-Caveat Lector-
"CIA agent Richard Brenneke alleged that, throughout the 1970's
the CIA had funded the subversive P2 Masonic Lodge, believed to have
been involved in an Aug. 1980 train bombing in Bologna in which 85 people
were killed. Furthermore, Brenneke claimed that, not only does the CIA
continue to finance a revived P2, but that it was involved in the 1986
assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme.
"According to Brenneke, P2, under its Grand master Licio Gelli,
used funds made available by the CIA to set up agencies in West
Germany, Austria and Switzerland, which used for right-wing terrorism.
"Brenneke alleged that President Bush, when director of the CIA,
not only knew about these CIA 'black ops' in Italy (during the 1970s
and 1980s) but was in fact one of the masterminds behind them."
Subj: [CTRL] Operation GLADIO - Part Two of Four Parts
Date: 98-06-03 01:08:19 EDT
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (R. William Davis)
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
copyright StatesWatch
OPERATION GLADIO (cont'd)
1972 Disarming of Gladio
"Gladio has still not been officially disbanded... It was equipped with
arms caches which, according to Mr Andreotti, were recalled in 1972,
although two went missing." (John Wyles. Financial Times, 9/11/90)
1972 Peteano bomb attack
Fascist bomb attack killed three carabinieri (see above)
cl973 Gladio unit visit Britain
"Britain hosted a unit responsible for organising Operation
Gladio...General Gerardo Serraville, who said the Italians trained at a
military base in Britain, was giving evidence in Rome to a parliamentary
inquiry." (see 1990).
23/11/73 Bombing of the plane Argo 16
"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." (Charles Richards, independent, 1/12/90)
1974 Denial of Gladio's existence
"...Andreotti denied the existence of a secret agency linked to the spy
services" (Wolfgang Achtner, Sunday Independent, 11/11/90)
""I can say that the head of the secret services has repeatedly and
unequivocally excluded the existence of a hidden organisation of any type
or size," the Italian Minister of Defence, Giulio Andreotti, told a
judicial enquiry in 1974 into the alleged existence of a secret state
army." (Ed Vulliamy, Guardian, 5/12/90)
1974 British "Gladio" visit to Italy
Gladio "counterparts in Britain, where the plan was given the name
Operation Stay Behind, visited Italy in 1974, according to a senior Italian
intelligence official." (Richard norton-Taylor & David Gow, Guardian,
17/11/90)
1974-79 P2 and US involvement with Gladio?
"Declassified secret service papers reveal that Ted Shackley, deputy
chief of the CIA station in Rome in the 1970's introduced the notorious
Licio Gelli - head of the neo-fascist 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 79, 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 diplomats 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]
investigation." (William Scobie, Observer, 18/11/90)
1978 Red Brigade killing of Aldo Moro
"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, western Europe's largest, which
brought them closer to power than ever before." (Charles Richards & Simon
Jones, Independent, 16/11/90)
"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 last month discovered in a Milan apartment which had once been
used as a Red Brigade hideout. One of those letters made reference to the
involvement of both NATO and the CIA in an Italian based secret service, a
"parallel" army."
(Paddy Agnew, Irish Times, 15/11/90)
"This safe house had been thoroughly searched at the time by Carlo Albert
Dalla Chiesa, the head of counter-terrorism. How is it that the papers had
not been revealed before?" (Charles Richards & Simon Jones, Independent,
16/11/90)
1978 Denial of Gladio's existence
"...Andreotti denied the existence of a secret agency linked to the spy
services" (Wolfgang Achtner, Sunday Independent, 11/11/90)
1980 Sismi takes control of Gladio
"Operational management of Gladio was passed from NATO to Sismi in 1980."
(John Wyles, Financial Times, 9/11/90)
2/8/80 Bologna Station bomb
"The makings of the bomb which killed 85 people at Bologna railway station
in 1980 came from an arsenal used by Gladio, the Italian wing of NATO's
communist-resistance network, 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, Guilio Andreotti, cleared
Gladio's name in a speech to parliament, saying that the secret army did
not drift from its formal NATO military brief." (Ed Vulliamy, Guardian,
16/1/91)
1981 Discovery of P2
"P2 was not uncovered until 1981. Later it was found that every member of
the crisis committee set up by Francesco Cossiga, then interior minister,
now President of the Republic, was a member of P2." (Charles Richards &
Simon Jones, Independent, 16/11/90)
"Links have...been proven between P2 and right-wing terrorism. What has
not been conclusively shown is what direct links there might have been
between the CIA and right-wing terrorism."
(Charles Richards & Simon Jones, Independent, 16/11/90)
"Licio Gelli, grandmaster of the P2 masonic lodge - which a parliamentary
commission found had links with rightwing terrorists - recently had his
jail sentence overturned on appeal. Mr Gelli, as it happens, was a contact
for CIA agents responsible for controlling communist influence in Italy."
(Richard Norton-Taylor, Guardian, 16/11/90)
"Links between Gladio, Italian secret service bosses and the notorious P2
masonic lodge are manifold. The chiefs of all three secret services -.
General Santovito (Sismi), Grassini (Sisde) and Cellari (Cessis) - were
members of the lodge. In the year that Andreotti denied Gladio's existence
[1974], the P2 treasurer, General Siro Dosetti, gave a generous account of
"a secret security structure made up of civilians, parallel to the armed
forces."" (Ed Vulliamy, Guardian, 5/12/90)
January 1990 Magistrate Casson applies to examine Sismi files
"In January [Magistrate Casson] applied for permission to examine the files
of the Sismi. In July, Mr Andreotti granted him permission.
