Operation Gladio

by Paul L. Williams

  Sindona could not believe that such an affidavit from a “reliable” government official would be bogus. He took the bait and refrained from making further statements until September 24, 1984, when the US Justice Department issued the order for his extradition to Milan. Upon hearing the news, Sindona went ballistic. He said, “If I finally get there, if no one does me in first—and I've already heard talk of giving me a poisoned cup of coffee—I'll make my trial into a real circus. I'll tell everything.”31

  On September 25, Sindona was transported to the Rebibbia prison in Rome, where he was placed in the maximum-security cell that had been occupied by Mehmet Ali Ağca. Five days later, he was moved to the Casa Circondariale Femminile in Voghera, on the outskirts of Milan, where he became the sole male inmate in a women's prison.32 Voghera, a maximum-security facility, was trumpeted as a “supercarcere” or “super-prison.” Barely four years old, it was the first fully electronic penitentiary in Europe.33

  SPILLING HIS GUTS

  While awaiting trial, Sindona made contact with Nick Tosches, an American journalist who penned articles for the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and the Village Voice. When the reporter arrived at Voghera, the caged don began to spill his guts. He spoke of matters that never before had been revealed to the press, including the US government's protection of the drug trade and how they had allowed “dirty money to accumulate in the hands of a few men.” Sindona maintained that US agencies, such as the President's Commission on Organized Crime, functioned not to find dirty money but rather to “create it.” He added that such agencies often captured “intermediaries in the drug trade,” but never the real “crime lords,” who had become “the world's establishment.”34

  Sindona spoke of Gelli, P2, and the fear of an Italian Communist dictatorship that gave rise to the strategy of tension. He said that he sent regular reports on developments within the Italian Communist Party to US ambassador Martin and the White House.35 And he talked about the Vatican and the IOR's involvement in laundering dirty money:

  If you wish, you can go right now to Milan or to Rome with $1 million, $10 million in cash, with me or some other Italian who knows his way around. In a matter of minutes, we would find any number of persons or organizations offering us their services to transfer the money abroad, in nero, without risk. Ten minutes later, you would have confirmation that your money has been credited to you, in the currency of your choice, in Switzerland, Austria, or the Bahamas, minus a service fee….

  The pope's bank, the IOR, had been involved in such services since its founding. In general, the IOR catered to other banks, whose more privileged clients sought the added security and secrecy offered by Vatican channels.

  The IOR would open a running account with the Italian credit bank that wanted to export lire in nero. The client of the Italian bank would deposit the lire in cash in that account, and the IOR would credit to him abroad, in the currency and the bank of his choice. In the process, the IOR would deduct a commission that was slightly higher than the going rate.

  The Banca d'Italia and the other authorities never interfered, as they were convinced that the Holy See, if pressed, would respond that, being a sovereign foreign government, it was not under obligation to furnish any information to Italy.36

  But Sindona was not completely candid with Tosches. Still clinging to the hope that the powerful political leaders he had served, including Prime Minister Andreotti, would effect his release, he did not speak of his pivotal roles in such enterprises as establishing the heroin trade between the Sicilian and American Mafias, implementing the strategy of tension with the millions of dollars he had received from Ambassador Martin, creating massive financial holes for the disappearance of billions in cash, commissioning the killing of Giorgio Ambrosoli, and planning his own bizarre kidnapping. He also neglected to mention his long-standing ties with the CIA in a covert operation called Gladio. It was best, he thought, not to play all his aces.

  TRUSTING A MOLE

  Weeks before his trial for fraudulent bankruptcy, Sindona began to receive visits from P2 members who, no doubt, reminded him—once again—of his oath of secrecy to the lodge and of how the Masonic society was able to arrange Gelli's miraculous escape from the Champ-Dollon prison in Switzerland. Sindona became subdued and underwent a change of mind about turning his trial into a “circus.”37 When the trial began on December 12, 1984, the Mafia financier requested it proceed without his presence in the courtroom. The strange request was granted.38 On the Ides of March 1985, he was sentenced to twelve years in prison. The prosecutor, Guido Viola, calling Sindona “one of the most dangerous criminals in judicial history,” had asked for fifteen years.39

