[edit] Greece
The aim of British Prime minister Winston Churchill was to prevent the communist-led EAM resistance movement from taking power after the end of World War II. After the suppression of a pro-EAM uprising in April 1944 among the Greek forces in Egypt, a new and firmly reliable unit was formed, the Third Greek Mountain Brigade, which excluded "almost all men with views ranging from moderately conservative to left wing."[56] After liberation in October 1944, EAM controlled most of the country. When it organized a demonstration in Athens on December 3, 1944 , members of rightist and pro-royalist paramilitary organizations, covered by "British troops and police with machine guns... posited on the rooftops", suddenly shot on the crowd, killing 25 protesters (including a six-year-old boy) and wounding 148.[57] This marked the outbreak of the Dekemvriana, which would lead to the Greek Civil War.
When Greece joined NATO in 1952, the country's special forces, the LOK (Lochoi Oreinōn Katadromōn, i.e. "Mountain Raiding Companies") were integrated into the European stay-behind network. The CIA and LOK reconfirmed on March 25, 1955 their mutual co-operation in a secret document signed by US General Trascott for the CIA, and Konstantinos Dovas, chief of staff of the Greek military. In addition to preparing for a Soviet invasion, the CIA instructed LOK to prevent a leftist coup. Former CIA agent Philip Agee, who was sharply criticized in the US for having revealed sensitive information, insisted that "paramilitary groups, directed by CIA officers, operated in the sixties throughout Europe [and he stressed that] perhaps no activity of the CIA could be as clearly linked to the possibility of internal subversion."[58]
The LOK was involved in the Greek military coup d'État on April 21, 1967,[59][not in citation given] which took place one month before the scheduled national elections for which opinion polls predicted an overwhelming victory of the centrist Center Union of George and Andreas Papandreou. Under the command of paratrooper Lieutenant Colonel Costas Aslanides, the LOK took control of the Greek Defence Ministry while Brigadier General Stylianos Pattakos gained control over communication centers, the parliament, the royal palace, and according to detailed lists, arrested over 10,000 people. Phillips Talbot, the US ambassador in Athens, disapproved of the military coup which established the "Regime of the Colonels" (1967-1974), complaining that it represented "a rape of democracy" - to which Jack Maury, the CIA chief of station in Athens, answered: "How can you rape a whore?".[28][not in citation given]
Arrested and then exiled in Canada and Sweden, Andreas Papandreou later returned to Greece, where he won the 1981 election for Prime minister, forming the first socialist government of Greece's post-war history. According to his own testimony, he discovered the existence of the secret NATO army, then codenamed "Red Sheepskin", as acting prime minister in 1984 and had given orders to dissolve it.
Following Giulio Andreotti's revelations in 1990, the Greek defence minister confirmed that a branch of the network, known as Operation Sheepskin, operated in his country until 1988.[60] The socialist opposition called for a parliamentary investigation into the secret army and its alleged link to terrorism and the 1967 coup d'état. Public order minister Yannis Vassiliadis declared that there was no need to investigate such "fantasies" as "Sheepskin was one of 50 NATO plans which foresaw that when a country was occupied by an enemy there should be an organised resistance. It foresaw arms caches and officers who would form the nucleus of a guerilla war. In other words, it was a nationally justifiable act."
In December 2005, journalist Kleanthis Grivas published an article in To Proto Thema, a Greek Sunday newspaper, in which he accused "Sheepskin" for the assassination of CIA station chief Richard Welch in Athens in 1975, as well as the assassination of British military attaché Stephen Saunders in 2000. This was denied by the US State Department, who responded that "the Greek terrorist organization '17 November' was responsible for both assassinations", and that Grivas's central piece of evidence had been the Westmoreland Field Manual which the State department, as well as an independent Congressional inquiry have alleged to be a Soviet forgery.[61] The document in question, however, makes no specific mention of Greece, November 17, nor Welch. The State Department also highlighted the fact that, in the case of Richard Welch, "Grivas bizarrely accuses the CIA of playing a role in the assassination of one of its own senior officials" while "Sheepskin" couldn't have assassinate Stephen Saunders for the simple reason, according to the US government, that "the Greek government stated it dismantled the “stay behind” network in 1988."[61]
[edit] The Netherlands
A large arms cache was discovered in 1983 near the village Velp. In 1990 the government by means of then-prime-minister Ruud Lubbers was forced to confirm that the arms were related to planning for unorthodox warfare. He insisted that the Dutch organisation was, contrary to the operations in other European countries, totally independent from NATO command, and during wartime occupation would be commanded by the Dutch government in exile. The operating bureaus of the organisation would also move to safety in England or the USA at the first sign of trouble.
