Operation Gladio
Page 12
Blame, of course, was placed on the Red Brigades and the radical left. But there was a problem that could not be resolved by the roundup of the usual suspects. The bomb that had been used in Bologna was not an ordinary explosive. It was a sophisticated device made of TNT and Composition B—a device that had been developed for use by the US military. What's more, the bomb was very similar to the explosives which the Italian police had found in the arms dump near Trieste. The planners had made a mistake—a mistake that was complicated by the presence of members of the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (NAR, “Armed Revolutionary Nuclei”) at the train station. The NAR, like Ordine Nuovo, was a violent neofascist group, and its leader Valerio Fioravanti, had been slightly injured by blast.62
A WEB OF DECEPTION
On August 26, the prosecutor of Bologna issued arrest warrants for twenty-six NAR members, who were interrogated in Ferrara, Rome, Padua, and Parma. All, thanks to the intervention of SISMI, were released from custody.63 Gelli and his fellow gladiators were now forced to lead investigators in the wrong direction by bringing forward believable suspects. The web of deception was allegedly woven by Michael Ledeen, a US operative who worked closely with P2 controlled SISMI.64 Ledeen, at the time, was serving at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank that had been established by the CIA. In 1981, Henry Kissinger maintained an office at CSIS along with Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981.65
The carefully constructed new report, which was leaked to the Italian press by SISMI, placed the blame for the bombing on a group of international terrorists known as the European National Fascists, whose leader was Karl Heinz Hoffman.66 Hoffman's group, the phony report alleged, had been trained for the attack in Lebanon by Salah Khalef (also known as Abu Iyad), a leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization. This report seemed credible. Eight weeks after the Bologna bombing, on September 26, a member of Hoffman's group had blown himself up at Oktoberfest in Munich, killing 12 others and wounding 215. A week later in Paris, a bomb planted by the group in front of a synagogue had killed 4 persons and wounded 13.67 This explanation might have held despite the fact that it was denied by the PLO and could not be verified by prosecutor Aldo Gentile, who made several trips to Lebanon.
THE UNCOVERED LIST
But too many mistakes had been made. Nagging questions remained about the Composition 4, the mysterious arms dumps, and the collective testimony of the suspects who had been taken into custody from 1969 to 1980—the so-called “years of lead” (Anni di Piombo—a reference to the number of bullets that were fired during this decade). What's more, on March 7, 1981, a raid on Licio Gelli's villa uncovered a list of 962 P2 members that included top Italian intelligence, military, media, and political officials in SISMI, along with several prominent Argentines. Some of the more interesting names were as follows:
Silvio Berlusconi—businessman, future founder of the Forza Italia political party, and future prime minister of Italy
Michele Sindona
Roberto Calvi
Umberto Ortolani
Franco Di Bella, director of Corriere della Sera, the leading Italian daily newspaper
Angelo Rizzoli Jr., owner of Corriere della Sera
Bruno Tassan Din, general director of Corriere della Sera
General Vito Miceli, chief of the Italian Army Intelligence Service from 1969 to 1974
Federico Umberto D'Amato, leader of an intelligence cell (Ufficio affari riservati) in the Italian Minister of Interior
General Giuseppe Santovito, chief of the Italian Army Intelligence Service from 1978 to 1981
Admiral Giovanni Torrisi, Chief of the General Staff of the Army
General Giulio Grassini, head of Italy's central intelligence service (SISDE) from 1977 to 1981
General Pietro Musumeci, deputy director of Italy's Army Intelligence Service, SISMI
General Franco Picchiotti
General Giovan Battista Palumbo
General Raffaele Giudice, commander of the Guardia di Finanza from 1974 to 1978
General Orazio Giannini, commander of the Guardia di Finanza from 1980 to 1981
Carmine Pecorelli, the journalist who was assassinated on March 20, 1979
Maurizio Costanzo, a leading television talk show host
Pietro Longo, secretary of the Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI)
Emilio Massera (Argentina), a member of the military junta led by Jorge Rafael Videla in Buenos Aires from 1976 to 1978
José López Rega (Argentina), Argentina's Minister of Social Welfare in Perón's government and founder of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (“Triple A”)
