Excerpt:
"As Thoreau observed, circumstantial evidence, like finding a trout in the milk, can be very persuasive. No trout has surfaced yet to support Italy's charge that Bulgarian officials had a hand in the attempted assassination of the Pope."
— New York Times, December 18, 1982.
So sneered the New York Times at those who, during the Cold War, were uncovering the story of the Soviet Union's hand in the attempt on the life of John Paul II. Fearful that the reputation of Moscow might be harmed, the Times went on to beseech Americans to "test the evidence soberly" and to warn them against "excessive sanctimony." But there were journalists, including Robert L. Bartley and L. Gordon Crovitz of the Wall Street Journal and Claire Sterling of Reader's Digest, who pursued the story that the Kremlin camarilla was acting through its Bulgarian puppets.