In his television show of 22 April 2007 Dutch crime journalist Peter R. De Vries revealed that weapons had been illegally supplied to Gladio well after the network was supposed to have been disbanded.[28]
A Dutch investigative television program revealed on September 9, 2007, that an arms cache that belonged to Gladio was ransacked in the 1980s. The cache was located in a forest near Scheveningen. Some of stolen weapons later turned up, including hand grenades and machine guns, when police officials arrested criminals Sam Klepper and John Mieremet in 1991. The Dutch military intelligence agency, MIVD, feared at that time that the disclosure of the Gladio history of these weapons was politically explosive.[62][63]
[edit] Norway
In 1957, the director of the secret service NIS, Vilhelm Evang, protested strongly against the pro-active intelligence activities at AFNORTH, as described by the chairman of CPC: "[NIS] was extremely worried about activities carried out by officers at Kolsås. This concerned SB, Psywar and Counter Intelligence." These activities supposedly included the blacklisting of Norwegians. SHAPE denied these allegations. Eventually, the matter was resolved in 1958, after Norway was assured about how stay-behind networks were to be operated.[64][page needed]
In 1978, the police discovered an arms cache at a mountain cabin and arrested Hans Otto Meyer, a NIS officer. Meyer claimed that these were supplied by Norwegian intelligence. Rolf Hansen, defense minister at that time, stated the network was not in any way answerable to NATO and had no CIA connection.[65]
[edit] Portugal
Further information: Aginter Press
In 1966, the CIA set up Aginter Press which, under the direction of Captain Yves Guérin-Sérac (who had taken part in the founding of the OAS), ran a secret stay-behind army and trained its members in covert action techniques amounting to terrorism, including bombings, silent assassinations, subversion techniques, clandestine communication and infiltration and colonial warfare. Aginter Press was suspected of having assassinated General Humberto Delgado (1906-1965), founder of the Portuguese National Liberation Front against Salazar's dictatorship (prominent historians and several sources also claim Delgado's assassination was performed by PIDE operational Rosa Casaco), as well as anti-colonialist leader Amilcar Cabral (1924-1973), founder of the PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) and Eduardo Mondlane leader of the liberation movement FRELIMO (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique), in 1969 (prominent historians and several sources also claim Cabral's assassination was performed by indivuduals within Cabral's guerrilla movemment, the PAIGC, and Mondlane's death was work of his enemies inside FRELIMO - according to these versions, both assassinations were the result of struggles for power within the independentist movements).[28][66]
[edit] Turkey
Main article: Counter-Guerrilla
Further information: Deep state, Ergenekon network, and Jandarma İstihbarat ve Terörle Mücadele
As one of the nations that prompted the Truman Doctrine, Turkey is one of the first countries to participate in Operation Gladio and, some say, the only country where it has not been purged.[67] According to Italian magistrate Felice Casson, the Turkish stay-behind forces are two-pronged: the military "Counter-Guerrilla", and the civilian "Ergenekon".[68] An offshoot of the latter organization is currently the subject of a major investigation. Casson says Turkey is home to the most powerful branch of Operation Gladio.[69]
The counter-guerrilla's existence was revealed by prime minister Bülent Ecevit in 1973.[70]
[edit] The United Kingdom
In Great Britain, Prime Minister Winston Churchill created the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1940 to assist resistance movements and carry out subversive operations in enemy-held territory across occupied Europe. Guardian reporter David Pallister wrote in December 1990 that a guerrilla network with arms caches had been put in place following the fall of France. It included Brigadier "Mad Mike" Calvert, and was drawn from a special-forces ski battalion of the Scots Guards which was originally intended to fight in Nazi-occupied Finland.[21] Known as Auxiliary Units, they were headed by Major Colin Gubbins, an expert in guerrilla warfare who would later lead the SOE. The Auxiliary Units were attached to GHQ Home Forces, and concealed within the Home Guard. The units were created in preparation of a possible invasion of the British Isles by the Third Reich. These units were allegedly stood down only in 1944. Several of their members subsequently joined the Special Air Service and saw action in France in late 1944. The units' existence did not generally become known by the public until the 1990s though a book on the subject was published in 1968.[71] In fiction, Owen Sheers' Resistance (2008), set in Wales, takes as one of its central characters a member of the Auxiliary Units called to resist a successful German invasion.
After the end of World War II, the stay-behind armies were created with the experience and involvement of former SOE officers.[28] Following Giulio Andreotti's October 1990 revelations, General Sir John Hackett (1910-1997), former commander-in-chief of the British Army on the Rhine, declared on November 16, 1990 that a contingency plan involving "stay behind and resistance in depth" was drawn up after the war. The same week, Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley (1924-2006), former commander-in-chief of NATO's Forces in Northern Europe from 1979 to 1982, declared to The Guardian that a secret arms network was established in Britain after the war.[50] General John Hackett had written in 1978 a novel, The Third World War: August 1985, which was a fictionalized scenario of a Soviet Army invasion of West Germany in 1985. The novel was followed in 1982 by The Third World War: The Untold Story, which elaborated on the original. Farrar-Hockley had aroused controversy in 1983 when he became involved in trying to organise a campaign for a new Home Guard against eventual Soviet invasion.[72]
Gladio membership included mostly ex-servicemen but also followers of Oswald Mosley's pre-war fascist movement.[citation needed] Among the 200,000+ Polish ex-servicemen in the UK after the end of WW2, unable to return home for fear of communist repression, were conspiratorial groups maintaining combat readiness ready to fight for a free Poland should the Warsaw Pact attack western Europe. The 'Pogon' organisation, linked to the Polish Government-in-Exile held regular paramilitary exercises until the 1970s; many of its members were associated with the Polish scouting movement in the UK which had a strong paramilitary flavour. Links with 'Stay-behind' networks are strongly suspected.[citation needed]
[edit] General Serravalle's revelations
General Gerardo Serravalle, who commanded the Italian Gladio from 1971 to 1974, related that "in the 1970s the members of the CPC [Coordination and Planning Committee] were the officers responsible for the secret structures of Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Italy. These representatives of the secret structures met every year in one of the capitals... At the stay-behind meetings representatives of the CIA were always present. They had no voting rights and were from the CIA headquarters of the capital in which the meeting took place... members of the US Forces Europe Command were present, also without voting rights. ".[73] Next to the CPC a second secret command post was created in 1957, the Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC). According to the Belgian Parliamentary Committee on Gladio, the ACC was "responsible for coordinating the 'Stay-behind' networks in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Holland, Norway, United Kingdom and the United States". During peacetime, the activities of the ACC "included elaborating the directives for the network, developing its clandestine capability and organising bases in Britain and the United States. In wartime, it was to plan stay-behind operations in conjunction with SHAPE; organisers were to activate clandestine bases and organise operations from there".[74] General Serravale declared to the Commissione Stragi headed by senator Giovanni Pellegrino that the Italian Gladio members trained at a military base in Britain.[50] Documents shown to the committee also revealed that British and French officials members of Gladio had visited in the 1970s a training base in Germany built with US money.[50]
[edit] The Guardian's November 1990 revelations concerning plans under Margaret Thatcher
The Guardian reported on November 5, 1990, that there had been a "secret attempt to revive elements of a parallel post-war plan relating to overseas operations" in the "early days of Mrs Thatcher's Conservative leadership". According to the British newspaper, "a group of former intelligence officers, inspired by the wartime Special Operations Executive, attempted to set up a secret unit as a kind of armed MI6 cell. Those behind the scheme included Airey Neave, Mrs Thatcher's close adviser who was killed in a terrorist attack in 1979, and George Kennedy Young, a former deputy chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6." The newspaper stated that Thatcher had been "initially enthusiastic but dropped the idea after the scandal surrounding the attack by the French secret service on the Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, in New Zealand in 1985."[59] The Swiss branch, P-26, as well as Italian Gladio, had trained in the UK in the early 1970s.[59][75]
[edit] Parallel stay-behind operations in non-NATO countries
[edit] Austria
In Austria, the first secret stay-behind army was exposed in 1947. It had been set up by far-right Soucek and Rössner, who both insisted during their trial that "they were carrying out the secret operation with the full knowledge and support of the US and British occupying powers." Sentenced to death, they were then pardoned under mysterious circumstances by President Körner (1951-1957).