  Sindona's trial for the murder of Ambrosoli began on June 4, 1985. It would drag on for nine months, since the lead witness William Arico, whom Sindona had hired to make the hit, had died during an alleged “escape attempt” from a New York jail. In a letter to Rocchi dated February 5, 1986, Sindona wrote, “I want to talk about scandalous matters that constitute grave moral and penal irregularities about which I have remained silent until now to maintain the professional reserve to whom I have always wished to be faithful.”40 Rocchi responded by writing, “Let the great battle against you-know-who begin and let me have all the necessary documents. Take care not to forget anything, neither the national aspects nor the USA ones.”41 Sindona, still unaware that Rocchi was a CIA agent, surrendered all of his notes and documents. Rocchi patted the prisoner on the shoulder and gave him solemn assurance that his release was imminent, despite the verdict in the murder trial. Sindona believed him.

  “THE TORTELLINI IS GOOD”

  When Tosches paid a visit to the prison on May 8, he saw immediately that Sindona looked much better than he had in the fall. “His brown eyes were bright,” the reporter noted, “and he had obviously gained some needed weight.” He expressed no fear of the verdict and offered no lament of his fate. Instead, he patted his stomach and said, “The tortellini is good in this town.”42

  On March 18, 1986, Mercator Senesis Romanam Curiam (“the leading banker of the Roman Curia) was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.43 He was sent back to the prison at Voghera. Three television cameras were installed in Sindona's solitary cell to monitor his every move. A cadre of twelve guards, working in shifts of two, kept watch over him night and day. His food was prepared in a special kitchen by chefs under stringent supervision.44

  “MI HANNA AVVELENATO!”

  On March 20, Sindona rose from his cot to take breakfast. As always, his plastic plate and pressed foam coffee cup were sealed. It was eight-thirty. He carried the coffee cup with him through the door that led to the toilet. Minutes later, the Mafia don emerged from the bathroom, his shirt covered with vomit, his face convulsed with horror. “Mi hanno avvelenato,” he screamed. “They have poisoned me!”45

  These were his last words. Sindona was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was found to be in an irreversible coma. A lethal dosage of potassium cyanide was detected in his blood. That afternoon a priest administered extreme unction. Forty-eight hours later, Michele Sindona—the man known as “St. Peter's banker”—was dead.46

  His death was only to be expected. The Gladio agents possessed the keys to every prison. They could manage the escape of Ağca from a cell in Turkey and Gelli from a jail in Switzerland. They could arrange the jailhouse deaths of Henri Arsan of Stibam and General Santovito of SISMI. And they could poison the coffee of a celebrated Mafiosi who remained in solitary confinement within a maximum-security prison.

  ARCHBISHOP'S ARREST WARRANT

  There were more matters for damage control. The goodwill payment to Ambrosiano creditors from the coffers of Opus Dei did not close the criminal probe of the massive bank collapse. On February 26, 1987, the investigating magistrates concluded that the Vatican Bank had acted as an umbrella for Roberto Calvi's illicit transactions, that it owned a substantial share of Banco Ambrosiano as well as the dummy corporations, and that it was responsible
for the theft of $1.75 billion. Arrest warrants were issued for the three top IOR officials: Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, Luigi Mennini, and Pellegrino del Strobel.47

  The arrests were not made. To protect its officials, the Vatican pointed to Article 11 of the Lateran Treaty of 1929 that served to regulate matters between the Holy See and Italy. The Article stipulated that there should be no interference by the Italian government in “the central institutions of the Catholic Church.” Italy's highest court upheld this stipulation and ruled that Marcinkus and his two associates could not be arrested and brought to trial in Italy. The three Vatican bankers remained safe from extradition within the sanctity of the Sovereign State of Vatican City.48

  Marcinkus remained under papal protection until 1991, when he took up residence in Sun City, Arizona. Italian authorities throughout the next decade attempted to persuade US officials to return the Archbishop to Italy so he could face a jury. But such efforts proved fruitless. The US Justice Department made the strange ruling that Marcinkus possessed a Vatican passport and could not be extradited to Italy even though his crimes took place on Italian soil. No one in the CIA wanted the Gorilla to testify in court about his ties to P2 and the Sicilian Mafia, nor about the transfer of funds to Solidarity, the opponents of liberation theology, and the right-wing regimes in Latin America. And so, he stayed sheltered from justice not within Vatican City but Sun City, Arizona, where he joined a prestigious country club, played daily rounds of golf, and smoked expensive cigars.49 He died of undisclosed causes on February 20, 2006.

