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Operation Gladio

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Gladio symbol

Operation Gladio was a clandestine "stay-behind" operation sponsored by the CIA and NATO to counter communist influence after World War II in Italy, as well as in other European countries, which has been involved in various terrorist acts. While Gladio is usually used to refer to only the Italian "stay-behind", the term has also been applied to all other "stay-behind" operations. NATO stay-behind armies existed in all countries of Western Europe during the Cold War, including Turkey. Suspected at least since the 1984 revelations of Avanguardia Nazionale member Vincenzo Vinciguerra during his trial, Gladio’s existence was acknowledged by head of Italian government Giulio Andreotti on October 24, 1990, who spoke of a "structure of information, response and safeguard", with arms caches and reserve officers. Further investigatiosn revealed links to neofascists, the mafia, Propaganda Due masonic lodge (aka P2), and the "strategia della tension" followed in Italy during the 1970s-80s to block the electoral success of the Italian Communist Party (PCI).

Gladio has effectively been accused of trying to influence policies through the means of "false flags" operations: a 2000 Parliament Commission report from the Olive Tree (left-wing) coalition concluded that the strategy of tension followed by Gladio had been supported by the United States to "stop the PCI, and to a certain degree also the PSI [Italian Socialist Party], from reaching executive power in the country".

P2, whose existence was discovered in 1981, was closely linked to Gladio. According to a November 18, 1990 article by The Observer, quoted by Statewatch, "Declassified secret service papers reveal that Ted Shackleton, deputy chief of the CIA station in Rome in the 1970’s introduced the notorious Licio Gelli – head of the neofascist P2 masonic lodge and for years a fugitive in Argentina – to General Alexander Haig, then Nixon's chief of staff, and later, from 1974 to 1979, NATO Supreme Commander. P2 was a right-wing shadow government, ready to take over Italy, that included four Cabinet Ministers, all three intelligence chiefs, 48 MPs, 160 military officers, bankers, industrialists, top dipomats and the Army Chief of Staff. After meetings between Gelli, Italian military brass and CIA men in the embassy, Gladio was given renewed blessing – and more money – by Haig and the then head of the National Security Council, Henry Kissinger. Just how those and later funds were spent is a key point in the [Casson] investigations." [1]

P2 was forbidden in 1981, in the wake of the Banco Ambrosiano scandal, which was linked to the mafia and to the Vatican Bank. Its headmaster, Licio Gelli, was involved in most of Italy’s scandals in the past three decades: Banco Ambrosiano’s krach; Tangentopoli, which gave rise to the Mani pulite ("Clean hands") anticorruption operation in the 1990s; the kidnapping and the murder of Prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978 – the head of the secret services at the time, accused of negligence, was a piduista (P2 member). Licio Gelli has often claimed he was a friend of Argentine caudillo Juan Perón. In any cases, some members of Jorge Videla’s junta were discovered to be piduista, such as José López Rega, founder of the unfamous anticommunist terrorist organization Triple A, Raúl Alberto Lastiri or Emilio Massera.

Furthermore, Gladio has been linked to other worldwide events, such as Operation Condor or the 1969 murder of anticolonialist leader Eduardo Mondlane by Aginter Press, the Portuguese "stay-behind" secret armies. In 1995, attorney general Giovanni Salvi accused the Italian secret services of having manipulated proofs of the Chilean secret police’s (DINA) involvement in the 1975 terrorist attack on former Chilean vice-president Bernardo Leighton in Rome. A similar operation mode can also be recognized in various Cold War events, for example between the June 20, 1973 Ezeiza massacre in Buenos Aires (Argentina), the 1976 Montejurra massacre in Spain and the 1977 Taksim Square massacre in Istanbul (Turkey).

After Gladio’s official dismantlement following Giulio Andreotti's revelations, the last meeting of the "Allied Clandestine Committee" (ACC) being held, according to the Italian Prime minister, on October 23 and 24, 1990, various events have lifted concerns about "stay-behind" armies still being in place. In 1990, Richard Brenneke, who claimed to be a CIA agent, alleged that P2 was still in activity, and that it had, on CIA’s behalf, murdered Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986, because he had been caught in a deal between the CIA and Iran to release American hostages in Tehran (aka the "October Surprise"). These comments lighted a political uproar, and were of course denied by the CIA. In 1996, the Belgian newspaper Le Soir revealed the existence of a racist plan operated by the military intelligence agencies. In 1999, Switzerland was suspected of creating again a clandestine paramilitary structure, allegedly to replace the former P26 and P27 (the Swiss branchs of Gladio). Furthermore, in 2005, the Italian press revealed the existence of the Department of Anti-terrorism Strategic Studies (DSSA), accused of being "another Gladio".

A NATO clandestine structure, overseen by the SHAPE

After World War II, the UK and the US decided to create "stay-behind" paramilitary organizations, with the official aim of countering a possible Sovietic invasion through sabotage and guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. Arms caches were disposed, escape routes prepared, and loyal members recruited: i.e. mainly hardline anticommunists, including a lot of Ex-Nazis or former fascists, whether in Italy or in other European countries. In Germany, for example, Gladio had as central axe the Gehlen Org - also involved in ODESSA "ratlines"-, named after Reinhard Gehlen who would become German's first head of intelligence, while the predominantly Italian P2 masonic lodge was composed of many members of the neofascist Italian Social Movement (MSI), including Licio Gelli. Its clandestine "cells" were to stay behind (hence the name) in enemy controlled territory and to act as resistance movements, conducting sabotage, guerrilla warfare and assassinations. However, internal subversion was also considered, as the use of "false flag operations" (terror attacks attributed to the opposite side). "A briefing minute of June 1, 1959, reveals Gladio was built around 'internal subversion'. It was to play 'a determining role... not only on the general policy level of warfare, but also in the politics of emergency'. In the 1970s, with communist electoral support growing and other leftists looking menacing, the establishment turned to the 'Strategy of Tension' – with Gladio eager to be involved." [2] The rising importance of communist parties in some countries, especially in Italy in the 1970s, led to the effective realization of those plans (See below).

CIA founder Allen Dulles was one of the key people in instituting Operation Gladio, and most of Gladio’s operations were financed by the CIA. In an International Herald Tribune article dated November 13, 1990, Joseph Fitchett talked about the "Nato resistance", declaring that those anti-communist networks, which were present in all of Europe, including neutral countries like Sweden and Switzerland, were partly funded by the CIA. Democraziana Cristiana leader Aldo Moro also has been accused of being the "founder of (Italian) Gladio" [3]. However, whether these allegations are correct or not, his murder in 1978 put an end to the “historic compromise” between the PCI and the Christian Democracy (DC), which was one of the explicit objective of the Gladio’s strategy of tension.

Operating in all of NATO and even in some neutral countries or in Spain before its 1982 adhesion to NATO, Gladio was first coordinated by the Clandestine Committee of the Western Union (CCWU), founded in 1948. After the creation of NATO in 1949, the CCWU was integrated into the "Clandestine Planning Committee" (CPC), founded in 1951 and overseen by the SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe), transfered to Belgium after France’s official retreat from NATO – which wasn’t followed by the dissolvement of the French stay-behind paramilitary movements.