Franz Olah set up a new secret army codenamed Österreichischer Wander-Sport-und Geselligkeitsverein (OWSGV, literally "Austrian hiking, sports and society club"), with the cooperation of MI6 and the CIA. He later explained that "we bought cars under this name. We installed communication centres in several regions of Austria", confirming that "special units were trained in the use of weapons and plastic explosives". He precised that "there must have been a couple of thousand people working for us... Only very, very highly positioned politicians and some members of the union knew about it".
In 1965, the police forces discovered a stay-behind arms cache in an old mine close to Windisch-Bleiberg and forced the British authorities to hand over a list with the location of 33 other caches in Austria.[28]
In 1990, when secret "stay-behind" armies were discovered all around Europe, the Austrian government said that no secret army had existed in the country. However, six years later, the Boston Globe revealed the existence of a secret CIA arms caches in Austria. Austrian President Thomas Klestil and Chancellor Franz Vranitzky insisted that they had known nothing of the existence of the secret army and demanded that the US launch a full-scale investigation into the violation of Austria's neutrality, which was denied by President Bill Clinton. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns - appointed in August 2001 by President George Bush as the US Permanent Representative to the Atlantic treaty organization, where, as ambassador to NATO, he headed the combined State-Defense Department United States Mission to NATO and coordinated the NATO response to the September 11, 2001 attacks - insisted: "The aim was noble, the aim was correct, to try to help Austria if it was under occupation. What went wrong is that successive Washington administrations simply decided not to talk to the Austrian government about it."[7]
[edit] Finland
In 1945, Interior Minister Yrjö Leino exposed a secret stay-behind army which was closed down (so called Weapons Cache Case). This operation was organized by Finnish general staff officers (without foreign help) in 1944 to hide weapons in order to sustain a large-scale guerilla warfare in the event the Soviet Union tried to occupy Finland in the aftermath of the Continuation War. See also Operation Stella Polaris.
In 1991, the Swedish media claimed that a secret stay-behind army had existed in neutral Finland with an exile base in Stockholm. Finnish Defence Minister Elisabeth Rehn called the revelations "a fairy tale", adding cautiously "or at least an incredible story, of which I know nothing.".[28] However, in his memoirs, former CIA director William Colby described the setting-up of stay-behind armies in Scandinavian countries, including Finland, with or without the assistance of local governments, to prepare for a Soviet invasion.[46]
[edit] Spain
Main article: Montejurra Incidents
Several events prior to Spain's 1982 membership in NATO have also been tied to Gladio: In May 1976, a year after Franco's death, two left-wing Carlist members were shot down by far-right terrorists, among whom Gladio operative Stefano Delle Chiaie and members of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (Triple A), demonstrating connections between Gladio and the South American "Dirty War". This incident became known as the Montejurra massacre.[76] According to a report by the Italian CESIS (Executive Committee for Intelligence and Security Services), Carlo Cicuttini (who took part in the 1972 Peteano bombing in Italy alongside Vincenzo Vinciguerra), participated in the 1977 Massacre of Atocha in Madrid, killing five people (including several lawyers), members of the Workers' Commissions trade-unions closely linked with the Spanish Communist Party. Cicuttini was naturalized Spanish and exiled in Spain since 1972 (date of the Peteano bombing)[77]
Following Andreotti's 1990 revelations, Adolfo Suárez, Spain's first democratically elected Prime minister after Franco's death, denied ever having heard of Gladio.[78] President of the Spanish government in 1981-82, during the transition to democracy, Calvo Sotelo stated that Spain had not been informed of Gladio when it entered NATO. Asked about Gladio's relations to Franquist Spain, he said that such a network was not necessary under Franco, since "the regime itself was Gladio."[79]
According to General Fausto Fortunato, head of Italian SISMI from 1971 to 1974, France and the US had backed Spain's entrance to Gladio, but Italy would have opposed its veto to it. Following Andreotti's revelations, however, Narcís Serra, Spanish Minister of Defense, opened up an investigation concerning Spain's links to Gladio.[80][81] Furthermore, Canarias 7 newspaper revealed, quoting former Gladio agent Alberto Volo, who had a role in the revelations of the existence of the network in 1990, that a Gladio meeting had been organized in August 1991 in the Gran Canaria island.[82] Alberto Vollo also declared that as a Gladio operative, he had received trainings in Maspalomas, in the Gran Canaria island between the 1960s and the 1970s.[83] El País daily also revealed that the Gladio organization was suspected of having used former NASA installations in Maspalomas, in the Gran Canaria island, in the 1970s.[84]
André Moyen, former Belgian secret agent, also declared that Gladio had operated in Spain.[85] He said that Gladio had bases in Madrid, Barcelona, San Sebastián and the Canarias islands.