Raúl Alberto Lastiri, president of Argentina from July 13, 1973, to October 12, 1973
Alberto Vignes, Argentina's Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1973 to 1975
Carlos Alberto Corti, Argentina's Naval Commander admiral
Stefano Delle Chiaie, Italian neofascist with ties to the military junta in Argentina68
The publication of the names created a national furor that resulted in the collapse of the government of Arnaldo Forlani, Italy's prime minister The Italian people were aghast to learn that their most powerful political, military, and media leaders were members of the clandestine lodge. But the discovery did not directly link the lodge with the Bologna bombing or the other attacks that had taken place during the years of lead. That link would be eventually found in the Rome airport within the suitcase of Gelli's daughter. The two documents outlining the master plan of the Masonic group, coupled with the top secret US Army document, were enough to convince Judge Felice Casson and his team of investigators that P2 had been involved in the attacks and that the secret society was acting as a proxy for the CIA.69 What's more, the investigators realized that the secret society, acting under orders of US officials, had been initiating acts of terror throughout the Western World, and most particularly in Argentina, under the watchful eye if not the blessing of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who would ascend to the papal throne as Pope Francis I.
Operation Condor is the code name given for intelligence collection on leftists, communists and Marxists in the Southern Cone Area. It was established between cooperating intelligence services in South America in order to eliminate Marxist terrorist activities in member countries with Chile reportedly being the center of operations. Other participating members include: Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia. Members showing the most enthusiasm to date have been Argentina, Uruguay and Chile.
US Department of Defense Document, October 1, 1976
From 1965 to 1981, scores of additional terrorist attacks by Gladio units took place in countries throughout Europe. Several of the more notable incidents are as follows:
1965 In Portugal the CIA established Aginter Press, a stay-behind unit under the command of Captain Yves Guerin Serac. The unit was trained in covert action techniques—including hands-on bomb terrorism, silent assassination, subversion techniques, clandestine communication, and infiltration and colonial warfare. The unit was responsible for the murders of Humberto Delgado, founder of the left-wing Portuguese National Liberation Front on February 13, 1965; Eduardo Mondlane, leader of the FRELIMO Independence Movement in the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, on February 3, 1969; and Amilcar Cabral, the Marxist spokesman for African Party Independence Movement of Guinea and Cape Verde on January 20, 1973.1 In 1967, Aginter Press guerrilla leaders traveled to Italy at the instigation of the CIA to train members of Avanguardia Nazionale in the use of explosives for the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing.2
1966 In France President Charles de Gaulle denounced the secret warfare of the Pentagon and expelled the European headquarters of NATO. De Gaulle's actions were triggered by a series of attempts by the French Gladio unit to assassinate him.3
1967 In Greece the Hellenic Raiding Force (Lochos Oreinon Katadromon), which had been integrated into Gladio, overthrew the Greek Defense Ministry, ousted the left-leaning Center Uni
on of George Papandreou, and set up a military dictatorship. When the colonels who led the coup asked Gust Avrakotos, the leading CIA operative in Greece, what to do with Papandreou, he reportedly said: “Shoot the motherfucker because he's going to come back to haunt you.”4 They ignored this advice and under heavy pressure from American academics, including John Kenneth Galbraith, agreed to release him. In 1974, Papandreou returned to Greece to form the Panhellenic Socialist Movement.
1970 In Spain Stefano delle Chiaie and other terrorists from Italy's stay-behind army became “security consultants” for General Francisco Franco's secret police, conducting over a thousand violent attacks and committing an estimated fifty murders. Among their victims were members of the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, who had been fighting for Basque independence.5 After Franco's death in 1975, delle Chiaie moved to Chile, where he set up “death squads” under CIA-installed dictator Augusto Pinochet.