"Next to the CPC, a second secret army command center, labeled Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC), was set up in 1957 on the orders of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR). This military structure provided for significant US leverage over the secret stay-behind networks in Western Europe as the SACEUR, throughout NATO's history, has traditionally been a US General who reports to the Pentagon in Washington and is based in NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium. The ACC's duties included elaborating on the directives of the network, developing its clandestine capability, and organizing bases in Britain and the United States. In wartime, it was to plan stay-behind operations in conjunction with SHAPE. According to former CIA director William Colby, it was 'a major program'." [4]
"Coordinated by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), {the secret armies} were run by the European military secret services in close cooperation with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the British foreign secret service Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also MI6). Trained together with US Green Berets and British Special Air Service (SAS), these clandestine NATO soldiers, armed with underground arms-caches, prepared against a potential Soviet invasion and occupation of Western Europe, as well as the coming to power of communist parties. The clandestine international network covered the European NATO membership, including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey, as well as the neutral European countries of Austria, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland.
'The existence of these clandestine NATO armies remained a closely guarded secret throughout the Cold War until 1990, when the first branch of the international network was discovered in Italy. It was code-named Gladio, the Latin word for a short double-edged sword. While the press claimed the NATO secret armies were 'the best-kept, and most damaging, political-military secret since World War II', the Italian government, amidst sharp public criticism, promised to close down the secret army. Italy insisted identical clandestine armies had also existed in all other countries of Western Europe. This allegation proved correct and subsequent research found that in Belgium, the secret NATO army was code-named SDRA8, in Denmark Absalon, in Germany TD BJD, in Greece LOK, in Luxemburg Stay-Behind, in the Netherlands I&O, in Norway ROC, in Portugal Aginter, in Switzerland P26, in Turkey Counter-Guerrilla, and in Austria OWSGV. However, the code names of the secret armies in France, Finland, Spain and Sweden remain unknown.
Upon learning of the discovery, the parliament of the European Union (EU) drafted a resolution sharply criticizing the fact (...) Yet only Italy, Belgium and Switzerland carried out parliamentary investigations, while the administration of President George H. W. Bush refused to comment, being in the midst of preparations for war against Saddam Hussein in the Persian Gulf, and fearing potential damages to the military alliance." [4]

If Gladio was effectively ‘the best-kept, and most damaging, political-military secret since World War II’, it must be underlined, however, that on several occasions, arms caches were discovered and stay-behind paramilitary organizations officially dissolved – only to be created again. But it wasn’t until the 1990s that the full international scope of the program was disclosed to public knowledge. Giulio Andreotti, the main character of Italy’s post-WWII political life, was described by Aldo Moro to his captors as "too close to NATO", Moro thus advising them to be wary. Indeed, before Andreotti’s 1990 acknowlegment of Gladio’s existence, he had "unequivocally" denied it in 1974, and then in 1978 to judges investigating the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing. And even in 1990, "Testimonies collected by the two men [judges Felice Casson and Carlo Mastelloni investigating the 1972 Peteano fascist car bomb] and by the Commission on Terrorism on Rome, and inquiries by the Guardian, indicate Gladio was involved in activities which do not square with Andreotti's account. Links between Gladio, Italian secret services bosses and the notorious P2 masonic lodge are manifold (...) In the year that Andreotti denied Gladio’s existence, the P2 treasurer, General Siro Rosetti, gave a generous account of 'a secret security structure made up of civilians, parallel to the armed forces' There are also overlaps between senior Gladio personel and the committee of mililtary men, Rosa dei Vent, which tried to stage a coup in 1970. ”[2].

The November 22, 1990 European Parliament resolution concerning Gladio

On November 22, 1990, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning Gladio, requesting full investigations – which have yet to be done – and total dismantlement of these paramilitary structures – which, as of 2005, has not been proven. Quite to the contrary, various affairs have led to think that they are still active.

"Resolution on the Gladio affair –
A. having regard to the revelation by several European governments of the existence for 40 years of a clandestine parallel intelligence and armed operations organization in several Member States of the Community,
B. whereas for over 40 years this organization has escaped all democratic controls and has been run by the secret services of the states concerned in collaboration with NATO,
C. fearing the danger that such clandestine network may have interfered illegally in the internal political affairs of Member States or may still do so,
D. whereas in certain Member States military secret services (or uncontrolled branches thereof) were involved in serious cases of terrorism and crime as evidenced by, various judicial inquiries,
E. whereas these organizations operated and continue to operate completely outside the law since they are not subject to any parliamentary control and frequently those holding the highest government and constitutional posts are kept in the dark as to these matters,
F. whereas the various 'Gladio' organizations have at their disposal independent arsenals and military ressources which give them an unknown strike potential, thereby jeopardizing the democratic structures of the countries in which they are operating or have been operating,
G. greatly concerned at the existence of decision-making and operational bodies which are not subject to any form of democratic control and are of a completely clandestine nature at a time when greater Community cooperation in the field of security is a constant subject of discussion,
1. Condemns the clandestine creation of manipulative and operational networks and Calls for a full investigation into the nature, structure, aims and all other aspects of these clandestine organizations or any splinter groups, their use for illegal interference in the internal political affairs of the countries concerned, the problem of terrorism in Europe and the possible collusion of the secret services of Member States or third countries;
2. Protests vigorously at the assumption by certain US military personnel at SHAPE and in NATO of the right to encourage the establishment in Europe of a clandestine intelligence and operation network;
3. Calls on the governments of the Member States to dismantle all clandestine military and paramilitary networks;
4. Calls on the judiciaries of the countries in which the presence of such military organizations has been ascertained to elucidate fully their composition and modus operandi and to clarify any action they may have taken to destabilize the democratic structure of the Member States;
5. Requests all the Member States to take the necessary measures, if necessary by establishing parliamentary committees of inquiry, to draw up a complete list of organizations active in this field, and at the same time to monitor their links with the respective state intelligence services and their links, if any, with terrorist action groups and/or other illegal practices;
6. Calls on the Council of Ministers to provide full information on the activities of these secret intelligence and operational services;
7. Calls on its competent committee to consider holding a hearing in order to clarify the role and impact of the 'Gladio' organization and any similar bodies;
8. Instructs its President fo forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council, the Secretary-General of NATO, the governments of the Member States and the United States Government." [1]

Gladio’s strategy of tension and internal subversion operations

Further information: Strategy of tension

NATO's “stay-behind” organizations were never called upon to resist a Soviet invasion, but their structures continued to exist nonetheless. Internal subversion and “false flags” operations were explicitly considered by the CIA and stay-behind paramilitaries. According to a November 13, 1990 Reuters cable quoted by Statewatch, "André Moyen – a former member of the Belgian military security service and of the [stay-behind] network – said Gladio was not just anti-Communist but was fighting subversion in general (...) He added that his predecessor had given Gladio 142 million francs ($4.6 millions) to buy new radio equipment." [1] On various occasions, stay-behind movements became linked to right-wing terrorism, crime and attempted coup d'états:

"Prudent Precaution or Source of Terror?" the international press pointedly asked when the secret stay-behind armies of NATO were discovered accross Western Europe in late 1990. After more than ten years of research, the answer is now clear: both. The overview aboves shows that based on the experiences of World War Two, all countries of Western Europe, with the support of NATO, the CIA, and MI6, had set up stay-behind armies as what was felt a prudent precuation against a potential Soviet invasion. While the safety networks and the integrity of the majority of the secret soldiers should not be criticized in hindsight after the collapse of the Soviet Union, very disturbing questions do arise with respect to reported links to terrorism.
"There exist large differences among the European countries, and each case must be analyzed individually in further detail. As of now, the evidence available suggest the secret armies in the seven countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Luxemburg, Switzerland, Austria, and the Netherlands, focused exclusively on their stay-behind safety function and were thus not linked to any acts of terrorism. However, links to terrorism have been either confirmed or claimed in the eight countries, Italy, Turkey, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Sweden, demanding further investigation." [4]

However, as Daniele Ganser points out, only Italy, Belgium and Switzerland carried on parliamentary investigations, while the prosecution of various "black terrorists" (terrorismo nero, as was known neofascist terrorism) in Italy was difficult indeed. "On the eve of the [ 1980 Bologna bombing ] anniversary, Liberato Mancuso, the Bologna judge who had led the investigation and secured the initial convictions [of the Bologna bombers] broke six months of silence: "It is now understood among those engaged in the matter of democratic rights that we are isolated, and the objects of a campaign of aggression. This is what has happened to the commission into the P2, and to the magistrates. The personal risks to us are small in comparison to this offensive of denigration, which attempts to discredit the quest for truth. In Italy there has functioned for some years now a sort of conditioning, a control of our national sovereignty by the P2 – which was literally the master of the secret services, the army and our most delicate organs of state" wrote The Guardian on August 3, 1990, quoted by Statewatch [1].