[edit] Sweden
In 1951, CIA agent William Colby, based at the CIA station in Stockholm supported the training of stay-behind armies in neutral Sweden and Finland and in the NATO members Norway and Denmark. In 1953, the police arrested right winger Otto Hallberg and discovered the Swedish stay-behind army. Hallberg was set free and charges against him were mysteriously dropped.[28]
[edit] Switzerland
Main article: Projekt-26
In Switzerland, a secret army named P26 was discovered, by coincidence months before Giulio Andreotti's October 1990 revelations. After the "secret files scandal" (Fichenaffäre), Swiss parliamentaries started investigating the Defense Department in the summer of 1990. According to Felix Würsten of the ETH Zurich, "P26 was not directly involved in the network of NATO's secret armies but it had close contact to MI6."[86] Daniele Ganser (ETH Zurich) wrote in the Intelligence and National Security review that "following the discovery of the stay-behind armies across Western Europe in late 1990, Swiss and international security researchers found themselves confronted with two clear-cut questions: Did Switzerland also operate a secret stay-behind army? And if yes, was it part of NATO's stay-behind network? The answer to the first question is clearly yes... The answer to the second question remains disputed..."[87]
Swiss Major Hans von Dach published in 1958 Der totale Widerstand, Kleinkriegsanleitung für jedermann ("Total Resistance," Bienne, 1958) concerning guerrilla warfare, a book of 180 pages about passive and active resistance to a foreign invasion, including detailed instructions on sabotage, clandestinity, methods to dissimulate weapons, struggle against police moles, etc.[88]
In 1990, Colonel Herbert Alboth, a former commander of the Swiss secret stay-behind army P26 declared in a confidential letter to the Defence Department that he was willing to reveal "the whole truth". He was later found in his house, stabbed with his own military bayonet. The detailed parliamentary report on the Swiss secret army was presented to the public on November 17, 1990.[28] According to The Guardian, "P26 was backed by P27, a private foreign intelligence agency funded partly by the government, and by a special unit of Swiss army intelligence which had built up files on nearly 8,000 "suspect persons" including "leftists", "bill stickers", "Jehovah's witnesses", people with "abnormal tendencies" and anti-nuclear demonstrators. On November 14, the Swiss government hurriedly dissolved P26 — the head of which, it emerged, had been paid £100,000 a year."[59]
In 1991, a report by Swiss magistrate Pierre Cornu was released by the Swiss defence ministry. It said that P26 was without "political or legal legitimacy", and described the group's collaboration with British secret services as "intense". "Unknown to the Swiss government, British officials signed agreements with the organisation, called P26, to provide training in combat, communications, and sabotage. The latest agreement was signed in 1987... P26 cadres participated regularly in training exercises in Britain... British advisers — possibly from the SAS — visited secret training establishments in Switzerland." P26 was led by Efrem Cattelan, known to British intelligence.[75]
In a 2005 conference presenting Daniele Ganser's research on Gladio, Hans Senn, General Chief of Staff of the Swiss Army between 1977 and 1980, explained how he was informed of the existence of a secret organisation in the middle of his term of office. According to him, it already became clear in 1980 in the wake of the Schilling/Bachmann affair that there was also a secret group in Switzerland. But former MP, Helmut Hubacher, President of the Social Democratic Party from 1975 to 1990, declared that although it had been known that "special services" existed within the army, as a politician he never at any time could have known that the secret army P26 was behind this. Hubacher pointed out that the President of the parliamentary investigation into P26 (PUK-EMD), the right-wing politician from Appenzell and member of the Council of States for that Canton, Carlo Schmid, had suffered "like a dog" during the commission's investigations. Carlo Schmid declared to the press: "I was schocked that something like that is at all possible," and said to the press he was glad to leave the "conspirational atmosphere" which had weighted upon him like a "black shadow" during the investigations.[89] Hubacher found it especially disturbing that, apart from its official mandate of organizing resistance in case of a Soviet invasion, P26 had also a mandate to become active should the left succeed in achieving a parliamentary majority.[86]
[edit] The Order of the Solar Temple mystery
Psychiatrist Jean-Marie Abgrall has alleged[90][verification needed] that the "collective suicides" allegedly committed by various Order of the Solar Temple (OST) members, in December 1995 in the Vercors region of France, were somehow related to Gladio. According to Jean-Marie Abgrall's declarations to Le Point magazine and Nice Matin newspaper in February 2003, which he renewed in official justice documents, the Renewed Order of the Solar Temple cult ("Ordre Rénové du Temple" - ORT[91]), ancestor of the OTS, had relations with Gladio networks. Abgrall also claimed that the AMORC, of which he had been a member, was also related to "Foccart networks" (Jacques Foccart was De Gaulle's spindoctor for African affairs, and retained an important role long after him).
The theory of the mass suicide has been heavily contested by family of the victims Alain Vuarnet, René and Muguette Rostan, Willy and Giséla Schleimer and their lawyer, Alain Leclerc. According to a Reuters cable dated March 22, 2004 (19:03:46), the lawyer explained that he had two documents upholding the theory of a murder, the first one being Jean-Marie Abgrall's juridical declaration above-mentioned. According to the lawyer, psychiatrist Jean-Marie Abgrall "reveals... that the Order of the Solar Temple, as the AMORC and the ORT, were created and controlled by French and foreign secret services". Those information weren't given at the time of investigations; the lawyer thus asked that Dr. Abgrall be heard by the judge, according to a Reuters cable.
