Operation Gladio

by Paul L. Williams

  By 1951, the CIA began supplying arms and material to the KMT troops engaged in opium cultivation. This venture—known as Operation Paper—became the second example of the CIA conducting off-the-books foreign policy with assets of which the American people and most elected officials remained completely unaware. The decisions concerning this policy were made within the Office of Policy Coordination by a very small group of elite intelligence officials, whose parameters remained undefined. The Office of Policy Coordination would grow into the so-called “military-industrial complex,” which would rely on privatized military and intelligence contractors, international bankers, and even Washington's most highly organized lobbyists.

  THE WORLD COMMERCE CORPORATION

  To expedite the arms-for-drugs venture in the Far East, Wild Bill Donovan resigned from the military to form the World Commerce Corporation (WCC) with a small group of very wealthy friends, including Nelson Rockefeller, Joseph C. Grew (nephew of J. P. Morgan), Alfred DuPont, and Charles Jocelyn Hambro of the Hambros Bank. The firm, which was registered in Panama, employed mob figure Sonny Fassoulis, an international arms dealer, to provide “services” to General Chaing's National Army.10 The primary function of the WCC was to buy and sell surplus US weapons and munitions to foreign underworld groups, including the KMT and the Italian Mafias. In exchange for the arms, the KMT provided the opium required to create the CIA as the US postwar intelligence agency.11

  The opium was flown from the mountains of Burma and Laos by Civil Air Transport to Bangkok, where the planes were emptied and loaded with weapons for the return flight to the poppy fields. In Bangkok, General Phao Sriyanonda, director general of Thailand's national police, employed his officers to load the product on the freighters of a mysterious shipping company called Sea Supply, Inc., a CIA front run by Paul Helliwell, who now served at the Burmese consulate in Miami.12 In 1954, British customs in Singapore stated that Bangkok had become the major center for opium trafficking in Southeast Asia.13 The drug trade became so lucrative that Thailand abandoned the anti-opium campaign it had launched in 1948.14

  INTELLIGENCE SUBCULTURE

  General Phao developed a close friendship with Donovan, who had been appointed US ambassador to Thailand. Indeed, Wild Bill became so enthralled with Phao that he nominated the Thai general for a Legion of Merit award.15 Although he did not win the award, Phao, by 1953, had received $35 million in aid from the CIA, including gifts of several naval vessels and cargo planes used to transport drugs to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Marseilles.16 These were given with the expectation that the KMT would launch guerrilla raids into China.

  The WCC and Sea Supply, like Civil Air Transport (CAT), emerged from a subculture within the intelligence community of extremely wealthy and well-connected lawyers and businessmen who, at the time, were not part of any official government agency.17 This subculture would eventually give rise to a network of banks (including the Bank of Credit and Commerce International) and proprietary businesses (including the American International Group of C. V. Starr), which were created to support and conceal the flow of money from the heroin trade.18

  CARDINAL SPELLMAN'S ENDORSEMENT

  By 1958, the opium trade in Southeast Asia became so brisk that a second drug supply line was established by the CIA. This route ran from dirt airstrips within the Annamite Mountains of Laos to Saigon's international airport for transshipment to Europe and the United States. In addition to CAT, the CIA contracted the services of small Corsican airplanes for this transport.19 The Saigon drop would have been impossible without the cooperation of Ngo Dinh Diem, the president of South Vietnam, and Diem's brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, who served as his chief advisor. Diem, a devout Roman Catholic, had been instructed by the pope to cooperate with the strategies of the U S government to thwart the gains of Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese.20 The cooperation was deemed so important by the Vatican that Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York formed a pro-Diem lobby in Washington. Through speeches and pamphlets, Spellman presented the people of Vietnam as a terrified throng cowering before the cruel and bloodthirsty Viet Minh—the Vietnamese independence coalition led by Ho Chi Minh—to the God-fearing Diem for salvation. Such tactics raised the ire of British writer Graham Greene, himself a devout Catholic, who dispatched the following from Saigon to London's Sunday Times:

  It is Catholicism which has helped ruin the government of Mr. Diem, for his genuine piety has been exploited by his American advisors until the Church is in danger of sharing the unpopularity of the United States. An unfortunate visit by Cardinal Spellman has been followed by those of Cardinal Gillroy and the Archbishop of Canberra. Great sums are spent on organizing demonstrations for the visitors, and an impression is given that the Catholic Church is occidental and an ally of the United States in the cold war. On rare occasions, when Mr. Diem has visited areas formerly held by the Viet Minh, there has been a priest at his side, and usually an American one.21

  The CIA provided millions in covert funding for Diem and his brother to expand the scope of their intelligence work and the extent of their political repression of the Vietnamese people.22 The support continued even after the corrupt Diem, whose government descended into chaos, was driven from office by a CIA-supported military junta in 1963. Saigon was now a city of strategic importance.

  FALSE FLAGS AND MEDIA CONTROL

  As the Western world became increasingly inundated with heroin, the CIA, through spokesmen such as George White of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), placed the blame on Chairman Mao and the People's Republic of China, who were accused of orchestrating the movement of between two hundred and four hundred tons of opium per year from Yunnan to Bangkok.23 The Agency also presented General Phao, the linchpin in the Asian drug connection, as America's best hope in combating this drug menace. Such reports represented the first unfurling of a CIA false flag.

  Knowing the importance of issuing such false reports, the CIA, under Allen Dulles, initiated Operation Mockingbird in 1953. This operation involved recruiting leading journalists and editors to fabricate stories and create smoke screens in order to cast the Agency's agenda in a positive light. Among the news executives taking part were William Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), Henry Luce of Time Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the Louisville Courier-Journal, and James Copley of Copley Press. Entire news organizations eventually became part of Mockingbird, including the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps Howard, Newsweek, the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald, the Saturday Evening Post, and the New York Herald Tribune. With over four hundred journalists now involved, along with mainstream news outlets, the Agency could operate without fear of exposure.24

  THE CATHOLIC CONNECTION

  To aid in the process of washing the billions from the heroin trade, the CIA worked in tandem with Henry Manfredi, who established the FBN's first overseas operation in Rome in 1951. Manfredi had established close ties to Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, then the Vatican undersecretary of state and later Pope Paul VI.25 Through Montini, the FBN arranged to divert the flow of cash, at first through the Merrill Lynch Brokerage House and, eventually, through a host of parochial banks in Italy, before it finally arrived at the IOR.26

  The transactions were supervised by Massimo Spada, a senior official at the Vatican Bank. Spada, a Knight of Malta, chaired or served on the boards of the astonishing array of companies owned by the Holy See, including Società Italiana per il Gas (Italy's central source of natural gas), Riunione Adriatica di Sicurta insurance company, Istituto Bancario Italiano, Credito Commerciale di Cremona, Banca Privata Finanziaria, Banca Cattolica del Veneto, and Finsider (a conglomerate that owned the Italia shipping line, Alitalia airlines, Alfa Romeo, and Italy's telephone system), along with producing 90 percent of Italy's steel. 27 For assistance in managing the billions, Spada turned to tax attorney Michele Si
ndona, a leading figure in the Sicilian Mafia.28

  PRESENTING SINDONA

  A peasant from Patti, Sicily, Sindona earned his degree in tax law from the University of Messina in 1942. Following the Allied invasion, he abandoned his practice to become a leading figure in the black market, delivering lemons to the rural areas of central Sicily and trading them for wheat and other commodities that were in short supply in Palermo and Messina. This venture required the protection of the Mafia, which controlled the produce industry and the border guards. Through the intervention of the bishop of Patti, who had close ties to Vito Genovese, Sindona was able to gain this protection. The bishop used his influence with the Sicilian dons and US military officials to provide Sindona with fresh produce, forged papers, and safe passage through the country.29 Sindona used a portion of his profits to purchase arms from the Allied Military Government, which he then provided to Salvatore Giuliano and other members of the Movement for the Independence of Sicily.30