Examples of such terrorist acts include the strategy of tension in Italy, the Oktoberfest bomb blast of 1980 in Munich, or the Brabant massacres in Belgium. In an November 7, 1990 article from Le Monde, a Gladio official sayed that "depending on the cases, we would block or encourage far-left or far-right terrorism" [5], while the US Field Manual FM 30-31B explicitly stated the use of "false-flag" operations, which may be operated even without the Host Country Governments' knowledge:

"There may be times when Host Country Governments show passivity or indecision in the face of communist subversion and according to the interpretation of the US secret services do not react with sufficient effectiveness. Most often such situations come about when the revolutionaries temporarily renounce the use of force and thus hope to gain an advantage, as the leaders of the host country wrongly consider the situation to be secure. US army intelligence must have the means of launching special operations which will convince Host Country Governments and public opinion of the reality of the insurgent danger ... These special operations must remain strictly secret ... Only those persons who are acting against the revolutionary uprising shall know of the involvement of the US Army in the internal affairs of an allied country. The fact, that the involvement of forces of the US military goes deeper shall not become known under any circumstances." [6]

Richard Brenneke’s disclosures

In June-July 1990, Richard Brenneke, who presented himself as a CIA agent, made various disclosures to the RAI state television, including allegations concerning Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme’s 1986 assassination and concerning the deal between the US and the Iranians concerning the exchanges of American hostages, a deal known as the October Surprise.

"In the first [RAI] programme someone described simply as "Agent Zero" described how Olof Palme had been caught in a deal between the CIA and Iran to release American hostages in Tehran. 'Palme was a fly in the ointment so we got P2 to rub him out,' the agent said. The second programme, which showed the gaunt silhouette of the 'Agent Zero One', allegged that P2 was not wound up in the mid-1980s, after the arrest of its leader Licio Gelli. 'It still exists. It calls itself P7,' he said. According to the agent, the lodge is still functioning with branches in Austria, Switzerland and East Germany. 'Zero One has now been revealed by the Italian press to be Dick Brenneke, allegedly a career CIA officer.' " (The Times, July 24, 1990, quoted by Statewatch [1]).
"In the programme, Mr. Brenneke alleged that, throughout the 1970's the CIA had made large sums of money available to the subversive Masonic Lodge, P2... Furthermore Mr. Brenneke claimed that, not only does the CIA continue to secretly finance a revived P2, but that it was involved in the 1986 killing of the Swedish Prime Minister, Mr. Olaf Palme. According to Mr. Brenneke, P2, under the guidance of its Grandmaster, Mr. Licio Gelli, used some of the finance made available by the CIA to set up agencies in West Germany, Austria and Switzerland. These agencies in turn were used by P2 to set up the assassination of Mr. Palme, on the orders of the CIA. Finally, and perhaps most sensationally, Mr. Brenneke alleged that President Bush, then director of the CIA, not only knew about these CIA activities in Italy (during the late 1970s and early 1980s) but was in fact one of the masterminds between them. In the 1976 general election, the huge success of the Communist Party... encouraged some to believe that Italy might be close to voting its first ever Communist government. In order to forestall this possibility, the CIA allegedly sponsored a series of right wing terrorist attacks, via Mr. Gelli’s P2... The CIA denied the charges and said Mr. Brenneke had never worked for the agency." (The Irish Times, July 24, 1990, quoted by Statewatch [1])
"In a four part special on RAI, the main Italian state-run television network, Brenneke claimed he had been making payments to members of P2, a right-wing Masonic lodge, on behalf of the CIA from 1969 to 1980. He said he had made payments which ranged from $1 million to $10 millions a month and were part of the struggle against communism. He said P2 was also involved in arms and drugs trafficking for the CIA... The programme sparked a political storm in Italy... However, a note of caution began to appear after Italian journalists were sent to pour over court records in Oregon. These showed Brenneke had been sued over his business delaings, once by his own brother. An Oregon newspaper turned up evidence that he had been involved in at least three government fraud investigations. Earlier this year he was put on trial in Oregon for allegedly lying under oath about his claims that Bush travelled to Paris in 1980 to make a deal with the Iranians over the American hostages. Brenneke was acquitted on all charges." (Sunday Times, July 29, 1990, quoted by Statewatch [1])
"A US businessman and former CIA agent, Dick Brenneke, told Italian television the CIA sent him to Czechoslovakia to buy arms and explosives for terrorists. 'Weapons, revolvers, bombs, explosives like Semtex were bought in Czechoslovakia. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, I was dealing with Czechoslovakia,' he said. The CIA has denied his claim that it had backed terrorism in Italy through the illegal P2 Masonic lodge." (The Independent, August 2, 1990, quoted by Statewatch [1])

Gladio operations in NATO Countries

First discovered in Italy

Main article: Gladio in Italy

In 2000, a Parliament Commission report from the "Gruppo Democratici di Sinistra l'Ulivo" concluded that the strategy of tension had been supported by the United States to "stop the PCI, and to a certain degree also the PSI, from reaching executive power in the country". A 2000 Senate report, stated that "Those massacres, those bombs, those military actions had been organized or promoted or supported by men inside Italian state institutions and, as has been discovered more recently, by men linked to the structures of United States intelligence." According to Daniele Ganser, General Gianadelio Maletti, former head of Italian counterintelligence, confirmed in March 2001 that the CIA might have promoted terrorism in Italy [4]. Aldo Moro’s 1978 murder, by the Red Brigades (BR), effectively put an end to the PCI’s possible participation to the government. According to The Guardian, the first reason of Gladio's discovery was indeed "a group of judges examining letters uncovered in Milan during October in which the murdered Christian Democrat leader, Aldo Moro, said he feared a shadow organisation, alongside "other secret services of the West ... might be implicated in the destabilisation of our country" [2].

Gladio's existence came to public knowledge when Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti revealed it to the Chamber of Deputies on October 24, 1990, although far-right terrorist Vincenzo Vinciguerra had already revealed its existence during his 1984 trial. Thirty years after the December 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, which started the strategia della tension, General Giandelio Maletti declared claimed that the massacre had been carried out by the Italian stay-behind army and right wing terrorists on orders of the CIA in order to discredit the PCI.

A quick chronology of Italy's "strategy of tension"

*1964 Operation Solo.

In 1964, Gladio was involved in a silent coup d'état when General Giovanni de Lorenzo in Operation Solo forces the Italian Socialists Ministers to leave the government 9.