28/6/90-2/7/90 Brenneke disclosures
Four programmes on state television (RAI) allege that the CIA paid Lucio
Gelli to "foment terrorist activities. "In the first programme someone
described simply as "Agent Zero" described how [ex-Swedish Prime Minister
Olaf] 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 "Agent Zero One", alleged 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 till 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." (Richard Bassett, Times, 24/7/90)
"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,
widely believed to have been involved in the August, 1980 Bologna train
station bombing in which 85 people were killed. 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 Grand master, 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 behind
them. In the 1976 general election, the huge success of the Communist
Party...encouraged some to believe that Italy might be close to voting in
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
Branneke had never worked for the agency." (Paddy Agnew, Irish Times,
24/7/90)
"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 l969 to 1980. He said
he had made payments which ranged from $lm to $10m 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 dealings, 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."
(Mark Hosenball, Sunday Times, 29/7/90)
"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."
(Independent, 2/8/90)
18/7/90 Bologna Bombers Appeal
"An Italian appeal court yesterday...overturned the convictions of all 13
people held responsible for...the bomb blast that devastated Bologna
Railway station... The court acquitted four neo-fascists sentenced to life
imprisonment for the attack; Valerio Fioravanti, his wife, Francesca
Mambro, Massimiliano Fachini and Sergio Pieciafuoco, and nine other people
accused of complicity in the crime. Licio Gelli, the ex-grandmaster of the
illegal P-2 Masonic Lodge, and Francesco Pazienza, a former secret agent,
were also acquitted. They had been given a seven year sentence for
allegedly staging an elaborate hoax to protect the bombers. (Fiona Leney,
Independent, 19/7/90)
2/8/90 Anniversary of Bologna Bombing
"On the eve of the 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."" (Ed Vulliamy, Guardian, 3/8/90)
September 1990 Gladio Coordination Committee Meeting
The network, Belgian authorities say, held its latest coordination
committee meeting in Brussels during September." (John Palmer, Guardian,
10/11/90)
October 1990 Discovery of Moro letters
"A cache of previously unknown letters written by 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 these letters made reference to the involvement of
both Nato and the CIA in an Italian-based secret service, "parallel" army."
(Paddy Agnew, Irish Times, 15/11/90)
"Most [of the Moro letters] were written answers to questions put by his
captors about his political philosophy, Nato, the Christian Democrat party
and so on. One line which may come back to haunt today's political leaders
was: Beware of Andreotti. He's too close to Nato." (Charles Richards &
Simon Jones, Independent, 16/11/90)
"A group of judges examin[ed] 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 [which]
... might be implicated in the destruction of our country."" (Ed Vulliamy,
Guardian, 5/12/90)
cOctober 1990 Inquiry into Peteano killings
"Details of Gladio emerged after a Venetian magistrate, Felice Casson,
stumbled across records of the group during an inquiry into a terrorist
murder which took him into the archives of the Italian secret service. Mr
Andreotti, who has already been interviewed by judge Casson, was forced to
report to parliament detailing the creation of the group..." (Fiona Leney
& Wolfgang Achtner, Independent, 10/11/90)
"Venetian magistrate, Mr Felice Casson, was searching through classified
documents in Italian secret service archives. Mr Casson's investigations
into a 1972 terrorist attack had led him to conclude that some form of
Nato-sponsored secret army had operated, and was still operating, in
Italy." (Paddy Agnew, Irish Times, 15/11/90)
"Guilio Andreotti, the Christian Democrat Prime Minister... admitted that
"certain activities had been carried out under a Nato umbrella in
consideration of a possible invasion, but said the organisation had ceased
to exist in 1972." (Fiona Leney & Wolfgang Achtner, Independent,
10/11/90)
October 1990 President Cossiga admits involvement
"President Francesco Cossiga...said last month that he was proud that as
a junior defence minister he had drawn up Gladio's formal defence
structure." (Fiona Leney & Wolfgang Achtner, Independent, 10/11/90)
November 1990 Disbandment of Gladio?
"Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti...told parliament that 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." (Fiona Leney & Wolfgang Achtner, Independent,
10/11/90)
November 1990 Casson dossier goes to Rome
"Last week he [magistrate Felice Casson] despatched to Rome, under police
guard, photostats of all the evidence he has gathered. The 10,000 word
dossier, Casson aides say, relates the Gladio set-up to politico-military
subversion and contains some explosive material 'that could topple the
government at any moment.' A copy goes to the Attorney General, who can
decide on prosecutions., (William Scobie, Observer, 18/11/90)
November 1990 PM Giulio Andreotti and Gladio
"Two Communist MPs got into the secret training base near Alghero,
Sardinia" They found "a well-worn billiard table which, until last week,
bore a shining brass plate: 'To the men of Gladio - from Giulio Andreotti'.
The plate is no more, removed at short notice on orders from its donor,
Italy's Prime Minister."
(William Scobie, Observer, 18/11/90)
14/11/90 Publication of Gladio members
"On Wednesday, the Italian magazine, Europeo, gave details of 622
"gladiators", two of them women." (Richard Norton-Taylor, Guardian,
16/11/90)
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