Junio Valerio Borghese

Junio Valerio Borghese, known as the Black Prince of Borghese, was an Italian aristocrat descended from the Borghese family of the Italian black nobility. Borghese commanded the Decima Flottiglia MAS, a former regiment of the Italian Navy, which fought as a prominent piece of the army under the Nazi puppet state known as the Republic of Salo in Northern Italy during World War II. The regiment continued to fight the Allies in the northern territories under the Republic's administration right up until the end of the war.¹

Unlike some fascist collaborators strung up beside Mussolini in the Piazzale Loreto, Borghese was chaperoned to the sanctuary of Vatican City by OSS spook James Angleton. Borghese then became the primary OSS and later CIA asset in establishing the Italian branch of Operation Gladio's stay-behind network, designed to suppress left-leaning political movements in Italy. The Black Prince lived on to become a figurehead of Italy's post-war fascist movement. Trieste, part of the former Republic of Salo, had a strong left-leaning labor union movement after the war, making it one of the first targets of Operation Gladio using former Decima Flottiglia MAS operatives under Borghese's direction in 1953.¹

Golpe Borghese

Pier Paolo Pasolini made the film Salo in response to an Italian fascist coup attempt in 1970 orchestrated by Borghese and carried out in his name, known as the Golpe Borghese. After the coup failed, Borghese fled to Spain where he died in 1974, possibly poisoned. The Golpe Borghese was linked to the P2 (Propaganda 2) secret society uncovered a decade later.¹