One document was a copy of an April 21, 1997 letter addressed by a lawyer office to a bank, concerning the distribution of 17 million French Francs (about 2.5 millions Euros) between various personalities and political parties, the OST and the Rosicrucian Order AMORC (Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis), an organization suspected of links with the OST. In his demand for more investigation, Dr. Leclerc wrote: "If the document is true, it shows that the Order of the Solar Temple was in activity after the last March 22, 1997 massacre (the "collective suicide" of five adepts in Canada) and that the responsibles of this organization are still alive". However, the court refused further expertise: thus, it hasn't been possible to verify the validity of this document.
A third document was sent by the French secret services (RG) to the judge, discrediting the family of the victims' claims and demands for further investigations. If Jean-Marie Abgrall's claims of relationship between the ORT (OST's ancestor) and Gladio may seem far-fetched, Propaganda Due's juridically proven involvement[citation needed] in Gladio's strategy of tension inclines one to keep open various possibilities during investigations. Furthermore, connections between ORT founder Luc Jouret and far-right Belgian activist Jean Thiriart have been alleged by other sources; together, they had found in the 1970s a far-right party which was controlled by Belgium's branch of Gladio. In any case, the mass suicides haven't been clearly explained, let alone financial links concerning those various cults.[92][93][94]
[edit] FOIA requests and US State Department's 2006 communiqué
Three Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have been filed to the CIA, which has rejected them with the Glomar response: "The CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records responsive to your request." One request was filed by the National Security Archive in 1991; another by the Italian Senate commission headed by Senator Giovanni Pellegrino in 1995 concerning Gladio and Aldo Moro's murder; the last one in 1996, by Oliver Rathkolb, of Vienna university, for the Austrian government, concerning the secret stay-behind armies after a discovery of an arms-cache.[28]
Furthermore, the US State Department published a communiqué in January 2006 which, while confirming the existence of stay-behind armies, in general, and the presence of the "Gladio" stay-behind unit in Italy, in particular, with the purpose of aiding resistance in the event of Soviet aggression directed Westward, from the Warsaw Pact, dismissed claims of any United States ordered, supported, or authorized skullduggery by stay-behind units. In fact, it claims that, on the contrary, the accusations of US-sponsored "false flag" operations are rehashed former Soviet disinformation based on documents that the Soviets themselves forged; specifically the researchers are alleged to have been influenced by the Westmoreland Field Manual, whose forged nature was confirmed by former KGB operatives, following the end of the Cold War. The Soviet-authored forgery, disseminated in the 1970s, explicitly formulated the need for a "strategy of tension" involving violent attacks blamed on radical left-wing groups in order to convince allied governments of the need for counter-action. It also rejected a Communist Greek journalist's allegations made in December 2005 (See above).[61]
[edit] Politicians on Gladio
Whilst the existence of a "stay-behind" organization such as Gladio was disputed, prior to its confirmation by Giulio Andreotti, with some skeptics describing it as a conspiracy theory, several high ranking politicians in NATO countries have made statements appearing to confirm the existence of something like what is described:
Former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti ("Gladio had been necessary during the days of the Cold War but, that in view of the collapse of the East Bloc, Italy would suggest to NATO that the organisation was no longer necessary.")
Former French minister of defense Jean-Pierre Chevènement ("a structure did exist, set up at the beginning of the 1950s, to enable communications with a government that might have fled abroad in the event of the country being occupied.").
Former Greek defence minister, Yannis Varvitsiotis ("local commandos and the CIA set up a branch of the network in 1955 to organise guerrilla resistance to any communist invader")
As noted above, the US has now acknowledged the existence of Operation Gladio.
[edit] Gladio in Fiction
A precise analogue of Operation Gladio was described in the 1949 fiction novel "An Affair of State" by Pat Frank.[95] In Frank's version, U.S. State Dept officers recruit a stay-behind network in Hungary to fight an insurgency against the Soviet Union after the Soviet Union launches an attack on and captures Western Europe.
[edit] References
^ Çelik, Serdar (February/March 1994). "Turkey's Killing Machine: The Contra-Guerrilla Force". Kurdistan Report 17.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/017.html. Retrieved 2008-09-20. quoting Bülent Ecevit from "a newspaper interview" (in Turkish). Milliyet. 1990-11-28. "Özel Harp Dairesinin nerede bulunduğunu sordum 'Amerikan Askerî Yardım Heyetiyle aynı binada' yanıtını aldım."
^ Haberman, Clyde (1990-11-16). "EVOLUTION IN EUROPE; Italy Discloses Its Web Of Cold War Guerrillas". New York Times.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... =permalink. Retrieved 2008-10-11. "Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece and Luxembourg have all acknowledged that they maintained Gladio-style networks to prepare guerrilla fighters to leap into action in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion. Many worked under the code name Stay Behind. Greece called its operation Red Sheepskin.
News reports in recent days assert that similar programs have also existed in Britain, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Turkey and Denmark, and even in neutral countries like Switzerland and Sweden."
^ Belgian parliamentary report concerning the stay-behind network, named "Enquête parlementaire sur l'existence en Belgique d'un réseau de renseignements clandestin international" or "Parlementair onderzoek met betrekking tot het bestaan in België van een clandestien internationaal inlichtingenetwerk" pg. 17-22
^ a b c d Vulliamy, Ed (1990-12-05). "Secret agents, freemasons, fascists... and a top-level campaign of political 'destabilisation'". The Guardian.
http://www.cambridgeclarion.org/press_c ... c1990.html.
^ Fitchett, Joseph. (1990-11-13) "Paris Says it Joined NATO 'Resistance'," International Herald Tribune
^ Duraud, Bernard (2005-10-07). "La critique - Récit d'un brigadiste" (in French). L'Humanité.
http://www.humanite.fr/2005-10-07_Inter ... brigadiste.
^ a b c d e Ganser, Daniele. "Terrorism in Western Europe: An Approach to NATO’s Secret Stay-Behind ArmiesPDF (162 KB)," Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, South Orange NJ, Winter/Spring 2005, Vol. 6, No. 1.
