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Operation Gladio

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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. 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. Gladio’s existence, suspected since the 1984 revelations of Avanguardia Nazionale member Vincenzo Vinciguerra during his trial, was acknowledged by head of Italian government Giulio Andreotti on October 24, 1990 , who spoke of a "structure of information, response and safeguard". It has been accused of trying to influence policies using a "strategy of tension".

A NATO clandestine structure, overseen by the SHAPE

Operating in all of NATO, Gladio was coordinated by the Clandestine Planning Committee, the multi-national organ overseen from Belgium by SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe). In an "International Herald Tribune" article dated November 13, 1990, 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.

Gladio had as central axe the Gehlen Org, using many ex-Nazis, and P2 masonic lodge has allegedly worked with it (the headmaster, Licio Gelli, was a Gladio member). 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. ‘‘Democraziana Cristiana’’ leader Aldo Moro (assassinated by the Red Brigades in 1978) also has sometimes been said part of Gladio. However, his murder put an end to the “historic compromise” between the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the Christian Democracy (DC), which seem to be one of the objective of the strategy of tension followed by Gladio.

Counter the invasion of the Soviet Union

Officially, 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’s strategy of tension

NATO's “stay-behind” organizations were never called upon to resist a Soviet invasion, but their structures continued to exist. During the ‘‘Anni di piombo’’ (“lead years”), stay-behind movements sometime became linked to right-wing terrorism, crime and attempted coup d'états. Examples of this include the strategy of tension in Italy or the Oktoberfest bomb blast of 1980 in Munich, the explosives of which came from a Gladio cache, according to the perpetrator. Opposed to the Historic compromise between the PCI and the DC, Gladio in fact tried to influence policies using “false flag” operations. Aldo Moro’s murder, in 1978, by the Red Brigades effectively put an end to the PCI’s possible participation to the government. Indeed, in an November 7, 1990 article from French newspaper "Le Monde", a Gladio official says that "depending on the cases, we would block or encourage far-left or far-right terrorism" . According to a December 1990 "Guardian" article by Ed Vulliamy, the first reason of Gladio's discovery was effectively "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" .

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, also quoted by Daniele Ganser , 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 Giandelo Maletti, former head of Italian counterintelligence, confirmed in March 2001 that the CIA might have promoted terrorism in Italy.

Gladio & Stay-Behind Operations in different NATO Countries

First discovered in Italy

While "stay-behind" networks existed in all NATO countries, the Italian branch of Gladio was the first one to be discovered.

Avanguardia Nazionale member Vincenzo Vinciguerra confessed in 1984 to judge Felice Casson of having carried out the May 31, 1972 Peteano terrorist act, in which three policemen died. Until Vinciguerra's trial, the Red Brigades were accused of having carried it out. Vinciguerra explained during his 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. 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."

On October 24, 1990, Giulio Andreotti, head of Italian government, revealed to the Chamber of deputies the existence of "Operazione Gladio", acknowledging to the world the reality of "stay-behind" anticommunists networks. 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.

In November 1995, Neo-Fascists terrorists Valerio Fioravanti and Francesca Mambro were convicted to life imprisonment as executors of the Bologna massacre; Licio Gelli, headmaster of P2 and former OSS/CIA operative, 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 was also accused of involvement in the Bologna massacre. 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing and the "Italicus Expressen" train bombing were also attributed to Gladio operatives.

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.

According to the perpetrator of the Oktoberfest bomb blast of 1980 in Munich, the explosives came from a Gladio cache.

Gladio in Turkey

The "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.

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

According to "La Guerre froide en Belgique" (Cold War in Belgium) from Hans Depraetere et Jenny Dierickx (EPO-Dossier, Anvers, 1986), Communist Party of Belgium's chairman Julien Lahaut assassination in 1950 had both a national and international signification, in which Gladio anti-communist network's influence has been suspected.

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")


See also

Literature

External links

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