1977 In Spain the secret stay-behind army, with support of Italian right-wing terrorists, carried out the Atocha massacre, attacking a lawyer's office where members of the Workers’ Commission Trade Union and the then clandestine Communist party of Spain had gathered. Five people were killed in the attack.6
1980 In Turkey the commander of the stay-behind army Counter-Guerrilla, General Kenan Evren, and the Grey Wolves, Turkey's Gladio unit, initiated yet another successful military coup to seize control of the government.7 Like Italy, Turkey remained of pivotal concern to Gladio during the Cold War. It guarded one-third of NATO's total borders with Warsaw Pact countries and maintained the largest armed forces in Europe. Knowing that a Communist takeover of Turkey would be catastrophic, the Gladio forces, at the instigation of the CIA, opened fire on a rally of a million trade union supporters in Taskim Square. The massacre of 1977 resulted in the deaths of thirty-eight demonstrators and the wounding of hundreds more.
1981 In Germany a large stay-behind arsenal was discovered near the German village of Uelzen in the Lüneburger Heide. Right-wing extremists had used the arsenal in the previous year to carry out the Munich Oktoberfest massacre in which 13 people were killed and 213 wounded.8
LATINS LEAN LEFT
But Latin America emerged as an area of such nagging concern that the CIA, in tandem with the Vatican, launched Operation Condor as a Latin American version of Gladio. Like Gladio, the new undertaking arose from concern over the spread of Communism that would spell disaster for US political and economic concerns and Catholic teaching. The word communist, by this time, was applied so liberally and so loosely to revolutionary or radical regimes by US intelligence that any government risked being so labeled if it advocated nationalization of private industry (particularly foreign-owned corporations), radical land reform, autarkic trade policies, acceptance of Soviet aid, or an anti-American foreign policy.9
THE GAME PLAN
The game plan of Operation Condor was developed, in part, in the 1950s at the Brazilian Advanced War College (Escola Superior de Guerra), a carbon copy of the US National War College.10 The Advanced War College was responsible for national security studies, development of military strategy, and the implementation of the plan for “nation building.” This plan, adopted from the Pentagon and the US Army's experience of reconstructing postwar Japan, stemmed from what Karl Haushofer called the “science” of geopolitics.
Brazilian geopolitics, as developed by the War College, was based on the premise of a permanent world war between the forces of Communism and the West. Because by size and geographical position Brazil dominated the South Atlantic, it had a duty to keep that part of the world (in the words of Woodrow Wilson) “safe for democracy and free enterprise.” A corollary of this assertion was that Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay should become satellites of their much larger neighbor. That objective was eventually achieved by economic imperialism and “living frontiers”—that is, by Brazilian colonists invading poorly protected border lands, such as the Upper Paraná River basin of Paraguay.11
Students at the Advanced War College, including Humberto Castelo Branco and Golbery do Couto e Silva, were taught by US military and intelligence officials, including Lieutenant Colonel Vernon Walters, the CIA's chief coup engineer.12 In 1964, the graduates of the college united into a junta that overthrew the democratically elected left-wing government of João Goulart. Following the coup, Castelo Branco emerged as the new Brazilian president and Silva as the head of Brazil's first national intelligence service.13
The coup could not have been accomplished without the outlay of more than $20 million from the CIA, and the military officials who formed the junta were duly grateful. To show their appreciation, the officials accepted the entire package of US demands, including a generous new profit remittance law and an investment guarantee treaty covering US subsidiaries. Within two years of Goulart's overthrow, thanks to these concessions, foreign companies gained control of 50 percent of Brazilian industry—often through the expediency of what the Brazilian Finance Ministry called “constructive bankruptcy,” a combination of fiscal and monetary measures that forced local firms to sell to foreign interests or go broke. By 1971, fourteen of the country's twenty-seven largest companies were in foreign hands; of the remainder, eight were state-owned and only five were private Brazilian firms.14
PERÓN AND P2
When Condor was launched in 1969, Argentina—unlike Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and Uruguay—posed no real problem. The majority of the country remained deeply conservative and devoutly Catholic. Juan Perón had returned from exile to defeat President Héctor Cámbora in the general election. This, for the Church and the CIA, was a happy development. Cambora, during his short term, had restored diplomatic relations with Cuba and had granted amnesty to all political prisoners. The country had fallen into chaos as six hundred social conflicts, strikes, and factory occupations erupted throughout the country. Perón, to no one's surprise, received a whopping 62 percent of the vote and began his third term as president on October 12, with Isabel, his wife, as vice president.
