Murder in the Vatican

by Lucien Gregoire

  Referring to Operation Gladio and other anti-communist terrorist organizations operating in Italy, “It is clear anti-communist forces within Italy are paralyzed by the success of the Communist Party in the polls and will be unable to stop it… A clean external amputation is preferable to internal paralysis…”54

  One can only surmise “external amputation” meant assassination of Aldo Moro by a foreign power. What else could have it possibly meant? Aldo Moro, who had risen as the most influential man in Europe, was clearly the ‘link’ between communism and Europe. Remove the ‘link’ and communism in Europe would fail.

  Two weeks before Moro’s abduction, US Ambassador to Italy Richard Gardner released an official statement from the United States Embassy in Rome, “Moro is the most dangerous force in the history of the Italian political scene.”55

  A few days before the kidnapping when it became known Moro would move communist members into control of the House of Representatives, John Killbrick, British Ambassador to NATO, “The presence of communist ministers in the Italian Parliament pose a serious threat to the security of the alliance of the free world.”56

  On the afternoon of the kidnapping, from the other side of the aisle, reacting to Prime Minister Andreotti’s claim the Red Brigades had abducted Moro, left wing General Benigno Zaccagnini, President of the Italian Senate, pointed his finger directly at the United States and Britain, “This kidnapping is clearly a part of a plan by foreign interests aimed at upsetting the new Italian majority. It has nothing to do with the Red Brigades.”57

  The Bush-Casaroli-Kissinger-Gardner fears were well founded. Unlike all other countries communism had invaded in the past where it was faced with the insurmountable hurdles of immense poverty, poor education and relentless revolution, Italy was a thriving stable democracy. As a matter-of-fact, it was free elections that had moved the country toward communism to begin with.

  Bush, Casaroli, Kissinger and Gardner were terrified communism would succeed in Italy for it would certainly follow quickly in Spain where it had already reached double digit electoral progress. It would eventually spread to all of Europe.

  It was the Historic Compromise of 1976, more than anything else, that caused Moro’s name to move up to the top of the CIA hit-list.

  It was his impending threat to move communist members into control of the House of Representatives that pulled the trigger.

  The plot to assassinate Aldo Moro

  To understand who murdered Aldo Moro one must first consider motive. The greatest motive to have carried out the murders of Moro and others on our list was shared by a coalition of three states: the Vatican, the United States and Great Britain. These three shared a common motive: Stamp out a common enemy—communism.

  In this context, the key players in a conspiracy involving an assassination of any foreign leader or person would be the CIA, British Intelligence and the Office of the Vatican Foreign Minister—the Vatican counterpart of the CIA. In the case of a NATO nation, a conspiracy to assassinate a citizen would be most effective if it included the Intelligence operation of the targeted state—in Italy, at the time, Italian Counter-Intelligence.

  This was particularly true in Moro’s case, as Italian Counter-Intelligence had raided dozens of Red Brigades’ hideouts through the years and had storerooms full of items seized in the raids which could be planted to frame the Red Brigades. It also had several buildings in Rome where Moro could be retained which would escape a controlled search for the former prime minister.

  The coalition of these foreign states had a more than willing partner in Giulio Andreotti, the incumbent Italian prime minister. Andreotti had spent a lifetime fighting communism and condemned the Historic Compromise from the day Moro made it public.

  In addition to his hatred of communism, he had a personal motive for wanting Moro out of the way. The Historic Compromise had given Moro an overwhelming plurality in the upcoming election; Andreotti was about to lose his job.

  Italian Counter-Intelligence reported directly to Andreotti and the extent of its search for Moro could be restricted by him. The prime minister took a hardline approach and not only refused to pay the ransom money but refused to enter into dialogue with those who held Moro. Dialogue alone can often lead to where the victim is held whether or not the calls are made from the site. Perhaps, Andreotti didn’t want anyone to know where Moro was being held particularly if it had been within the Italian Counter-Intelligence network. He knew dialogue would be a monologue with himself.

