Spies in the Vatican

Spies in the Vatican: The Soviet Union's Cold War Against the Catholic Church by John Koehler, 273 pages

Virtually from the moment of its birth, the Soviet Union sought the end of religion amongst its people and throughout the world.  When mass murder failed, the Soviets began a campaign of infiltration and subversion.  Although the Catholic Church was targeted from the outset, when the Second World War left the USSR in control of puppet states throughout Eastern Europe the neutralization of the Church became an even higher priority.  The record of this shadow war waged by the Soviets and their proxies against the Church is the subject of John Koehler's Spies in the Vatican.

Although the book briefly summarizes earlier periods, the bulk concerns the pontificate of St John Paul II and his connection with the Solidarity movement, including, most explosively, possible Soviet involvement in the assassination attempt against the Pope in 1981.  Unfortunately, Spies in the Vatican lacks any kind of cohesion.  The book reads like "random moments in the history of Warsaw Pact espionage" rather than a thorough history of communist subversion of the Catholic Church.  This slipshod approach is aggravated by numerous textual errors - "seize fire", "assassimate", "Let sleeping dogs die".  At the same time, Koehler demonstrates considerable expertise concerning the history, organization, and records of various intelligence agencies, especially the East German Stasi, and he writes with unwavering moral clarity.