Licio Gelli was a guest of honor at the inauguration. Following the ceremony, Perón knelt at the feet of the P2 Worshipful Master. Italy's prime minister Andreotti was also in attendance but failed to receive such a gesture of obeisance from the Argentine president.15 The act was more than symbolic. Gelli had mustered substantial support for Perón's return from the CIA and funneled over $70 million in black funds to Perón's Civic Front of National Liberation. The day before his return to Buenos Aires, Perón had knelt before Gelli in a secret ceremony to become a member of the P2. The rite was performed within Perón's villa in the Puerta de Hierro district of Madrid.16 Following the ceremony, Perón boarded an Alitalia plane that had been chartered by Gelli for his triumphant return to his native land.17
In 1974, Perón issued a decree granting Gelli the Gran Cruz de la Orden del Libertador, Argentina's highest honor, and appointing him the honorary ambassador to Italy.18 By this time, a P2 lodge had been established in Argentina. Among its charter members were Admiral Emilio Massera; Raúl Alberto Lastiri, former Argentine president; José López Rega, Perón's minister of social welfare and the founder of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (“Triple A”); Alberto Vignes, Perón's minister of foreign affairs; and naval commander Carlos Alberto Corti.19
THE COMMUNIST UPRISING
But thirteen months after his return to office, Perón died after suffering a series of massive heart attacks. He was succeeded by Isabel, who proved to be incapable of coping with mounting resistance from the Guevarist ERP (Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo—People's Revolutionary Army)—which continued in the tradition of Che Guevara, the Argentine Marxist revolutionary who had been killed in 1967 by CIA-assisted forces in Bolivia—and the Montoneros (Movimiento Peronista Montonero, or MPM), a group of indigenous people who opposed the Spanish colonization of their land. Throughout 1974, the two left-wing groups launched attacks on business and political leaders throughout the country, killing executives from General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, and raiding militar
y bases for weapons and explosives. By 1975, the guerrillas had conducted ambushes on the police and pitched battles against the army. An estimated ten thousand Argentines were killed in the struggle.20
But along with the bloodshed came something from Argentina that was infinitely more sinister in the eyes of the Vatican—an ideology that threatened not only the fundamental purpose of US imperialism but also the very core of Roman Catholic doctrine.
THE NEW HERESY
This ideology first reared its hoary head at a conference of Latin American bishops in Medellin, Colombia in 1968, when the bishops, instead of upholding the latest encyclicals from Pope Paul VI, called upon the Vatican in their official proclamation to “defend the rights of the oppressed” and to uphold a “preferential option for the poor” in the struggle for social justice. The bishops condemned the Holy See's alignment with the powerful elite and denounced the oppression of the Latin American people not only by strong-arm dictators but also by the United States and other First World countries. The most pressing issue of the day, they declared, was not economic development but political oppression. What's more, in an official proclamation known as the Medellin document, the clerics declared that violence is sometimes necessary when directed against the government and social institutions.21
New York governor Nelson Rockefeller foresaw the danger of the new theology. After his 1969 tour of Latin America on President Nixon's behalf, he warned the US business community of the anti-imperialist nature of the Medellin document. The Rockefeller Report, which became the basis of Nixon's Latin American policy, spoke of the need for the emergence of military regimes that would put an end to the movement and warned the Nixon Administration that it had better keep an eye on the Catholic Church south of the border, since it suddenly had become “vulnerable to subversive penetration.”22
PRIESTS IN REVOLT