  Why Andreotti refused dialogue with the terrorists in Moro’s case is no mystery today. Three years later when his friend Ciro Cirillo was kidnapped he took no hardline approach at all; he paid ransom on demand. In Moro’s case, he would not even engage in dialogue. 58

  The murder of Carmine Pecorelli

  To give some credence that leaders of free nations, let alone CIA directors, have the capacity to kill. In November 2002, former Prime Minister Andreotti was convicted in a Perugia court of having ordered the assassination of Carmine Pecorelli and was sentenced to 24 years. He was later pardoned by the Supreme Court of Cassation because of his public service.59

  Pecorelli was a maverick journalist and editor of Osservatore Politico. In a cryptic article, in May 1978, a week after the Moro murder, he established a credible connection between Operation Gladio and the CIA and Andreotti and the Moro murder.60

  Early in 1979, Pecorelli gained important contacts within Italian Counter-Intelligence. His colleagues testified he had been working on an article which would expose “The Role of the United States and Italian Intelligence in the Moro Murder.” He was assassinated on March 20, 1979; his house ransacked and the office of his journal Osservatore Politico destroyed by fire. What Pecorelli knew about CIA, Operation Gladio, P2, Italian Counter Intelligence and Giulio Andreotti’s involvement in the Aldo Moro murder died with him. 60

  “A clean external amputation…”

  In CIA headquarters in Virginia, the strategy of framing the Red Brigades for the bombings, having been exposed many times in the courts, had not only failed, it had moved the populace further to the left. In 1976, as we have said, the vote all but annihilated the right.

  Moro had emerged as a monumental progressive threatening to drive communist ideology into Italy’s ruling coalition. It was the sworn duty of the CIA to stop Aldo Moro.

  Yet, the rapid succession of court proceedings in Italy had not only cleared the Red Brigades of involvement in the bombings; it had clearly established right wing terrorist groups had repeatedly tried to frame them. This tied the hands of the CIA and Gladio. An assassination of Moro could not be blamed on the Brigades as the populace would know the true perpetrators. If a car bomb was used to assassinate Moro and a circled-star scratched on its hood, it would point to the CIA and Operation Gladio and not the Brigades.

  Hence, in planning a Moro assassination—a clean amputation—the possibility of framing the Red Brigades was out of the question.

  Or was it?

  A new strategy

  The Red Brigades did have a long record of kidnapping the rich and powerful and holding them for ransom. Moro certainly fit that mode for he was both rich and powerful. Yet, there was the problem he was on the wrong side of the fence. The others victimized by the Red Brigades were right wing enemies of the socialist-communist movement. Moro was its greatest ally.

  Court trials had clearly defined the pattern of the Red Brigades: Kidnapping of high profile figures. If the ransom was paid the victim was returned, if not paid the body was returned. Regardless of the victim’s wealth, the ransom was always set at about $5 million.

  Operation Gladio and its allies in the underground terrorist world of Italy had no record in the courts of ever having kidnapped their victims. In retrospect today, it would seem the CIA struck on the idea of following the pattern of the Red Brigades. It would kidnap Moro and hold him for ransom of $5 million and plant incriminating evidence sufficient to indict and convict the Red Brigades. It would
include in the ransom demands, the release of Brigades’ members being held on non-capital charges, to seal the case against them.

  More importantly, in that only Prime Minister Andreotti could pardon prisoners, this would preclude a third party from meeting the monetary demands. The CIA would instruct Andreotti not to engage in dialogue with the kidnappers lest it might accidentally lead to where Moro was being held—either in the United States or British Embassies or by Italian Counter-Intelligence.

  Yet, the CIA had the problem Moro and the Brigades shared the same ideology. Whereas his Historic Compromise in 1976 may have been met with some apprehension in the Brigades, when it became known prior to his kidnapping, in the spring of 1978, Moro would move communist ministers into control of Parliament, it was met by much celebration within the ranks of the Red Brigades. It would make no sense a left wing communist terrorist organization would murder the man who was about to make Italy a communist nation.