*1969 Piazza Fontana bombing.

According to Avanguardia Nazionale member Vincenzo Vinciguerra: "The December 1969 explosion was supposed to be the detonator which would have convinced the politic and military authorities to declare a state of emergency" [7]

*1970, Golpe Borghese.

In 1970, the failed coup attempt Golpe Borghese gathered, around fascist Junio Valerio Borghese, international terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie and P2 headmaster Licio Gelli.


*1972 Gladio meeting.

According to The Guardian, "General Geraldo Serraville, a former head of "Office R", told the terrorism commission that at a crucial Gladio meeting in 1972, at least half of the upper echelons "had the idea of attacking the communists before an invasion. They were preparing for civil war." Later, he put it more bluntly: "They were saying this: "Why wait for the invaders when we can make a preemptive attack now on the communists who would support the invader? The idea is now emerging of a Gladio web made up of semi-autonomous cadres which – although answerable to their secret service masters and ultimately to the NATO-CIA command – could initiate what they regarded as anti-communist operations by themselves, needing only sanction and funds from the existing 'official' Gladio column (...) General Nino Lugarese, head of SISMI from 1981-84 testified on the existence of a 'Super Gladio' of 800 men responsible for 'internal intervention' against domestic political targets." [2]

*May 31, 1972, Peteano massacre.

Vincenzo Vinciguerra confessed in 1984 to judge Felice Casson of having carried out the Peteano terrorist attack, in which three policemen died, and for which the Red Brigades (BR) had been blamed before. Vinciguerra explained during his trial how he had been helped by Italian secret services to escape the police and to fly away to Francoist Spain. However, he was abandonned by NATO as soon as he started talking about Gladio, declaring for example during his 1984 trial:
"with the massacre of Peteano and with all those that have followed, the knowledge should now be clear that there existed a real live structure, occult and hidden, with the capacity of giving a strategic direction to the outrages. [This structure] lies within the states itself. There exists in Italy a secret force parallel to the armed forces, composed of civilians and military men, in an anti-Soviet capacity, that is, to organise a resistance on Italian soil against a Russian army... A super-organization which, lacking a Soviet military invasion which might not happen, took up the task, on NATO's behalf, of preventing a slip to the left in the politcial balance of the country. This they did, with the assistance of the official secret services and the political and military forces..." He then said to The Guardian, in 1990: "I say that every single outrage that followed from 1969 fitted into a single, organised matrix... Avanguardia Nazionale, like Ordine Nuovo (the main right-wing terrorist group active during the 1970s), were being mobilised into the battle as part of an anti-communist strategy originating not with organisations deviant from the institutions of power, but from within the state itself, and specifically from within the ambit of the state's relations within the Atlantic Alliance." [2][4]

*November 23, 1973. Bombing of the plane Argo 16.

According to a December 1, 1990 article by The Independent, quoted by Statewatch, "General Geraldo Serraville, head of Gladio from 1971 to 1974, told a television programme that he now thought the explosion aboard the plane Argo 16 on 23 November 1973 was probably the work of gladiatori who were refusing to hand over their clandestine arms. Until then it was widely believed the sabotage was carried out by Mossad, the Israeli foreign service, in retaliation for the pro-Libyan Italian government’s decision to expel, rather than try, five Arabs who had tried to blow up an Israeli airliner. The Arabs had been spirited out of the country on board the Argo 16.” [1]

*1974 Brescia massacre, Italicus Expressen massacre, and arrest of Vito Miceli, chief of the Army intelligence service and member of P2, on charges of "conspiration against the state".

In 1974, a massacre committed by Ordine Nuovo, during an anti-fascist demonstration in Brescia, kills eight and injures 102. The same year, a bomb in the Rome to Munich train "Italicus Express" kills 12 and injures 48. Also in 1974, Vito Miceli, P2 member, chief of the SIOS (Servizio Informazioni), Army Intelligence's Service from 1969 and SID's head from 1970 to 1974, got arrested on charges of "conspiration against the state" concerning investigations about Rosa dei venti, a state-infiltrated group involved in terrorist acts. During his trial, he revealed the existence of the NATO stay-behind secret army.

*1977. Reorganization of Italian secret services following Vito Micelli's arrest.

In 1977, the secret services were thus reorganized in a democratic attempt. With law #801 of 24/10/1977, SID was divided into SISMI (Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare), SISDE (Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Democratica) and CESIS (Comitato Esecutivo per i Servizi di Informazione e Sicurezza). The CESIS was given a coordination role, led by the President of Council.

*1978's murder of Aldo Moro.

Prime minister Aldo Moro was murdered in May 1978 by the Second Red Brigades (BR) in obscure circumstances. The head of the Italian secret services, accused of negligence, was a P2 member. The so-called "historic compromise" between the Christian-Democracy and the PCI was abandoned:
"As the conspiracy theorists would have it, Mr. Moro was allowed to be killed either with the acquiescence of people high in Italy’s political establishment, or at their instigation, because of the historic compromise he had made with the Communist Party" (The Independent, November 16, 1990, quoted by Statewatch [1])
"During his captivity, Aldo Moro wrote several letters to various political figures, including Giulio Andreotti. In October 1990, "a cache of previously unknown letters written by the former Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, just prior to his execution by Red Brigade terrorists in 1978... was discovered in a Milan apartment which had once been used as a Red Brigade hideout. One of those letters made reference to the involvment of both NATO and the CIA in an Italian based secret service, 'parralel' army", wrote The Irish Times on November 15, 1990 (quoted by Statewatch, [1]). "This safe house had been thoroughly searched at the time by Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, the head of counter-terrorism. How is it that the papers had not been revealed before?" asked The Independent on November 16, 1990 [1]. Carlo A. Dalla Chiesa was murdered in 1982 (see below).

*1980 Bologna massacre.

"The makings of the bomb... came from an arsenal used by Gladio... according to a parliamentary commission on terrorism... The suggested link with the Bologna massacre is potentially the most serious of all the accusations levelled against Gladio, and comes just two days after the Italian Prime Minister, Giulio Andreotti, cleared Gladio’s name in a speech to parliament, saying that the secret army did not drift from its formal Nato military brief", wrote The Guardian on January 16, 1991 (quoted by Statewatch [1]). In November 1995, Neo-Fascists terrorists Valerio Fioravanti and Francesca Mambro were convicted to life imprisonment as executors of the 1980 Bologna massacre, for which Gladio's direct influence was proven during the investigation; Licio Gelli, P2's headmaster, received a sentence for investigation diversion, as well as Francesco Pazienza and SISMI officers Pietro Musumeci and Giuseppe Belmonte. Avanguardia Nazionale founder Stefano Delle Chiaie, who was involved in the Golpe Borghese in 1970, was also accused of involvement in the Bologna massacre [8] [5]

*1982 murder of General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, head of counter-terrorism.

General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa's 1982 murder, in Palermo, by Pino Greco, one of the Mafia Godfather Salvatore Riina's (aka Toto Riina) favorite hitmen, is allegedly part of the strategy of tension. Alberto Dalla Chiesa had arrested Red Brigades founders Renato Curcio and Alberto Franceschini in September, 1974, and was later charged of investigation concerning Aldo Moro. He had also found Aldo Moro's letters concerning Gladio.

*October 24, 1990. Giulio Andreotti’s acknowledgment of Operazione Gladio.