  THE GOLD BARS

  In 1987 Licio Gelli turned himself over to Swiss authorities in South America, claiming that he was at “the end of his tether” and suffering from heart problems. He surrendered only after negotiating the terms of his return to Italy. He would be charged only with financial offenses. After serving less than two months behind bars, Gelli complained of deteriorating health and was released on parole. In 1992 he was sentenced to eighteen years in prison for his involvement in the Ambrosiano affair. The sentence was reduced to twelve years upon appeal.50

  For the next six years Gelli remained under house arrest (detenzione domiciliare) at his luxurious villa in Tuscany. In 1998, when the police came to transport him to a public facility, Gelli disappeared again. In the villa, police discovered 363 pounds of gold bars buried in patio flowerpots among his geraniums and begonias. The grand master of P2 had stolen the gold from the Yugoslavian government while operating the ratlines for the Nazis.51

  THE NEW ORDER

  In the reorganization of the Vatican finances under Opus Dei that got underway in 1989, a new five-member supervisory board of “lay experts” was set up at the IOR. Its president was Angelo Caloia, head of the Mediocredito Lombardo bank. The vice president was Philippe de Weck. The other three were Dr. José Sánchez Asiaín, former chairman of Banco Bilbao; Thomas Pietzcker, a director of the Deutsche Bank; and Thomas Macioce, an American businessman. The new managing director of the IOR was Giovanni Bodio, also from Mediocredito Lombardo.

  Caloia and Bodio were associated with Giuseppe Garofano, the onetime chairman of Montedison and president of Ferruzzi Finanziaria S.p.A., Italy's second-largest industrial firm. Garofano, an Opus Dei supernumerary, served with Caloia on the Vatican's Ethics and Finance Committee until 1993, when he was arrested in connection with a $94 million political kickback scheme. Known as Clean Hands, the scheme involved the kickback millions flowing through the “Saint Serafino Foundation,” an account Garofano set up at the IOR. José Sánchez Asiaín was a disciple of Bishop Álvaro del Portillo, who served as the general president of Opus Dei.

  Although Thomas Macioce may not have been a member of Opus Dei, he shared its reactionary ideology. Macioce was a knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, along with Secretary of State Haig, CIA director Casey, Treasury secretary William Simon, Licio Gelli, former CIA director John McCone, Prescott Bush Jr. (brother of George H. W. Bush), President Reagan's national security advisor William P. Clark, deputy CIA director General Vernon A. Walters, and Count Alexandre de Marenches (the founder of the Safari Club).52

  Thomas Pietzcker was a last minute replacement for Hermann Abs, the head of the Deutsche Bank and Pietzcker's boss. Abs had been forced to resign from the committee due to the outcry from the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles about his role as “Hitler's banker” and a director of IG Farben, which ran its own slave labor camp at Auschwitz. After the war, Abs was placed in charge of allocating funds from the Marshall Plan to German industry. This position made him a pivotal figure in the establishment of Gladio. Abs, like Macioce, was a knight of the SMOM.53

  The finances of Holy Mother Church were now in the hands of a secret Catholic society that remained in the service of the CIA and a clandestine group of global economists.

  The investigation could identify the people involved in Gladio back to 1972. Some of them had died, but some were alive. I discovered everyone who was responsible for the Peteano massacre in 1972: three terrorists, a gendarmerie general, a colonel, a marshal, intelligence and police chiefs and members of the judiciary. All of them were found guilty and punished; however, the court did not put the organization itself on trial, although it agreed that Gladio had been involved. In the end, only those who were involved in the acts were punished, but not the organization. Moreover, we could identify only 622 “gladiators.” But the real number is much higher. The rest went into hiding.

