator, founder of the Proletarian Theater in Berlin,[ citation needed ] was a devout Communist who had long established ties with the USSR. [4] [3] [7]
Pacepa states that the KGB employed Romanian spies to feign that Romania was preparing to reestablish diplomatic relations with the Holy See. [5] Under this ruse, Pacepa states he obtained entry into Vatican archives from the Church's head of secret discussions with the Warsaw Pact, Monsignor Agostino Casaroli. [5] Three communist spies in the guise of priests over two years secreted materials out of the archives for copying and transfer to the KGB. [5] "In fact," Pacepa reported, "no incriminating material against the pontiff ever turned up." [5] According to Pacepa, General Ivan Agayants, head of Soviet disinformation, informed him while in Bucharest in 1963 that the disinformation campaign had "materialised into a powerful play attacking Pope Pius XII", Agayants having authored the outline of The Deputy and overseen KGB's compilation of the "research" which incorporated documents Pacepa's agents had purloined from the Vatican. [5]
Writer and law professor Ronald Rychlak states that the American producer of Seat 12's play was also a communist; many of the press who lauded the play had deep connections to leftist or communist causes; a highly communist influenced periodical helped to guarantee The Deputy played on Broadway; and even early reviews had communist links. [8] Pacepa also relates that in 1974 Yuri Andropov admitted that had Soviets known in 1963 what they knew in 1974 (newly released information that Hitler was hostile to and plotted against Pius XII) they would never have gone after him. [4] [3]
According to Rychlak, a declassified British intelligence memorandum, dated January 10, 1969, surmises that Hochhuth may have played a knowing role in spreading communist propaganda, rather than having been a dupe, saying he "might perhaps be an ‘intellectual agent', writing either on behalf of the East Germans or the Soviets" and the British agents declined to "discount the possibility of long-term efforts by the communists to foster Hochhuth's allegations until they become legend." [9] The memorandum continued: "whether Hochhuth is motivated only by the urge to write historical plays, to rehabilitate the Germans or is up to some more sinister game is difficult to determine at this stage. But the Russians are certainly reaping some of the benefit." [10]
Rychlak concludes that Hochhuth might not have been a knowing actor in the propaganda but was a "perfect candidate to be an unknowing dupe." [9] Rychlak writes "his ideology was not far removed from Marxism. He also admitted that he was, at least at times, anticlerical. He was particularly opposed to priestly celibacy." [9]
Referring to Pacepa's account, German historian Michael F. Feldkamp writes that "Pacepa's report is wholly credible. It fits like a missing piece in the puzzle of communist propaganda and disinformation aimed at discrediting the Catholic Church and its Pontiff." [11] [12] English historian, Michael Burleigh, concurring with Feldkamp, states: "Soviet attempts to smear Pius had actually commenced as soon as the Red Army crossed into Catholic Poland", noting that the Soviets "hired a militantly anti-religious propagandist, Mikhail Markovich Sheinmann" – "Hochhuth's play ... drew heavily upon Sheinmann's lies and falsehoods." [2]
Pacepa's story has not been corroborated; the national German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine stated in 2007 that "Hochhuth did not require any KGB assistance for his one-sided presentation of history". [13]
Pope Pius XII was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death in October 1958. Before his election to the papacy, he served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio to Germany, and Cardinal Secretary of State, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with various European and Latin American nations, including the Reichskonkordat treaty with the German Reich.
Rolf Hochhuth was a German author and playwright, best known for his 1963 drama The Deputy, which insinuates Pope Pius XII's indifference to Hitler's extermination of the Jews, and he remained a controversial figure both for his plays and other public comments and for his 2005 defense of British Holocaust denier David Irving.
Ion Mihai Pacepa was a Romanian lieutenant general in the Securitate, the secret police of the Socialist Republic of Romania, who defected to the United States in July 1978 following President Jimmy Carter's approval of his request for political asylum. He was the highest-ranking defector from the former Eastern Bloc, and wrote books and articles on the inner workings of communist intelligence services. His best-known works are the books Disinformation and Red Horizons.
Active measures is a term used to describe political warfare conducted by the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation. The term, which dates back to the 1920s, includes operations such as espionage, propaganda, sabotage and assassination, based on foreign policy objectives of the Soviet and Russian governments. Active measures have continued to be used by the administration of Vladimir Putin.
Hitler's Pope is a book published in 1999 by the British journalist and author John Cornwell that examines the actions of Eugenio Pacelli, who became Pope Pius XII, before and during the Nazi era, and explores the charge that he assisted in the legitimization of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany, through the pursuit of a Reichskonkordat in 1933. The book is critical of Pius' conduct during the Second World War, arguing that he did not do enough, or speak out enough, against the Holocaust. Cornwell argues that Pius's entire career as the nuncio to Germany, Cardinal Secretary of State, and Pope, was characterized by a desire to increase and centralize the power of the Papacy, and that he subordinated opposition to the Nazis to that goal. He further argues that Pius was antisemitic and that this stance prevented him from caring about the European Jews.
Ivan Ivanovich Agayants was a leading Soviet NKVD/KGB intelligence officer of Armenian origin.