After the discovery by judge Felice Casson of documents on Gladio in the archives of the Italian military secret service in Rome, Giulio Andreotti, head of Italian government, revealed to the Chamber of deputies the existence of "Operazione Gladio" on October 24, 1990, insisting that Italy has not been the only country with secret "stay-behind" armies. He made clear that "each chief of government had been informed of the existence of Gladio". Former Socialist Primer Minister Bettino Craxi claimed that he had not been informed until he was confronted with a document on Gladio signed by himself while he was Prime Minister. Former Primer Minister Giovanni Spadolini (Republican Party), at the time President of the Senate, and former Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani, at the time secretary of the ruling Christian Democratic Party clamied they remembered nothing. Spadolini stressed that there was a difference between what he knew as former Defence Secretary and what he knew as former Prime Minister. Only former Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga (DC) confirmed Andreotti's revelations, explaining that he was even "proud and happy" for his part in setting up Gladio as junior Defence Minister of the Christian Democratic Party. This lit up a political storm, requests were made for Cossiga's (Italian President since 1985) resignation or impeachment for high treason. He refused testifying to the investigating Senate committee. Cossiga narrowly escaped his impeachment by stepping down on April 1992, three months before his term expired[9].

1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, which started Italy's anni di piombo, and the 1974 "Italicus Expressen" train bombing were also attributed to Gladio operatives. In 1975, Stefano Delle Chiaie met with Pinochet during Franco's funeral in Madrid, and would participate afterward in operation Condor, preparing for example the attempted murder of Bernardo Leighton, a Chilean Christian Democrat, or participating in the 1980 'Cocaine Coup' of Luis García Meza Tejada in Bolivia. In 1989, he was arrested in Caracas, Venezuela and extradited to Italy to stand trial for his role in the Piazza Fontana bombing. Despite his reputation, Delle Chiaie was acquitted by the Assize Court in Catanzaro in 1989, along with fellow accused Massimiliano Fachini (as yet no convictions have been made for the attack). According to Avanguardia Nazionale member Vincenzo Vinciguerra: "The December 1969 explosion was supposed to be the detonator which would have convinced the politic and military authorities to declare a state of emergency" [8]

The DSSA, another Gladio ?

In July 2005, the Italian press revealed the existence of the Department of Anti-terrorism Strategic Studies (DSSA), a "parallel police" created by Gaetano Saya and Riccardo Sindoca, two leaders of the National Union of the Police Forces (Unpf), a trade-union present in all the state security forces. Both claimed they were former members of Gladio. According to the DSSA website - closed after these revelations -, Fabrizio Quattrochi, murdered in Irak after being taken hostage, was there "for the DSSA". According to the Italian investigators, the DSSA was trying to obtain international and national recognition by intelligence agencies, in order to obtain financement for its parallel activities [10].

Austria

In Austria, the first secret stay-behind army was exposed in 1947. It had been set up by far-right Soucek and Rössner, who both insisted during their trial that "they were carrying out the secret operation with the full knowledge and support of the US and British occupying powers." Sentenced to death, they were then pardonned under mysterious circumstances by Chancellor Körner (1951-1957).

Franz Olah set up a new secret army codenamed Österreichischer Wander-Sport-und Geselligkeitsverein (OWSGV), with the cooperation of MI6 and CIA. He later explained that "we bought cars under this name. We installed communication centres in several regions of Austria", confirming that "special units were trained in the use of weapons and plastic explosives". He precised that "there must have been a couple of thousand people working for us... Only very, very highly positioned politicians and some mebers of the union knew about it".

In 1965, the police forces discovered a stay-behind arms cache in an old mine close to Windisch-Bleiberg and forced the British authorities to hand over a list with the location of 33 other caches in Austria [7].

In 1990, when secret "stay-behind" armies were discovered all around Europe, the Austrian government claimed that no secret army had existed in the country. However, six years later, the Boston Globe revealed the existence of a secret CIA arms caches in Austria. Austrian President Thomas Klestil and Chancellor Franz Vranitzky insisted that they had know nothing of the existence of the secret army and demanded that the US launch a full-scale investigation into the violation of Austria's neutrality, which was denied by President Bill Clinton. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns - appointed in August 2001 by President George Bush as the US Permanent Representative to the Atlantic treaty organization, where, as ambassador to NATO, he headed the combined State-Defense Department United States Mission to NATO and coordinated the NATO response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks - insisted:

"The aim was noble, the aim was correct, to try to help Austria if it was under occupation. What went wrong is that successive Washington administrations simply decided not to talk to the Austrian government about it." [4]

Belgium

Discovery of a Belgium branch of Gladio & creation of a permanent Parliamentary committee

After the retreat of France from NATO, the SHAPE headquarter was displaced to Mons in Belgium. In 1990, following France's denial of any "stay-behind" French army, Giulio Andreotti publicly pointed out that the last Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) meeting, to which the French branch of Gladio was present, had been on October 23 and 24, 1990, under the presidency of Belgian General Van Calster, director of the Belgian military secret service SGR. In November, Guy Coëme, Minister of the Defense, acknowledged the existence of a Belgium "stay-behind" army, lifting concerns about a similar implication in terrorist acts as in Italy. The same year, the European Parliament sharply condemned NATO and the United States in a resolution for having manipulated European politics with the stay-behind armies [7].

Therefore, in Belgium, new legislation governing intelligence agencies' missions and methods was passed in 1998, following two government enquiries and the creation of a permanent parliamentary committee in 1991, which was to bring them under the authority of Belgium's federal agencies [11].

Julien Lahaut, 1950

Several events in Belgium's history may have been related to the Belgian stay-behind SDRA8, as it was known. In 1950, the assassination of Julien Lahaut, chairman of the Communist Party of Belgium (PCB) had doubtlessly both a national and international signification, in which Gladio anti-communist's influence has been suspected [12].

Massacres of Brabant, 1980s

In 1985, the Massacres of Brabant were linked by the press to a conspiracy among the Belgian stay-behind SDRA8, the Belgian Gendarmerie SDRA6, the Belgian far-right group Westland New Post, and the Pentagon secret service Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). However, after a parliamentary inquiry, no hard proof substaining these claims were found, and investigations continue to this day. Although the mystery into which those cold-blood massacres were committed did convince the Belgian Parliament to create a Permanent Committee of Surveillance of Intelligence Agencies' activities...

Jean Thiriart's far-right Parti Communautaire Européen

According to Amnistia.net, Luc Jouret, founder of the Order of the Solar Temple with Joseph di Mambro, had helped far-right activist Jean Thiriart organize a split in the Communist Party of Belgium (PCB) in the 1970s, creating the "Parti Communautaire Européen, a "Nazi-Maoist" party. According to Bruno Fouchereau, author of La mafia des sectes and collaborator of Le Monde Diplomatique, quoted by Amnistia, this Belgium "Nazi-Maoist group" was in fact controlled by the SDRA-8, Belgium's branch of Gladio. SDRA-8 other's creation was the "Westland-New-Post" terrorist group.[13]

1995: a racist Gladio plan

In 1996, Le Soir caused a public uproar by revealing the existence of a classified document, dated August 1995, and titled "Plan de base de la défense militaire du territoire" ("Base plan of the military defense of the territory"). The newspaper quoted some passages: "Many communities of immigrants have settled themselves in large agglomerations... We consider that there exist no open threat in Belgium... But there is a clandestine threat with a permanent character" (sic) ("Nombre de communautés immigrées se sont fixées dans les grandes agglomérations. Si ces groupes de population devaient entrer clairement en désaccord avec la politique belge, ils pourraient déclencher des actions visant à contrarier cette politique ou visant à faire connaître leur mécontentements (...) Nous considérons qu'il n'existe aucune menace ouverte en Belgique (...) Mais il existe bien une menace clandestine avec un caractère permanent" - sic).