  By the end of the war, Sindona had become a respected member of the Luciano/Don Calo crime family and one of the Sicilian Mafia's leading financial advisors. Between 1952 and 1955, he spent a considerable amount of time in New York, acting as Luciano's emissary to Vito Genovese.31 By 1955, he had also become a CIA operative, providing a steady flow of black funds to leading Catholic dignitaries, including Giovanni Montini, who had by now been appointed Archbishop of Milan.32 Montini, in turn, introduced the ambitious young lawyer to Massimo Spada. Sindona now formed an integral part of the nexus between the CIA, the mob, and the Vatican, and he would come to play a crucial part in a chain of events that would result in the toppling of governments, wholesale slaughter, and widespread financial devastation.

  The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.

  “Declaration on Masonic Associations,”

  The Sacred Congregation of the Faith,

  November 26, 1983.

  Throughout the 1950s, hundreds of Italian clerics and members of the Church's “black nobility” joined the Mafia in support of Operation Gladio. Paolo Taviani, one of the founders of the Christian Democratic Party and the country's new Minister of Defense, became one of the commanders of the 622 stay-behind units in Italy. Each unit consisted of twelve to fifteen troops, all of which were trained by US and British forces at the Capo Marargiu base on the northern tip of Sardinia. The units established 139 arms caches, mostly in northeast Italy near the Gorizia Gap, through which any Soviet invasion was expected to come.1

  By 1955, ecclesiastical units of the stay-behind operation—known as Catholic Gladio—popped up in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, a region of Italy bordering the Communist bloc. Cardinal Giuseppe Siri and the Italian Episcopal Conference supervised its establishment.2 The Catholic units were led by Augustin Bea, rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute; Agostino Casaroli, his Privy Chamberlain; and Fiorenzo Angelini, Master of Pontifical Ceremonies. These three clerics, who had been dispatched by the Holy Father, were soon joined by Michele Giordano, a diocesan assistant of Catholic Action.3 All four prelates eventually were elevated to the College of Cardinals for their work in the clandestine undertaking. Leading lay figures of the Catholic nobility also became prominent in Catholic Gladio, including Giulio Andreotti, a cofounder of the Christian Democratic Party, and Umberto Ortolani, the “secret Chamberlain of the Papal Household” and member of the inner circle of the Knights of Malta.4

  Thousands of priests and bishops were now trained not only for the ideological war against Communism but also for actual combat in case the Cold War became hot. So many ethnic Slovenes with leftist leanings were terrorized by the antics of Catholic Gladio troops that two-thirds of them moved to more hospitable locations.5 Throughout the 1950s, money for the activities of Catholic Gladio was provided by the CIA, which annually allocated $30 to $50 million to covert operations in Italy. These funds were not only washed by the Vatican but also funneled by the pope to groups and organizations that met with his approval.6 Former CIA agent Victor Marchetti later testified:

  In the 1950s and the 1960s the CIA gave economic support to many activities promoted by the Catholic Church, from orphanages to missions. Millions of dollars each year were given to a great number of bishops and monsignors. One of them was Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini [who became Pope Paul VI].7

  BIRTH OF P2

  To protect the clandestine nature of Catholic Gladio and the other stay-behind units, meetings of the anti-Communist forces were conducted in Masonic lodges. Eventually, several “stay-behind” units in Italy evolved into covert Masonic organizations. One such unit became known as Propaganda Due, or P2.