The Deputy, a Christian tragedy, also published in English as The Representative, is a controversial 1963 play by Rolf Hochhuth which portrayed Pope Pius XII as having failed to take action or speak out against the Holocaust. It has been translated into more than twenty languages. The play's implicit censure of a venerable if controversial pope has led to numerous counterattacks, of which one of the latest is the 2007 allegation that Hochhuth was the dupe of a KGB disinformation campaign, later confirmed by both the Venona Project and Mitrokhin Files in declassification of the Soviet disinformation campaign Operation Seat 12. The Encyclopædia Britannica assesses the play as "a drama that presented a critical, unhistorical picture of Pius XII" and Hochhuth's depiction of the pope having been indifferent to the Nazi genocide as "lacking credible substantiation.". However, it has since been discovered that Pope Pius XII seems to have known about concentration camps.
Communist propaganda is the artistic and social promotion of the ideology of communism, communist worldview, communist society, and interests of the communist movement. While it tends to carry a negative connotation in the Western world, the term propaganda broadly refers to any publication or campaign aimed at promoting a cause and is/was used for official purposes by most communist-oriented governments. The term may also refer to political parties' opponents' campaign. Rooted in Marxist thought, the propaganda of communism is viewed by its proponents as the vehicle for spreading their idea of enlightenment of working class people and pulling them away from the propaganda of who they view to be their oppressors, that they claim reinforces exploitation, such as religion or consumerism. Communist propaganda therefore stands in opposition to bourgeois or capitalist propaganda.
Pope Pius XII and Russia describes relations of the Vatican with the Soviet Union, Russia, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Eastern Catholic Churches resulting in the eradication of the Church in most parts of the Soviet Union during the Stalinist era. Most persecutions of the Church occurred during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII.
Persecutions against the Catholic Church took place during the papacy of Pope Pius XII (1939–1958). Pius' reign coincided with World War II (1939–1945), followed by the commencement of the Cold War and the accelerating European decolonisation. During his papacy, the Catholic Church faced persecution under Fascist and Communist governments.
Pope Pius XII and Poland includes Church relations from 1939 to 1958. Pius XII became Pope on the eve of the Second World War. The invasion of predominantly Catholic Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939 ignited the conflict and was followed soon after by a Soviet invasion of the Eastern half of Poland, in accordance with an agreement reached between the dictators Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. The Catholic Church in Poland was about to face decades of repression, both at Nazi and Communist hands. The Nazi persecution of the Catholic Church in Poland was followed by a Stalinist repression which was particularly intense through the years 1946–1956. Pope Pius XII's policies consisted in attempts to avoid World War II, extensive diplomatic activity on behalf of Poland and encouragement to the persecuted clergy and faithful.
Ronald J. Rychlak is an American lawyer, jurist, author and political commentator. He is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law and is holder of the Jamie L. Whitten Chair in Law and Government. He is known for his published works, career as an attorney, and writings on the role of Pope Pius XII in World War II.
The papacy of Pius XII began on 2 March 1939 and continued to 9 October 1958, covering the period of the Second World War and the Holocaust, during which millions of Jews were murdered by Adolf Hitler's Germany. Before becoming pope, Cardinal Pacelli served as a Vatican diplomat in Germany and as Vatican Secretary of State under Pius XI. His role during the Nazi period has been closely scrutinised and criticised. His supporters argue that Pius employed diplomacy to aid the victims of the Nazis during the war and, through directing his Church to provide discreet aid to Jews and others, saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Pius maintained links to the German Resistance, and shared intelligence with the Allies. His strongest public condemnation of genocide was, however, considered inadequate by the Allied Powers, while the Nazis viewed him as an Allied sympathizer who had dishonoured his policy of Vatican neutrality.
Three Popes and the Jews is a 1967 book by Pinchas Lapide, a former Israeli Consul to Milan, who at the time of publication was a deputy editor in the Israeli Prime Minister's press office. The "three popes" are Pope Pius XII (1939–1958), Pope John XXIII (1958–1963), and Pope Paul VI (1963–1978).
Pope Pius XII's 1942 Christmas address was a speech delivered by Pope Pius XII over Vatican Radio on Christmas 1942. It is notable for its denunciation of the extermination of people on the basis of race, and followed the commencement of the Nazi Final Solution program to exterminate the Jews of Europe. The significance of the denunciation is a matter of scholarly debate.
Anti-Catholicism in the Soviet Union, including the Soviet Anti-Catholic Campaigns, refer to those concerted efforts taken by the Soviet Union to defame, undermine, or otherwise decrease or limit the role of the Catholic Church in Europe.
Aleksandr Mikhailovich Sakharovsky was a Soviet General who was head of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB from 1955 to 1971. Sakharovsky oversaw the KGB foreign intelligence division during some of the key events of the Cold War, including the Hungarian uprising, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the height of the Vietnam War.
Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism is a 2015 non-fiction book about disinformation tactics and history rooted in information warfare. It was written by former general in the Securitate, the secret police of Socialist Republic of Romania, Ion Mihai Pacepa, and law professor Ronald J. Rychlak. It was published in 2013 along with a companion film, Disinformation: The Secret Strategy to Destroy the West.
Use of disinformation as a Soviet tactical weapon started in 1923, when it became a tactic used in the Soviet political warfare called active measures.
The Pius War refer to debates over the legacy of Pope Pius XII and his actions during the Holocaust. The phrase was first coined in a 2004 book of the same name.
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