  For this reason—most critical to the operation—Moro was not to be harmed in the abduction. Had he been killed in the abduction, the finger would have pointed directly at Gladio and the CIA. That his driver sitting next to him and six armed bodyguards were killed and Moro untouched points to a highly precisioned SWAT team—characteristic of Operation Gladio.

  When Moro was abducted he was not on his way to his office. He was on his way to the Italian House of Representatives; he was about to move the Communist Party into control of Parliament that very morning. He had the authority to do this vested in him by the 1976 election which he had put on hold with the Historic Compromise.61

  If Moro had completed his journey to Parliament that day, Prime Minster Andreotti would have lost his authority, as Moro’s coalition of the Christian Democratic Party and the Communist Party would have not only controlled three-quarters of Parliament, it would have controlled Andreotti’s cabinet as well. The timing of the Moro kidnapping to the exact point in time the Communist Party would enter into controlling majority in Italy was no coincidence.

  The Moro trial

  Regardless, four years later in 1982, Mario Moretti and the Red Brigades were brought to trial for the alleged kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro. Although nothing was ever proved, Moretti and twenty-two others were convicted. In its judgment, the court relied entirely on the testimony of ten Red Brigades members who turned state’s evidence in exchange for lighter sentences. Not the slightest link of Moretti and his followers was made to the Aldo Moro murder despite that the trial spanned a year-and-a-half.

  A mountain of conflicting evidence was presented by the defense.

  Brigades’ members who testified against Moretti claimed Moro had been held outside the city although they did not know where. Yet, the red Renault 5 Moro’s body was delivered in had been stolen from a building only six miles from where it had been found.

  The car had been serviced the day before and the speedometer reading noted by the garage showed the car had moved only fourteen miles. If it had gone outside the city it would have traveled a minimum of thirty-two miles at the nearest point. The police determined Moro had been shot after he was placed in the trunk as several bullets passing through the body had lodged in the trunk’s walls; he could not have been transferred from another vehicle.62

  Had the car traveled directly from the point of theft to the United States Embassy and then to the Via Caetani where it was found, it would have moved twelve miles. Yet, avoidance of roadblocks set up by police could have caused it to detour. Of course, there were hundreds of other buildings in the same area this would be true of. In fact, had Moro been held by Italian Intelligence, the agency had two buildings within the limits—one a high security retention center. The court did conclude Moro had been held inside the city.

  The defense introduced the court transcripts of a mall-bombing that had occurred a year after the Moro murder. Two Alitalia Airline pilots—members of Operation Gladio—had been convicted in the case. The two, serving five year sentences, were questioned about the theft of the Alitalia uniforms used in the Moro kidnapping. Both prisoners denied involvement. Of course, if they had been involved in the Moro murder, they would be looking at life sentences.63

  A Brigate Rosse backdrop in a photo of Moro released by his captors was questioned. Comparison of the photo with a banner seized in a raid of a Brigades’ Bologna flat two years before the kidnapping proved they were the same banner. It was found to be missing from the Italian Counter-Intelligence criminal evidence inventory in Rome. It would have had to have been obtained by someone in the Italian Counter-Intelligence headquarters.64

  Although not one of the two hundred witnesses of his kidnapping identified any of the defendants, bullets extracted from Moro’s bodyguards and the kidnapping scene—NATO 5.56 mm—proved M-16s available only to U.S. armed forces—Operation Gladio—had been used in the abduction. Yet, the 9mm pistol later used to execute Moro was a commercial weapon available to most anyone.

  On July 19, 1982, Moro’s wife Eleonora testified in the open court, “In recent years, Aldo had been threatened dozens of times. Yet, it was on the morning after Kissinger’s threat that Aldo took security measures. We moved from our estate into the well fortified building on the Via Forte Trionfale; bodyguards occupying the floor directly beneath us. The windows were sealed in with bulletproof glass and wire mesh. It was like being locked up in a high security prison. It was terrible,” she told the court. “I couldn’t even open a window. Nevertheless, after that, Aldo, I and Giovanni never left the apartment without a half-dozen heavily armed guards.”65

  Asked what the American diplomat had told Moro, “It is one of the few occasions my husband told me exactly what had been said to him. So I have always remembered it. I will repeat it now: ‘You must abandon your policy of bringing these (communist) political forces in your country into coalition, or you will pay dearly for it. ’”65

  When her testimony appeared in the press the next day, Kissinger denied having made such a threat despite that his past press releases attacking Moro and the Historic Compromise certainly confirmed it.