  The name P2 was derived from Propaganda Massonica, a lodge formed in 1877 by members of the Piedmont nobility in Turin. This lodge was distinctly different than most, since many of its members were Mafiosi and military officers, who were more concerned about political beliefs than other Masons. Initiates who entered Propaganda Massonica were threatened with “certain and violent death” if they revealed any of the society's secrets. The presence of the Mafia among the lodge members guaranteed that this demand for omerta was not an idle threat.8 In 1924, Freemasonry in Italy was outlawed by Mussolini as politically subversive and the Propaganda Massonica shut its doors and rolled up its ledgers.9

  The revitalization of the lodge as Propaganda Due, or P2, met with the full approval of Allen Dulles, the CIA director and a thirty-third degree Mason, who realized that the split in the Italian Socialist Party, resulting in the creation of the Italian Social Democratic Party, was “entirely provoked by Freemasons in the United States and Italy” through orchestrated infiltration.10 The anti-Communist animus within the Grand Orient of Italy (the organization that governed the lodges) pulled Italian Freemasonry to the right. In the 1950s the lodges were able to provide ex-fascists with democratic cover and also gave them contacts in the American Masons who were ready to raise funds to address the Red Menace. Giordano Gamberini, the Grand Master of Italian Masons and a CIA operative, became known as the “traveling salesman of anti-Communism.”11 Thanks in part to his efforts, lodges popped up on NATO bases throughout the country, beginning with the Benjamin Franklin, which was established on July 25, 1959.12

  THE BLIND EYE

  Pius XII, by his silence, appeared to endorse the rise of Freemasonry in postwar Italy. This tacit approval was stunning since the Roman Catholic Church had condemned Freemasonry and banned its members from participating in Masonic rites, under threat of excommunication.13 The dangerous errors of this fraternal organization had been set forth as follows:

  God as described in Masonic works is an impersonal ‘Great Architect of the Universe,’ not the personal God of the Patriarchs, the One True God of Revelation, the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit.

  Masonic writings specifically deny that God has revealed Himself and His truths to us, or that He ever established a Church.

  In Masonry Jesus Christ is portrayed as merely a man, a great teacher, on a par with Buddha or Mohammed and His Divinity is denied.

  The Trinity is denied and compared to the ‘trinitiesî’ of pagan religions.

  Christianity is considered a derivative of ancient pagan religions and like all religions deliberately ladens itself with error. God is portrayed as a deceiver who leads many men away from truth as not all are worthy of it.

  All truth is relative according to Masonry, thereby rejecting objective, absolute truth and therefore the dogmas of the Catholic faith.

  Freemasonry is portrayed as the foundation of all religion and it is built on Naturalism, a system of belief that makes human nature and human reason supreme in all things.

  At the various degrees when an oath is sworn, even the initial ones, it is a blood oath swearing for example, ‘binding myself by no less penalty than that of having my throat cut from ear to ear, my tongue torn out by its roots, and buried in the sands of the sea.’14

  But such teachings suddenly paled in impor
tance before the rise of Marxist doctrine.

  MAFIA MASONS

  Propaganda Due also became a magnet for the Mafia, since both the Mafia and the Freemasons were secret societies that had been banned by the fascists. Cesare Mori, whom Mussolini placed in charge of eradicating the Mafia, employed a means of interrogation, known as the cassetta. By this technique, a suspect was tied to a wooden crate, whipped with a leather lash that had been soaked in salt water, and shocked with a cattle prod while his genitals were squeezed in a vice. Hundreds of Mafia leaders, or “reprobates” as Mori called them, were tracked down and subjugated to this means of torture.15

  At the close of World War II, prominent Men of Respect, including Salvatore Greco (“the Engineer”) and Antonio Cottone (leader of the Mafia of the Gardens, which was responsible for the fruit markets and citrus growers), became active in Masonic lodges.16 The soldiers in the service of such dons closed ranks by submitting to Masonic initiation. By 1955, the Grand Orient of Italy could boast of such Mafiosi Masons as Antonino (“Nino”) Salvo, Pino Mandalari (master accountant for the Sicilian clans), and Giuseppe “Pippo” Calderone.17 Over the next two decades, 2,411 members of the Mafia took orders within Sicily's 113 lodges. Concerning this development, Sicilian mobster Leonardo Messina said: “Many uomini d'onore [men of honor], in particular, those who succeed in becoming Mafia bosses, belong to the Freemasonry…because it is in the Freemasonry that they can have total relationships with the entrepreneurs and with institutions.”18