  Judge Felice Casson, member of the

  Gladio Commission, Today's Zaman, 2008

  As long as the U.S. public remains ignorant of this dark chapter in US foreign relations, the agencies responsible for it will face little pressure to correct their ways. The end of the Cold War brought wholesale changes in other nations, but it changed little in Washington. In an ironic twist, confessed CIA mole Aldrich Ames has raised the basic question of whether the U.S. needs “tens of thousands of agents working around the world primarily in and against friendly countries.” “The U.S.,” he adds, “still awaits a real national debate on the means and ends—and costs—of our national security policies.”

  Arthur Rowse, “Gladio: The Secret U.S. War

  to Subvert Italian Democracy,”

  The Architecture of Modern Political Power, 1996

  At the time of Sindona's strange death, the CIA's main concern was no longer left-wing political activity in Italy and Western Europe but rather the situation in Afghanistan. The great jihad grew in scope and strength, threatening to sap the USSR of its strength and resolve. The inhabitants of the five republics of the Soviet Union (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), who shared a common Turkish heritage and remained devoutly Islamic, were supportive of the mujahideen in their struggle against their Communist overlords. This support, combined with the massive amount of Muslim recruits to the great jihad from the Arab world, served to create a creeping sense of futility among the Soviet troops. To drive the “evil empire” to the point of total collapse, the CIA continued to infuse the holy war with munitions and money, until the war in Afghanistan became the Agency's most expensive covert undertaking.1

  By 1985, the Afghan rebels were receiving $250 million a year in dirty money from the CIA to battle the 115,000 Soviet troops occupying the country. This figure was double the number of Soviet troops who had been deployed to Afghanistan in 1984. The annual payments to the Muslim guerrillas reached nearly $1 billion by 1988. By this time, the CIA was also shipping highly sophisticated weaponry, including Stinger missiles, to the jihadists, whom they mistakenly viewed as “freedom fighters.”2

  MUSLIM MISSIONARIES

  In an effort to supply recruits to the jihad, the CIA once again focused its attention on America's black community. This development was understandable. The Agency realized that millions of African Americans, who felt disenfranchised by the system, had converted to Islam, which they saw as “the black man's religion.” This movement, prompted by such black leaders as Timothy Drew (“Noble D
rew Ali”), Elijah Poole (“Elijah Muhammad”), and Malcolm Little (“Malcolm X”), had given rise to hundreds of mosques within America's inner cities.3 By 1980, CIA began to send hundreds of militant Muslim missionaries, all members of the radical Tablighi Jamaat, into American mosques to call on young black men to take up arms in the holy war to liberate their Muslim brothers.

  Sheikh Mubarak Gilani, one of the first of these missionaries to arrive, convinced scores of members of the Yasin Mosque in Brooklyn to head off to guerrilla training camps in Pakistan with an offer of thousands in cash and the promise of seventy houris in seventh heaven, if they were killed in action. The cash came from the CIA's coffers.4

  THE TRAINING CAMPS

  Realizing it would be financially advantageous to train the new recruits on American soil, Sheikh Gilani, with the help of the CIA, set up paramilitary training camps in rural areas throughout the country, including Hancock, New York; Red House, Virginia; Commerce, Georgia; York, South Carolina; Dover, Tennessee; Buena Vista, Colorado; Macon, Georgia; Squaw Valley, California; Marion, Alabama; and Talihina, Oklahoma.5

  By 1985, the international press began to report that an unspecified number of African American Muslims—all related to the camps set up by Gilani—had joined the ranks of the mujahideen in Afghanistan and that several had been killed in action. When questioned, several of the jihadis imported from America would testify that they were agents of the CIA.6

  THE AL-QAEDA CELL

  To provide more support for the mujahideen, the CIA used Abdullah Azzam, Osama bin Laden's mentor, to set up a cell of al-Qaeda within Masjid al-Farooq on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. The cell, known as the al-Kifah Refugee Center, acted as a front for the transference of funds, weapons, and recruits to Afghanistan. Throughout the 1980s, this militant organization received over $2 million a year and Masjid al-Farooq became a very wealthy institution.7 During this time, Azzam spent a great deal of time in Brooklyn. In a 1988 videotape, he can be seen and heard telling a large crowd of African Americans that “blood and martyrdom are the only way to create a Muslim society.”8