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Operation Gladio was a clandestine "stay-behind" operation sponsored by the CIA and NATO to counter communist influence in Italy, as well as in other European countries. 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. On October 24, 1990, Giulio Andreotti, head of Italian government, acknowledged the existence of a "structure of information, response and safeguard" before the "Camera dei deputati", known as "Operazione Gladio".

Gladio was a secret service operating in all of NATO. It had as central axe the Gehlen Org, and was coordinated by the Clandestine Planning Committee, the multi-national organ overseen from Belgium by SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe). The CIA financed most of Gladio's operations. CIA founder Allen Dulles was one of the key people in instituting Operation Gladio. Aldo Moro (who was assassinated by the Red Brigades) also was one of the key figures in organizing Gladio.

In an article dated November 13, 1990 and published by the "International Herald Tribune", Joseph Fitchett talks about the "Nato resistance", and says that those anti-communist networks, which were partly funded by CIA, were presents in all of Europe, including neutral countries like Sweden and Switzerland. In French newspaper "Le Monde" of November 7, 1990, a Gladio official says that "depending on the cases, we would block or encourage far-left or far-right terrorism" . This is usually refered to as the Strategy of tension.

The main aim of Operation Gladio was to counter a possible invasion by the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact of Western Europe through sabotage and guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines. NATO feared the fact that Soviet Union possessed a vast superiority in conventional military power - that Western Europe and NATO could not hope to defeat the Red Army in a direct conflict without resorting to the use of nuclear weapons.

NATO's "stay-behind" organizations represented a way to fight on in case of defeat by the overwhelming military might of the Soviet Union. 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. Other clandestine, non-conventional resistance, such as "false flag operations" and terror attacks were considered.

Gladio & Stay-Behind Operations in different NATO Countries

Gladio in Italy

While "stay-behind" networks existed in all NATO countries, the most notable was the Italian branch of Gladio. On October 24, 1990, Giulio Andreotti, head of Italian government, acknowledged before the "Camera dei deputati" the existence of "Operazione Gladio". In addition to preparing for a Soviet invasion, this branch also was to act in case of a communist government being elected in Italy. Since Italy was the country most likely to vote into power a communist government (with the communist party receiving up to 25% of the popular vote, being at times the strongest party in parliament), the Italian branch of Gladio also became the largest NATO "stay-behind" organization. Licio Gelli, a member of P2, was a member of Gladio, while Aldo Moro's murder by the Red Brigades also had something to do with Gladio.

Gladio in Germany

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.

Gladio in the United Kingdom

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.

Gladio in France

La Rose des Vents was part of Gladio.

Gladio in Belgium

Belgium's branch of Gladio was being responsible for the assassination in 1950 of Julien Lahaut, who was chairman of the Communist Party of Belgium.

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")

Links to terrorism

NATO's stay-behind organizations were never called upon to resist a Soviet invasion, but their structures continued to exist. In some countries stay-behind movements became linked to right-wing terrorism, crime and attempted coup d'états. Examples of this include the Oktoberfest bomb blast of 1980 in Munich, the explosives of which came from a Gladio cache, according to the perpetrator.

It is also unclear if Gladio operatives, including the former OSS/CIA operative Licio Gelli, were involved in domestic terrorism in Italy, in particular the bombings of the "Italicus" train and the Bologna train station. Gelli was closely assocated with Propaganda Due, a secret organization involved in the strategy of tension, an operation to destabilize Italian civil society at a time when the political power of the left was at its crest.

See also

• Gehlen Org
• Aldo Moro
• Strategy of tension

Literature

• Daniele Ganser: NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe ISBN 0714685003
• 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).
• ), Gladio. Das Erbe des kalten Krieges, 1991, RoRoRo-Taschenbuch Aktuell no 12993 (ISBN : 3-499 12993-0).
• 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, ), 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).

External links

• Operation Gladio
• Stay-Behind Networks
• recent research on Gladio in Switzerland
• BBC News story: Italy probes 'parallel police' - quote: "Italian state radio Rai later reported that the two arrested men may have had links with Gladio, the Italian branch of a secret paramilitary network set up in post-war Europe with the backing of the CIA."
• French article, translated
• French article on Alberto Franceschini's book, translated
• French article, (badly) translated
• November 06, 2005, "La Repubblica", another Gladio?translated
• November 06, 2005, "La Repubblica", another Gladio?

• Warfare
• Conspiracy theories
• NATO
• CIA operations
• Operations