The dissolved SDRA-8 had been replaced by the "Commandement territorial interforces" (CTI), a military intelligence agency organized by provinces and essentially composed of approximatively a thousand reserve officers. Its goal was to infiltrate civil society and find informants, with the mission to be especially concerned by the "immigrant communities which represented a permanent clandestine threat" (sic). According to Le Soir, if the CTI is not closely linked to the military agency Service Général du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (SGRS), then it is "nothing else than a new structure of military intelligence... particularly suspicious of anything that is strange ("étranger": "strange" or "foreign" - play of words...: particulièrement méfiante à l'égard de ce qui lui est étranger) to it".

Questionned by the newspaper, a spokesman of the Ministry of the Defense justified this racist plan declaring "that it was a project of a plan that was to be finished at the end of the year and that the threat it evoques is a war-time threat". To which Le Soir replied: "The whole of the plan (detailling the behavior of an enemy during peace-times, during a crisis, and then during conflict times) and the surveillance measures it anticipate (which are enforced during peace-times) demonstrate that this second argument is, to the least, surprising". Concerning the first argument, the Soir noted that from November 28, 2005 to December 1, 2005, the "Régiment territorial des Guides", primarily composed of reserve officers, participated in the "Meise 95" exercise, according to a discreet January 1996 article by Vox. The scenario stated: "Since last August, a terror movement is affirmating itself in most of the big European cities. Aerian and railway traffic are disturbed in many countries. Emigrants communities principally originating from the Republic of Moldova (sic!) display their anti-European and anti-American ideas..."

Finally, the activities of the Belgian military intelligence agencies prompted the Parliamentary Committee of Surveillance (Comité R) to investigate concerning various abusive wiretappings. "The central documentation of the SGR is composed of 450 000 files", stated Le Soir.

These various revelations caused an uproar, and the Defense Minister akwardly put an official end to the racist plan concerning this alleged "permanent clandestine threat". [14]

France

In 1947, Interior Minister Edouard Depreux revealed the existence of a secret stay-behind army in France codenamed "Plan Bleu". The next year, the "Western Union Clandestine Committee" (WUCC) is created to coordinate secret unorthodox warfare. In 1949, the WUCC is integrated into NATO, whose headquarter is established in France, under the name "Clandestine Planning Committee" (CPC). In 1958, NATO founds the Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) to coordinate secret warfare. When NATO establishes new European headquarters in Brussels the ACC, under the code name SDRA 11, is hidden within the Belgian military secret service SGR who has its headquarter next to NATO .

The illegal Organisation de l'Armée Secrète (OAS) is created with members of the French stay-behind and officers from the French War in Vietnam. In 1961, the OAS staged a failed coup in Algiers, with CIA support, against De Gaulle's government[7].

La Rose des Vents and Arc-en-ciel ("Rainbow") network were part of Gladio. François de Grossouvre was Gladio's leader for the region around Lyon in France until his alleged suicide on April 7th, 1994. Captain Paul Barril, among others, claimed that Grossouvre was murdered8. In any cases, Grossouvre would have asked to Constantin Melnik, leader of the French secret services during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62), to come back in activity. He was living in comfortable exile in the US, where he maintained links with the Rand Corporation. Constantin Melnik is alleged to have been involved in the creation in 1952 of the Ordre Souverain du Temple Solaire, an ancestor of the Order of the Solar Temple, to which the SDECE (French former military intelligence agency) was interested into [14].

Germany

In 1952, former SS officer Hans Otto reveals to the the criminal police in Frankfurt the existence of the fascist German stay-behind army BDJ-TD. The arrested right-wing extremists are found non guilty under mysterious circumstances. In 1976, the secret service BND secretary Heidrun Hofer is arrested after having revealed the secrets of the German stay-behind army to her husband, who was a spy of the KGB.[7].

In 2004 the German spymaster Norbert Juretzko published a book about his work at the BND. He went into details about recruiting partisans for the German stay-behind network. He was sacked from BND following a secret trial against him, because the BND could not find out the real name of his Russian source "Rubezahl" whom he had recruited. A man with the name he put on file was arrested by the KGB following treason in the BND, but was obviously innocent, his name having been chosen at random from the phone book by Juretzko.

According to Juretzko, the BND built up its branch of Gladio, but discovered after the fall of the GDR that it was 100% known to the Stasi early on. When the network was dismantled, further odd details emerged. One "spymaster" had kept the radio equipment in his cellar at home with his wife doing the engineering test call every 4 months, on the grounds that the equipment was too "valuable" to remain in civilian hands. Juretzkos found out because this spymaster had dismantled his section of the network so quickly there had been no time for measures such as recovering all caches of supplies.

Civilians recruited as stay-behind partisans were equipped with a clandestine shortwave radio with a fixed frequency. It had a keyboard with encryption, making use of Morse code unnecessary. They had a cache of further equipment for signalling helicopters or submarines to drop special agents who were to have stayed in their homes while mounting sabotage operations against the communists.

According to the perpetrator of the Oktoberfest bomb blast of 1980 in Munich, the explosives came from a Gladio cache near the village of Uelzen in the Lüneburger Heide.

Greece

To prevent a communist-led Greek resistance from taking power after the end of World War II, British Prime minister Winston Churchill ordered the creation of a secret army in late 1944, known as the Greek Mountain Brigade, the Hellenic Raiding Force, or Lochos Oreinon Katadromon (LOK). LOK commander, Field Marshall Alexander Papagos excluded "almost all men with views ranging from moderately conservative to left wing". When Greece joined NATO in 1952, LOK was integrated into the European stay-behind network. The CIA and LOK reconfirmed on March 25, 1955 their mutual cooperation in a secret document signed by US General Trascott for the CIA, and Konstantinos Dovas, chief of staff of the Greek military. In addition to preparing for a Soviet invasion, the CIA instructed LOK to prevent a leftist coup. Former CIA agent Philip Agee, who was sharply criticized in the US for having revealed sensitive information, insisted that "paramilitary groups, directed by CIA officers, operated in the sixties throughout Europe [and he stressed that] perhaps no activity of the CIA could be as clearly linked to the possibility of internal subversion."

The LOK was involved in the Greek military coup d'Etat on April 20, 1967, which took place one month before the scheduled national elections for which opinion polls predicted an overwhelming victory of the left-leaning Center Union of George and Andreas Papandreou. Under the command of paratrooper Lieutenant Colonel Costas Aslanides, the LOK took control of the Greek Defence Ministry while Brigadier General Sylianos Pattakos gained control over communication centers, the parliament, the royal palace, and according to detailed lists, arrested over 10 000 people. Phillips Talbot, the US ambassador in Athens, disapproved of the military coup which instaured the "Regime of the Colonels" (1969-1974), complaining that it represented "a rape of democracy" - to which JAck Maury, the CIA chief of station in Athen, answered: "How can you rape a whore?" [7].

Arrested and then exiled in Canada and Sweden, Andreas Papandreou later returned to Greece, where he won the 1981 election for Prime minister, forming the first socialist government of Greek's post-war history. According to his own testimony, he discovered the existence of the secret NATO army, then codenamed "Red Sheepskin", as acting prime minister in 1984 and had given orders to dissolve it. In 1990, the socialist opposition called for a parliamentary investigation into the secret army and its alleged link to terrorism and the 1967 coup d'état. Public order minister Yannis Vassiliadis declared that there was no need to investigate such "fantasies" as "Sheepskin was one of 50 NATO plans which foresaw that when a country was occupied by an enemy there should be an organised resistance. It foresaw arms caches and officers who would form the nucleus of a guerilla war. In other words, it was a nationally justifiable act."