  As a precaution, she and her son Giovanni were shown dozens of photos by Aldo’s guards. The pictures were mostly members of Operation Gladio, Ordine Nuovo and Avanguardia Nazionale. When shown a photo of Licio Gelli of P2, the guards told her, “‘We have reason to believe, not only Aldo’s life is in danger, but that of Pope Paul as well. This man has people living in the Vatican.’” She told the court, “We had no fear of the Red Brigades. Although we did not agree with their activities, they were very much on our side.”65

  Although she did not name a name, Eleonora testified in her opinion she was certain, Aldo’s kidnapping and murder had been ordered by “a high ranking United States official.”65

  In the Moretti trial, the prosecution presented no forensic evidence linking Moretti to the crime and the weapon was never found. In that the court could not determine where Moro had been held, it had no hard evidence connecting Moretti and the Brigades to the crime. All it had was the questionable testimony of ten turned-state’s witnesses who had no idea where Moro had been held.

  Despite the lack of evidence and Eleonora’s testimony and the Kissinger threats in the world press, Moretti and twenty-two others were found guilty on all counts.66

  Eleonora’s testimony and the lack of evidence and the fact that Moro and the Brigades were on the same side of the political arena caused most Italians to view the conviction with the same sort of skepticism as was the Warren Commission Report viewed in the John Kennedy assassination in the United States. To the rank-and- file citizen, it made no sense the Red Brigades would murder the man who was about to bring its dreams to fruition.

  A year-and-a-half and a hundred thousand pages of testimony failed to determine where Moro was held captive.

  The prosecution went so far as to offer absolute immunity to any Brigades member, including those charged in the capital crime itself, who could disclose the location of the People’s Prison.
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br />   The hunt

  To understand this more clearly one must consider the extent of the search for Moro. The entire Italian army reserve was activated. Every house and building inside and outside of Rome was searched. Roadblocks were set up throughout the city. Every vehicle entering or leaving the city and many moving within the city were searched. No leaf was left unturned.

  In addition to police, many citizens in Rome involved themselves in the search; each one keeping an eye on the goings on in-and-out of newly occupied houses and apartments. Prime Minister Andreotti labeled the place where Moro was held as the People’s Prison, despite that the people overwhelmingly supported Moro. In all, the search spanned fifty-four days. Not a trace of Moro could be found.

  There were only three places in all of Rome that were immune to search: the Vatican, foreign embassies and any building(s) the Italian Counter-Intelligence designated as off-limits.

  It is not likely Moro was held in the Vatican. It would not have been possible to get his body riddled with bullets out of the Vatican gates without notice of the guards who during Moro’s incarceration searched every vehicle entering and leaving it. Yet, the Vatican was within the fourteen mile radius.

  Concerning embassies, several embassies waived immunity and invited police to search their facilities; the United States and British embassies were not among them. Even Paul VI waived immunity, yet, he could not get Andreotti to search the Vatican grounds.67

  The aftermath – Judge Casson’s findings

  In court actions led by Judge Casson in 1990, General Giandelio Maletti, Chief of Italy’s Intelligence unit SID, testified he had collaborated with the CIA and its affiliate Operation Gladio in ordering many of the terrorist activities in the 1970s. Maletti told the court, “The CIA wanted to create an Italian nationalism capable of halting what it saw as a dangerous slide to the left and for this purpose it employed right wing terrorism to change the mindset of the Italian population. American taxpayers paid the salaries of thousands of Gladio members and other right wing terrorists and provided them with what was, at one time, 139 caches of weapons and explosives strategically placed throughout Italy.”68