#Gladio
26 entries tagged Gladio.
People (9)
- Aldo Moro Aldo Moro was Italy's five-time Prime Minister and Democrazia Cristiana president who was kidnapped and murdered by the Brigate Rosse in March-May 1978, with his abduction occurring precisely on the morning he was to present a coalition government incorporating the Italian Communist Party - a political development that Gladio-linked investigators and the Red Brigades themselves sought to prevent.
- Felice Casson Felice Casson is the Venetian magistrate who reopened the Peteano bombing case in 1984, obtained access to SISMI archives, and in 1990 discovered the documents that forced Prime Minister Andreotti's parliamentary disclosure of Operation Gladio.
- Francesco Cossiga Francesco Cossiga was Italy's Interior Minister during the Aldo Moro kidnapping in 1978 who resigned after Moro's murder, Prime Minister during the Bologna railway station bombing in 1980, and President of the Republic from 1985 to 1992, who became an increasingly outspoken whistleblower on Gladio and Italian intelligence secrets in his final years.
- Giulio Andreotti Giulio Andreotti was Italy's seven-time Prime Minister and dominant Democrazia Cristiana figure who refused to negotiate for Aldo Moro's release in 1978, disclosed the existence of Operation Gladio to parliament in October 1990, and was acquitted of Mafia association charges after an eight-year trial.
- Giuseppe Santovito Giuseppe Santovito was the Director of SISMI from 1978 to 1981 who was simultaneously a member of the P2 Masonic lodge, one of three heads of the Italian intelligence and security apparatus whose membership in P2 was exposed by the March 1981 list discovery.
- Junio Valerio Borghese Junio Valerio Borghese was the Italian naval commander of the Decima Mas commando unit, sheltered from war crimes prosecution by OSS officer James Angleton in 1945, who became the leading figure of Italian postwar neofascism and organized the December 7-8, 1970 Borghese coup attempt against the Italian government before dying in exile in Spain.
- Licio Gelli Licio Gelli was the Venerable Master of the clandestine Italian Masonic lodge Propaganda Due (P2) from 1967 whose membership list of 962 senior Italian officials, politicians, and financiers was discovered in March 1981, and who was convicted of political conspiracy and fraud related to the Banco Ambrosiano collapse before dying in Arezzo in January 2015.
- Silvio Berlusconi Silvio Berlusconi was an Italian media magnate and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy three times (1994-1995, 2001-2006, 2008-2011); he appears in this vault primarily as a member of the P2 masonic lodge exposed by Italian authorities in 1981, through which he was connected to the Gladio network and the strategy of tension, and as a figure whose political rise intersected with the Italian intelligence and organized crime dimensions of the broader vault topics.
- Vincenzo Vinciguerra Vincenzo Vinciguerra was the Ordine Nuovo member who carried out the 1972 Peteano bombing, then provided voluntary confessions in 1984 describing in explicit detail how neofascist operatives worked within the protection of Italian military intelligence and the Gladio stay-behind network to execute the strategy of tension.
Organizations (8)
- Brigate Rosse The Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades) were an Italian far-left terrorist organization active from 1970 to the late 1980s whose most significant operation was the 1978 kidnapping and murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro, and whose role in Italian political violence was manipulated by the Gladio-linked strategy of tension to justify state security measures and prevent a communist-Christian Democrat coalition government.
- Democrazia Cristiana Democrazia Cristiana (DC) was Italy's dominant postwar political party, governing continuously from 1945 to 1994 with CIA support during the Cold War, whose leading figures included Alcide De Gasperi, Aldo Moro, and Giulio Andreotti, and which dissolved in 1994 under the weight of the Tangentopoli corruption investigations.
- MI5 MI5 (the Security Service) is the United Kingdom's domestic counterintelligence and security agency, founded 1909; it appears in this vault through its Cold War counterintelligence operations against KGB penetrations of British institutions, the Spycatcher affair involving former MI5 officer Peter Wright, its relationship to the Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE) network, and its roles in the surveillance and monitoring of political organizations.
- NATO NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is the Western military alliance whose Cold War infrastructure included the Gladio stay-behind networks documented in this vault; its Brussels headquarters is adjacent to the Belgian elite networks investigated in the Dutroux affair, and its expansion and intelligence coordination mechanisms are referenced throughout vault subjects.
- Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari The Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari (NAR) was the Italian neofascist terrorist group whose members Massimo Fioravanti and Francesca Mambro were convicted of the 1980 Bologna railway station bombing, the deadliest postwar Italian terrorist attack, with P2 and SISMI personnel convicted separately for the subsequent cover-up.
- Ordine Nuovo Ordine Nuovo was an Italian neofascist organization whose members Franco Freda and Giovanni Ventura were convicted of responsibility for the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, Italy's opening strategy of tension attack, and whose operational relationship with SID military intelligence personnel was documented in subsequent parliamentary investigations.
- Propaganda Due Propaganda Due (P2) was a clandestine Italian Masonic lodge headed by Licio Gelli from 1967 whose 962-member list discovered in March 1981 included the heads of all three Italian intelligence services, senior military officers, magistrates, politicians, and financiers including Roberto Calvi and Silvio Berlusconi, and which Italian parliamentary investigators linked to Operation Gladio and the strategy of tension terrorist bombings.
- SISMI SISMI (and its predecessor SID) was Italy's military intelligence service whose personnel were documented participants in the strategy of tension, the cover-up of the Piazza Fontana and Bologna bombings, and the Gladio stay-behind network.
Events (4)
- Bologna railway station bombing The Bologna railway station bombing of August 2, 1980, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 200 in Italy's deadliest postwar terrorist attack, was carried out by the neofascist Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari with the knowledge of elements of P2 and Italian military intelligence, with Licio Gelli later convicted of obstruction of justice for his role in concealing responsibility.
- Golpe Borghese The Golpe Borghese was a fascist coup attempt in Italy on the night of December 7-8, 1970, organized by Prince Junio Valerio Borghese and the Fronte Nazionale, involving several hundred armed men who seized the Interior Ministry's armory before Borghese abruptly called off the operation.
- Peteano bombing The Peteano bombing of May 31, 1972, in which three Carabinieri were killed by a booby-trapped Fiat 500 near Gorizia, was carried out by Ordine Nuovo member Vincenzo Vinciguerra, whose subsequent confessions in 1984 directly implicated the Italian stay-behind network and led magistrate Felice Casson to uncover the Gladio documents that forced Andreotti's 1990 parliamentary disclosure.
- Piazza Fontana bombing The Piazza Fontana bombing of December 12, 1969, in which a bomb at the Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Milan killed 17 people and wounded 88, was the opening act of Italy's strategy of tension and was ultimately attributed to the neofascist network Ordine Nuovo operating with the knowledge of elements of Italian military intelligence.
Places (5)
- Algeria Algeria is a North African country and former French colony whose violent war of independence (1954-1962) and subsequent history appear in this vault primarily through the French intelligence operations surrounding the Algerian War, the OAS (Organisation de l'Armee Secrete) terrorist campaign, the CIA's relationship with the FLN, and Algeria's later role as a theater for Cold War influence operations and arms trafficking networks.
- Belgium Belgium is the location of the Marc Dutroux child abduction and murder case, the X-Dossier investigation into elite pedophile networks, NATO headquarters, and was also implicated in the Gladio stay-behind network; its political and aristocratic establishment figures are named throughout the vault's Dutroux investigation materials.
- Brussels Brussels is the capital of Belgium and the headquarters of NATO and the European Union; it appears in this vault as the administrative center through which NATO's Gladio stay-behind network and Belgian intelligence operated, and through its proximity to the Knokke-Heist area central to the Dutroux X-Dossier investigation.
- Italy Italy appears throughout this vault as the location of CIA-backed Stay-Behind network Gladio, the center of the P2 Masonic lodge scandal connecting intelligence services to organized crime and far-right terrorism, and a hub for Vatican Bank (IOR) financial flows connected to the BCCI network and money laundering.
- Rome Rome is the capital of Italy and home to the Vatican; it appears in this vault as the location of P2 Masonic lodge operations, the Vatican Bank (IOR) financial flows connected to BCCI and CIA-backed anti-communist programs, and the base of Italian intelligence services whose Cold War activities intersected with Gladio and the strategy of tension.