The Netherlands

A large arms cache is discovered in 1983 near the village Velp. The government is forced to confirm that the arms were related to NATO planning for unorthodox warfare [7].

Norway

In 1957, the director of the secret service NIS, Vilhelm Evang, protests strongly against the domestic subversion of his country through the United States and NATO and temporarily withdraws the Norwegian stay-behind army from the CPC meetings. In 1978, the police discovers a stay-behind arms cache and arrests Hans Otto Meyer who reveals the Norwegian secret army. [7].

Portugal

In 1966, the CIA sets up Aginter Press which, under the direction of Captain Yves Guerin Serac runs a secret stay-behind army and train its members in covert actions techniques, including hands on bomb terrorism, silent assassination, subversion techniques, clandestine communication and infiltration and colonial warfare. In Mocambique, Aginter Press assassinates Eduardo Mondlane, leader of the liberation movement FRELIMO (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique), in 1969[7].

Turkey

Supported by secret armies, the Turkish military staged a coup d'état and killed Prime Minister Adnan Menderes in 1960. In 1971, after another military coup d'état, the stay-behind army Counter-Guerrilla engaged in domestic terror and killed hundreds.

Former Turkish prime minister Bulent Ecevit recalled he had learned of the existence of Turkish "stay-behind" armies for the first time in 1974. At the time, the commander of the Turkish army, General Semih Sancar, had allegedly informed him the US had financed the unit since the immediate post-war years. Ecevit declared he suspected Counter-Guerrila's involvment in the 1977 Taksim Square massacre in Istanbul, during which snipers opened fire on a protest rally of 500 000 citizens, organized by trade unions on May 1, killing 38 and injuring hundred. According to Ecevit, the shooting lasted for twenty minutes, yet several thousand policemen on the scene did not intervene. This mode of operation recalls the June 20, 1973 Ezeiza massacre in Buenos Aires, when the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (aka Triple A), founded by José Lopez Rega (a P2 member), opened up fire on the left-wing peronists... According to Talat Turhan, a former Turkish general, the Counter-Guerrilla had also engaged in torture.

In 1980, Counter-Guerrilla's commander, General Kenan Evren staged a military coup and seized power. In 1984, Counter-Guerrilla fought against the Kurds, killed and tortures thousands in the following years. [7].

The ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves have allegedly worked with Gladio. According to Le Monde diplomatique, Abdullah Çatlı "is reckoned to have been one of the main perpetrators of underground operations carried out by the Turkish branch of the Gladio (4) organisation and had played a key role in the bloody events of the period 1976-80 which paved the way for the military coup d’état of September 1980. As the young head of the far-right Grey Wolves militia, he had been accused, among other things, of the murder of seven left-wing students." He was seen in the company of Avanguardia Nazionale founder Stefano Delle Chiaie, while touring Latin America and on a visit to Miami in September 1982 [15].

The United Kingdom

In England, Prime Minister Winston Churchill creates the secret stay-behind army Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1940 to assist resistance movements and carry out subversive operations in enemy held territory. After the end of World War II, the stay-behind armies are created with the experience and involvement of former SOE officers [7]. Gladio membership included mostly ex-servicemen but also followers of Oswald Mosley's pre-war fascist movement. They were given a list of prominent suspected communist sympathizers, including politicians, journalists, trade union leaders, clergy and so on. The mission was, at the first sign of insurrection or invasion, to execute as many as these people as possible.

At least one name of that list went on to become a Labour Prime Minister. Gladio functioned until well into the sixties. In January 1991, Searchlight magazine alleged that Column 88, a neo-nazi paramilitary organization formed in the early 1970s was part of Gladio.

Parallel stay-behind operations in non-NATO countries

Finland

In 1945, Interior Minister Leino exposes a secret stay-behind army which is closed down. In 1991, the media reveals in Sweden that a secret stay-behind army existed in neutral Finland with an exile base in Stockholm. Finnish Defence Minister Elisabeth Rehn calls the revelations "a fairy tale", adding cautiously "or at least an incredible story, of which I know nothing." [7].

Spain

Main article: Montejurra
Note: Spain joined NATO in 1982.

In May 1976, a year after Franco's death, two left-wing Carlist members were shot down by far-right terrorists, among whom Gladio operative Stefano Delle Chiaie and members of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (Triple A), demonstrating connections between Gladio and the South American "Dirty War" [16]. The next year, with support of Italian right-wing terrorists, the stay-behind carries out the Atocha massacre in Madrid and in an attack on a lawyer's office closely linked with the Spanish Communist Party kill five people [7].

Sweden

In 1951, CIA agent William Colby, based at the CIA station in Stockholm supports the training of stay-behind armies in neutral Sweden and Finland and in the NATO members Norway and Denmark. In 1953, the police arrests right winger Otto Hallberg and discovers the Swedish stay-behind army. Hallberg is set free and charges against him are mysteriously dropped [7].

Switzerland

In 1990, Colonel Herbert Alboth, a former commander of the Swiss secret stay-behind army P26 declares in a confidential letter to the Defence Department that he his willing to reveal "the whole truth". He is later found in his house, stabbed with his own military bayonet. The detailed parliamentary report on the Swiss secret army is presented to the public on November 17 [7].

The Order of the Solar Temple mystery

It has been alleged by various sources, among whom François-Xavier Verschave, that the "collective suicides" allegedly committed by various Order of the Solar Temple (OST) members, in December 1995 in the Vercors region of France, were connected to Gladio. The thesis of the suicide has been heavily contested by family of the victims Alain Vuarnet, René and Muguette Rostan, Willy and Giséla Schleimer and their lawyer, Alain Leclerc. According to a Reuters cable dated March 22, 2004 (19:03:46), the lawyer explained that he had two documents upholding the thesis of a murder.

One document was a copy of an April 21, 1997 letter adressed by a lawyer office to a bank, concerning the distribution of 17 millions Francs (about 2,5 millions Euros) between various personalities and political parties, the OST and the Rosicrucian Order AMORC (Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis), an organization suspected of links with the OST. In his demand for more investigation, Dr. Leclerc wrote: "If the document is true, it shows that the Order of the Solar Temple was in activity after the last March 22, 1997 massacre (the "collective suicide" of five adepts in Canada) and that the responsibles of this organization are still alive". However, court refused further expertise: thus, it hasn't been possible to verify the validity of this document.

The second document is a juridical statement of Dr. Jean-Marie Abgrall, a specialist of sects accused of violation of the secret of investigations. In this document, "he states, goes the Reuter cable, as he had already done in declarations to Le Point and to Nice Matin in February 2003, that the Renewed Order of the Solar Temple ("Ordre Rénové du Temple" - ORT [17]), ancestor of the OTS, had relations with Gladio network... Jean-Marie Abgrall would also talk about relations between the AMORC, of which he once was a member, and the French networks in Africa, so-called "networks Foccart" [18]." Lawyer Leclerc, also quoted by the REUTERS cable, said that psychiatrist Jean-Marie Abgrall "reveals... that the Order of the Solar Temple, as the AMORC and the ORT, were created and controlled by French and foreign secret services". Those informations weren't given at the time of investigations; the lawyer thus asked that Dr. Abgrall be heard by the judge.