^ O’Shaughnessy, Hugh. "Gladio: Europe’s Secret Networks," The Observer, 18 November 1990.
^ "Gelli arrest is another chapter in Vatican bank scandal". American Atheists. 1998-09-16.
http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/vatican2.htm. Retrieved February 2006.
^ See for ex. links between Italian neofascist terrorist Stefano delle Chiaie, whom was protected by the Italian SISMI, and the DINA; including assassination attempts on Bernardo Leighton, Carlos Altamirano, Andrés Pascal Allende (Salvador Allende's nephew), etc. Delle Chiaie also worked with Argentine death-squad Triple A and Bolivian dictator Hugo Banzer. Las relaciones secretas entre Pinochet, Franco y la P2 , Conspiración para matar, Sergio Sorin, February 4, 1999
^ "Secret Cold-War Network Group Hid Arms, Belgian Member Says". Brussels: Reuters. 1990-11-13.
^ Pedrick, Clare; Lardner, George Jr (1990-11-14). "CIA Organized Secret Army in Western Europe". Washington Post.
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonp ... atl=google. Retrieved 2008-07-31.
^ Vulliamy, Ed (1990-08-03). "Grieving Bologna looks back in anger on bombing". The Guardian.
^ Patrice, Claude (1990-11-07). "ITALIE : face aux interrogations de l'opinion M. Andreotti lève le voile sur le passé d'une structure armée parallèle patronnée par l'OTAN et la CIA" (in French). Le Monde.
http://www.lemonde.fr/cgi-bin/ACHATS/506729.html.
^ a b Gardais, Pierre (1990-11-29). "Le chef du gouvernement italien a dû reconnaître son existence" (in French). L'Humanité.
http://www.humanite.fr/1990-11-29_Artic ... -existence. Retrieved 2008-08-21. "Selon les cas, on excitait ou en empêchait le terrorisme d’extrême gauche ou d’extrême droite" (English translation)
^ a b Willan, Philip. "Paolo Emilio Taviani", The Guardian, June 21, 2001. (Obituary.)
^ a b Herman, Edward S (June 1991). "Hiding Western Terror". Nation: 21–22.
^ Barbera, Myriam. "Gladio: et la France?," L'Humanité, November 10, 1990 (French).
^ "Caso Moro. Morire di Gladio" (in Italian). La Voce della Campania. January 2005.
http://www.lavocedellevoci.it/inchieste1.php?id=32.
^ Gladio e caso Moro: Arconte su morte Ferraro, "La Nuova Sardegna" (Italian)
^ a b Pallister, David. "How M16 and SAS Join In," The Guardian, December 5, 1990
^ Willan, Philip. "US 'supported anti-left terror in Italy'", The Guardian, June 24, 2000.
^ CIA knew, but didn't stop bombings in Italy – report. CBC
^ a b Willan, Philip. Terrorists 'helped by CIA' to stop rise of left in Italy, The Guardian, March 26, 2001.
^ "Protest marches as the Milan bomb outrage five go free". The Guardian. 1985-08-03.
^ "Neo-fascists Cleared of 1973 Bomb Attack for Second Time". ANSA. 2004-12-01.
^ "CIA rejects accusation of involvement in bombings in Italy". AFP. 2000-08-04.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Chronology, Secret Warfare: Operation Gladio and NATO's Stay-Behind Armies, ETH Zurich
^ a b c "Strage di Piazza Fontana spunta un agente USA". La Repubblica. 1998-02-11.
http://www.repubblica.it/online/fatti/f ... ntana.html. Retrieved 2006-02-02. (With original documents, including juridical sentences and the report of the Italian Commission on Terrorism (Italian)
^ Richards, Charles (1990-12-01). "Gladio is still opening wounds". The Independent: p. 12.
http://www.cambridgeclarion.org/press_c ... c1990.html. Retrieved 2008-07-30.
^ a b Charles Richards & Simon Jones, "Skeletons start emerging from Europe's closet," The Independent, November 16, 1990, quoted in (Statewatch 1991).
^ Agnew, Paddy. "Report of NATO-sponsored secret army shocks Italy," The Irish Times, on November 15, 1990 pg. 8. Quoted by (Statewatch 1991).
^ Willan, Philip. "Moro's ghost haunts political life", The Guardian, May 9, 2003.
^ Vulliamy, Ed. The Guardian, January 16, 1991. Quoted by (Statewatch 1991).
^ Translated from Bologna massacre Association of Victims Italian website Original page (Italian)
^ Ganser, Daniele (2005-04-07). "The Secret Side of International Relations: An approach to NATO’s stay-behind armies in Western Europe" (PDF). Political Studies Association Annual Conference.
^ "Italy probes 'parallel police'". BBC News. July 1, 2005.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4640247.stm. Retrieved 2008-07-30.
^ Philips, John (2005-07-05). "Up to 200 Italian police 'ran parallel anti-terror force'". The Independent.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q ... _n14681859. Retrieved 2008-07-30.
^ Selvatici, Franca (2005-07-02). "Macché Gladio bis, le autorità sapevano Gaetano Saya si difende" (in Italian). La Repubblica.
http://www.repubblica.it/2005/g/sezioni ... ladio.html. (Google translation available)
^ Ceccarelli, Filippo (2005-07-03). "Gladio, P2, falangisti l'Italia che sogna il golpe" (in Italian). La Repubblica.
http://www.repubblica.it/2005/g/sezioni ... golpe.html.
^ Imarisio, Marco (2005-07-03). "Così reclutavano: «Facciamo un'altra Gladio»" (in Italian). Corriere della Sera.
http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cron ... isio.shtml.
^ Official site of the Belgian Permanent Committee for the Control of Intelligence Services See "history" section in the "Presentation" part.
^ Kwitny, Jonathan (1992-04-06). "The C.I.A.'s Secret Armies in Europe". The Nation: pp. 446-447.
http://www.thenation.com/archive/detail/9203303730. Quoted in Ganser's "Terrorism in Western Europe".