A third document was sent by the French secret services (RG) to the judge, discrediting the family of the victims' claims and demands for further investigations. If Jean-Marie Abgrall's claims of relationship between the ORT (OST's ancestor) and Gladio may seem far-fetched, Propaganda Due's juridically proven involvement in Gladio's strategy of tension inclines one to keep open various possibilities during investigations. Furthermore, connections between ORT founder Luc Jouret and far-right Belgian activist Jean Thiriart have been alleged by others sources; together, they had found in the 1970s a far-right party which was controlled by Belgium's branch of Gladio (See above). In any cases, the mass suicides haven't been clearly explained, let alone financial links concerning those various sects. [19][20]

FOIA requests

Three Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have been filed to the CIA, which has rejected them with the standard reply: "The CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records responsive to your request." One request was filed by the National Security Archive in 1991; another by the Italian Senate commission headed by Senator Giovanni Pellegrino in 1995 concerning Gladio and Aldo Moro's murder; the last one in 1996, by Olivier Rathkolb, of Vienna university, for the Austrian government, concerning the secret stay-behind armies after a discovery of an arms-cache [7].

Politicians about Gladio

While the existence of "stay-behind" organizations such as Gladio has been disputed, with some skeptics describing it as a conspiracy theory, their existence was confirmed by several high ranking politicians in NATO countries:

  • Former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti ("Gladio had been necessary during the days of the Cold War but, that in view of the collapse of the East Block, Italy would suggest to Nato that the organisation was no longer necessary.")
  • Former French minister of defense Jean-Pierre Chevenement ("a structure did exist, set up at the beginning of the 1950s, to enable communications with a government that might have fled abroad in the event of the country being occupied.").
  • Former Greek defence minister, Yannis Varvitsiotis ("local commandos and the CIA set up a branch of the network in 1955 to organise guerrilla resistance to any communist invader")

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l document by Statewatch
  2. ^ a b c d "Secret agents, freemasons, fascists... and a top-level campaign of political 'destabilisation'". December 5, 1990. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help)
  3. ^ "La critique - Récit d'un brigadiste". October 7, 2005. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help)
  4. ^ a b c d e "Terrorism in Western Europe: An Approach to NATO’s Secret Stay-Behind Armies" Acrobat file ETH Zurich research project on Gladio directed by Dr. Daniele Ganser
  5. ^ a "Le Monde" quote from "L'Humanite" November 29, 1990
  6. ^ US Field Manual FM 30-31B
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n ETH Zurich chronology
  8. ^ a "Strage di Piazza Fontana spunta un agente USA". February 11, 1998. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help)
  9. ^ Translated from Bologna massacre Association of Victims Italian website
  10. ^ Daniele Ganser April 2005 paper
  11. ^ "Italy probes 'parallel police'". July 1, 2005. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help); "Macché Gladio bis, le autorità sapevano Gaetano Saya si difende (Google translation available)". July 2, 2005. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help);"Gladio, P2, falangisti l'Italia che sogna il golpe". July 3, 2005. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help);"Così reclutavano: «Facciamo un'altra Gladio»". July 3, 2005. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help)
  12. ^ Official site of the Belgian Permanent Committee for the Control of Intelligence Services
  13. ^ Hans Depraetere and Jenny Dierickx, "La Guerre froide en Belgique" ("Cold War in Belgium") (EPO-Dossier, Anvers, 1986)
  14. ^ a Amnistia info on the Order of the Solar Temple and links with Gladio
  15. ^ "L'Armée craint une menace immigrée - L'armée tisse un nouveau réseau d'espions - La justice et le Comité R enquêtent". July 30, 1996. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help); see also here for a "Gladio" research in Le Soir (41 articles); see also "L'OTAN restructure le réseau Gladio face aux immigrés, qualifiés de 'menace clandestine à caractère permanent'". September 9, 1996. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help)
  16. ^ "L'OTAN restructure le réseau Gladio face aux immigrés, qualifiés de 'menace clandestine à caractère permanent'". September 9, 1996. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help)
  17. ^ "Turkey's pivotal role in the international drug trade (English version - French also available". July 1998. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |org= ignored (help)
  18. ^ Crimes of Montejurra (Good Google translation)
  19. ^ The Renewed Order of the Solar Temple (ORT - "Ordre Rénové du Temple") is listed as a sect composed of 50 to 500 French members by the 1995 fr:French Parliamentary report on sects (See here for original report).
  20. ^ p.14 quote from Libération concerning OTS, Gladio and Jacques Foccart
  21. ^ REUTERS cable published here, in French - good Google translation though
  22. ^ Declaration to the media of Alain Vuarnet, family of the OTS victims

See also

Literature

  • Various documents (Report by the SIFAR (Italian Military Secret Service) on Operation Gladio; US Field Manual; Report by Giulio Andreotti; Parliamentary Investigation into the Swiss Defense Ministry; various FOIA requests to the CIA; Parliamentary Investigation report in Belgium & in Italy...)
  • Giulio Andreotti's report on Gladio, in French (waiting for translation)
  • Daniele Ganser, NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe ISBN 0714685003 (a quick resume available here)
  • David Hoffman, "The Oklahoma City bombing and the Politics of Terror", 1998 (chapter 14 online on strategy of tension
  • Giovanni Fasanella and Claudio Sestieri with Giovanni Pellegrino, "Segreto di Stato. La verità da Gladio al caso Moro", Einaudi, 2000 (see civic website of Bologna
  • Jan Willems, Gladio, 1991, EPO-Dossier, Bruxelles (ISBN 2-87262-051-6).
  • Jens Mecklenburg, Gladio. Die geheime terrororganisation der Nato, 1997, Elefanten Press Verlag GmbH, Berlin (ISBN : 3-88520-612-9).
  • Leo A. Müller, Gladio. Das Erbe des kalten Krieges, 1991, RoRoRo-Taschenbuch Aktuell no 12993 (ISBN : 3499 129930).
  • Jean-François Brozzu-Gentile, L’Affaire Gladio. Les réseaux secrets américains au cœur du terrorisme en Europe, 1994, Albin Michel, Paris (ISBN : 2-226-06919-4).
  • Anna Laura Braghetti, Paola Tavella, Le Prisonnier. 55 jours avec Aldo Moro, 1999 (traduit de l’italien : Il Prigioniero), Éditions Denoël, Paris (ISBN : 2-207-24888-7)
  • Regine Igel, Andreotti. Politik zwischen Geheimdienst und Mafia, 1997, Herbig Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH, Munich (ISBN : 3-7766-1951-1).
  • Arthur E. Rowse, "Gladio: The Secret U.S. War to Subvert Italian Democracy" in Covert Action #49, Summer of 1994.[21]
  • Anti-Fascist Action (AFA), "StayingBehind: NATO's Terror Network" in Fighting Talk #11, May 1995.
  • François Vitrani, "L’Italie, un Etat de 'souveraineté limitée' ?", in Le Monde diplomatique, December 1990 .
  • Patrick Boucheron, "L'affaire Sofri : un procès en sorcellerie ?", in L'Histoire magazine, n°217 (January 1998) (L'Histoire website and article on-line here - with other newspaper articles about Gladio)
  • "Les procès Andreotti en Italie" "The Andreotti trials in Italy" by Philippe Foro, published by University of Toulouse II, Groupe de recherche sur l'histoire immédiate (Study group on immediat history).
  • Bibliography from ETH Zurich

Films

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