^ Cogan, Charles (2007). "'Stay-Behind' in France: Much ado about nothing?". Journal of Strategic Studies 30 (6): 937–954. doi:10.1080/01402390701676493.
^ Daeninckx, Didier. "Du Temple Solaire au réseau Gladio, en passant par Politica Hermetica...," February 27, 2002.
^ a b Colby, William. "A Scandinavian Spy," Chapter 3. (Former CIA director 's memoirs.)
^ a b Lee, Christopher. CIA Ties With Ex-Nazis Shown, Washington Post, June 7, 2006.
^ "Alleged Secret Organization". The Times. 1952-10-09.
^ a b "'Partisans' in Germany". The Times. 1952-10-11.
^ a b c d e Norton-Taylor, Richard and David Gow. Secret Italian Unit," The Guardian, November 17, 1990
^ "Ban In Hesse On Youth Union". The Times. 1953-01-10.
^ "Further Ban On Union Of German Youth". The Times. 1953-01-15.
^ "Police say suspect committed suicide". United Press International. 1981-11-01.
^ a b c Why Israel's capture of Eichmann caused panic at the CIA, The Guardian, June 8, 2006
^ Opening of CIA Records under Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, May 8, 2002 NARA communique (English)
^ Peter Murtagh, The Rape of Greece. The King, the Colonels, and the Resistance (London, Simon & Schuster, 1994), p.29, quoted by Daniele Ganser (2005), p.213
^ Ganser (2005), pp.213-214 (his quote)
^ Philip Agee and Louis Wolf, Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe (Secaucus: Lyle Stuart Inc., 1978), p.154 (quoted by Daniele Ganser (2005) p.216
^ a b c d Richard Norton-Taylor, "The Gladio File: did fear of communism throw West into the arms of terrorists?", in The Guardian, December 5, 1990
^ "NATO's secret network 'also operated in France'", The Guardian, November 14, 1990, pg.6
^ a b c "Misinformation about "Gladio/Stay Behind" Networks Resurfaces". United States Department of State.
http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2 ... 27177.html.
^ "'MIVD verzwijgt wapenvondst in onderwereld'". Nu.nl. 2007-09-09.
http://www.nu.nl/news/1228111/13/%27MIV ... ld%27.html. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
^ "GLADIO IN NEDERLAND".
http://reporter.kro.nl/uitzendingen/200 ... intro.aspx. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
^ Olav Riste (1999). The Norwegian Intelligence Service: 1945-1970. Routledge. ISBN 0714649007.
^ "Secret Anti-Communist Network Exposed in Norway in 1978". Associated Press. 1990-11-14.
^ (Ganser 2005, p. 119) Quotes Joao Paulo Guerra, "Gladio actuou em Portugal", in O Jornal, 16 November 1990 and Stuart Christie, Stefano delle Chiaie, London, 1984, p.30.
^ Turkone, Mumtaz'er (2008-07-05). "Only a coup prevented?". Today's Zaman.
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detay ... ink=146630. Retrieved 2008-11-15. "It was known that Turkey also had a similar organization but it was only the Turkish counter-guerilla group that rode out this purging process intact."
^ Kilic, Ecevit (2008-04-28). "İtalyan Gladiosu'nu çözen savcı: En etkili Gladio sizde" (in Turkish). Sabah.
http://arsiv.sabah.com.tr/2008/04/28/ha ... 2BE4C.html. Retrieved 2008-11-15. "Türkiye'nin ise 'Özel Harp Dairesi', halk arasındaki adıyla 'kontrgerilla.' Yapının iki unsuru vardı; askeri görevliler ve siviller. Sivillerden oluşan yapının adı ise 'Ergenekon'. 1990'lı yılların başında batı ülkeleri, Gladio'nun faaliyetlerine son verdi. Sorumluları yargılandı. Türkiye hariç."
^ "Gölbaşı cephanesi İtalyan savcıyı haklı çıkardı" (in Turkish). Zaman. 2009-01-09.
http://www.zaman.com.tr/haber.do?haberno=801635. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
^ Üstel, Aziz (2008-07-14). "Savcı, Ergenekon’u Kenan Evren’e sormalı asıl!" (in Turkish). Star Gazete.
http://www.stargazete.com/gazete/yazar/ ... 113287.htm. Retrieved 2008-10-21. "Türkiye’deki gizli ordunun adı kontr gerilladır."
^ David Lampe, The Last Ditch: Britain's Resistance Plans against the Nazis Cassell 1968 ISBN 0304925195
^ Dan van der Vat. "Obituary: General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley," Guardian. 15 March 2006
^ Gerardo Serravalle, Gladio (Rome: Edizione Associate, ISBN 88-267-0145-8, 1991), p.78-79 (Italian)
^ Belgian Parliamentary Commission of Enquiry into Gladio, quoted by Daniele Ganser (2005)
^ a b Norton-Taylor, Richard. UK trained secret Swiss force" in The Guardian, September 20, 1991, pg.7.
^ Crimes of Montejurra (Good Google translation)
^ Un informe oficial italiano implica en el crimen de Atocha al 'ultra' Cicuttini, relacionado con Gladio, El País, December 2, 1990 (Spanish)
^ Suárez afirma que en su etapa de presidente nunca se habló de la red Gladio, El País, November 18, 1990 (Spanish)
^ Calvo Sotelo asegura que España no fue informada, cuando entró en la OTAN, de la existencia de Gladio, El País, November 21, 1990 (Spanish)
^ Italia vetó la entrada de España en Gladio, según un ex jefe del espionaje italiano, El País, November 17, 1990 (Spanish)
^ Serra ordena indagar sobre la red Gladio en España, El País, November 16, 1990 (Spanish)
^ La 'red Gladio' continúa operando, según el ex agente Alberto Volo, El País, August 19, 1991 (Spanish)
^ El secretario de la OTAN elude precisar si España tuvo relación con la red Gladio, El País, November 24, 1990 (Spanish)
^ Indicios de que la red Gladio utilizó una vieja estación de la NASA en Gran Canaria, El País, November 26, 1990 (Spanish)
^ La red secreta de la OTAN operaba en España, según un ex agente belga, El País, November 14, 1990
^ a b The Dark Side of the West, Conference "Nato Secret Armies and P26," ETH Zurich, 2005. Published 10 February 2005. Retrieved February 7, 2007.
^ Ganser, Daniele. "The British Secret Service in Neutral Switzerland: An Unfinished Debate on NATO's Cold War Stay-behind Armies", published by the Intelligence and National Security review, vol.20, n°4, December 2005, pp.553-580 ISSN 0268–4527 print 1743–9019 online.
^ Major Hans von Dach, 1958. Der totale Widerstand...; Total Resistance reed. Paladin Press, 1992 ISBN 978-0873640213.
^ "Schwarzer Schatten" (in German). Der Spiegel 50: 194b-200a. 1990-12-10.
http://wissen.spiegel.de/wissen/dokumen ... op=SPIEGEL. Retrieved 2008-10-28. [verification needed]
^ p.14 quote from Libération concerning OST, Gladio and Jacques Foccart, on Survie NGO web site: " La justice française n’a fait que combattre la pertinence des parties civiles au lieu de les soutenir dans la recherche de la vérité"
^ The Renewed Order of the Solar Temple (ORT — "Ordre Rénové du Temple") is listed as a cult composed of 50 to 500 French members by the 1995 French Parliamentary Commission of investigation of Cults activities (See here [1] for original report).
^ "Les familles des victimes veulent rouvrir l'instruction," Reuters, 2004-03-22 (French)
^ "Refus de rouvrir l'enquête, colère des familles", Reuters, 2004-03-25 (French)
^ Declaration to the media of Alain Vuarnet, family of the OTS victims
^ Pat Frank. An Affair of State. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1949
[edit] Bibliography
Statewatch (January 1991), Operation Gladio,
http://www.thejohnfleming.com/gladio.html, retrieved 2008-07-30
Secret Warfare : Operation Gladio and NATO's Stay-Behind Armies. Edited by Daniele Ganser and Christian Nuenlist. 29 Nov 2004. Parallel History Project, ETH Zürich
Ganser, Daniele (2005), NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe, Frank Cass Publishers, ISBN 0-7146-8500-3 (resume)
Daniele Ganser, Les Armées Secrètes de l'OTAN, Gladio et Terrorisme en Europe de l’Ouest, ISBN 978-2-917112-00-7 éditions Demi-Lune, 2007. Same book as above, in French. (a quick resume in French)
William Colby (former CIA director), Honorable Men (1978) extract
David Hoffman, "The Oklahoma City bombing and the Politics of Terror", 1998 (chapter 14 online on strategy of tension
Giovanni Fasanella and Claudio Sestieri with Giovanni Pellegrino, "Segreto di Stato. La verità da Gladio al caso Moro", Einaudi, 2000 (see civic website of Bologna) (Italian)
Jan Willems, Gladio, 1991, EPO-Dossier, Bruxelles (ISBN 2-87262-051-6). (French)
Jens Mecklenburg, Gladio. Die geheime terrororganisation der Nato, 1997, Elefanten Press Verlag GmbH, Berlin (ISBN 3-88520-612-9). (German)
Leo A. Müller, Gladio. Das Erbe des kalten Krieges, 1991, RoRoRo-Taschenbuch Aktuell no 12993 (ISBN 3499 129930). (German)
Jean-François Brozzu-Gentile, L’Affaire Gladio. Les réseaux secrets américains au cœur du terrorisme en Europe, 1994, Albin Michel, Paris (ISBN 2-226-06919-4). (French)
Anna Laura Braghetti, Paola Tavella, Le Prisonnier. 55 jours avec Aldo Moro, 1999 (translated from Italian: Il Prigioniero), Éditions Denoël, Paris (ISBN 2207248887) (Italian)/(French)
Regine Igel, Andreotti. Politik zwischen Geheimdienst und Mafia, 1997, Herbig Verlagsbuchhandlung GmbH, Munich (ISBN 3776619511). (German)
Arthur E. Rowse, "Gladio: The Secret U.S. War to Subvert Italian Democracy" in Covert Action #49, Summer of 1994.]
Anti-Fascist Action (AFA), "Staying Behind: NATO's Terror Network" in Fighting Talk #11, May 1995.
François Vitrani, "L’Italie, un Etat de 'souveraineté limitée' ?", in Le Monde diplomatique, December 1990. (French)
Patrick Boucheron, "L'affaire Sofri : un procès en sorcellerie?", in L'Histoire magazine, n°217 (January 1998) Concerning Carlo Ginzburg's book The judge and the historian about Adriano Sofri (French)
"Les procès Andreotti en Italie" ("The Andreotti trials in Italy") by Philippe Foro, published by University of Toulouse II, Groupe de recherche sur l'histoire immédiate (Study group on immediate history). (French)
Angelo Paratico "Gli assassini del karma" Robin editore, Roma, 2003.
[edit] Films
Michele Placido, Romanzo Criminale (2005, concerning the strategy of tension and the Banda della Magliana)
Renzo Martinelli, Five Moons Plaza at the Internet Movie Database (Piazza delle cinque lune) (2003)
Allan Francovich, Gladio (1992), (aired on the BBC) - Watch Online
Conspirator: The Story of Licio Gelli at the Internet Movie Database (2009) [/quote]
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How to justify domestic terrorism 101.
Oh no, sorry the raison d'tre was to be a puppet master. Carry on. Ya doing well, boys. Got to give the spooks a job.
So what is Synarchy?