Operation Gladio and the Years of Lead: Licio Gelli, Propaganda Due and the murder of Aldo Moro (Part One)
Around the start of the 1970s, Italy entered a period of intense political violence marked by riots, bombings and assassinations, with the chaos blamed on both the far-left and the far-right. After the ‘Years of Lead’ wound down towards the start of the 1990s, the revelations of a covert anti-Communist network codenamed Operation Gladio would lead to questions around its role in the turmoil.
In the decades since, two broad narratives have emerged. The first is that the Gladio members, which included CIA agents, powerful business interests and far-right activists, simply stockpiled arms in preparation for a potential Soviet takeover, and then quietly disbanded after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In stark contrast, the other explanation portrays the CIA as directing every twist and turn of the Years of Lead, with the other players in the Gladio network as simply following their lead. In reality however, a closer inspection reveals that Gladio’s relationship to the Years of Lead was likely complex, with the CIA creating a monster they were eventually unable to control.
Part One: 1963–1969
In 1963, the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) re-entered government for the first time in decades. Having reached an agreement with Aldo Moro of the Christian Democracy party (CD), the PSI’s return to power signaled a fundamental shift in the politics of Italy, which had been marked by a staunch traditionalism during the previous decades. These developments would soon spark a reaction from the country’s conservative powerbrokers, who had worked closely with the Central Intelligence Agency to set up Operation Gladio after the Second World War.
Part of a wider European network, the existence of Gladio would only be exposed in the 1990s, during investigations into the intense violence which marked Italian politics following the CD-PSI alliance. The Gladio revelations would lead to accusations of state involvement in the bloodshed, with the intention of weakening the various factions which made up Italy’s left. While the existence of Gladio itself was confirmed, the extent of its involvement in the Years of Lead was greatly downplayed, a claim which had been heavily disputed in the light of the suspicious circumstances which surrounded many of the period’s most infamous events.
It is believed that Licio Gelli was inducted into the quasi-Masonic Propaganda Due (P2) lodge the same year that the Socialists won their electoral victory in 1963. One of the many fascist officials who had been quickly rehabilitated after the Second World War, Gelli had entered the world of business as the commercial director of a manufacturing company. Meanwhile, he would operate within the influential circles of Propaganda Due to further an international neo-fascist agenda, particularly in his home country, but also Latin America.
In nearby Portugal, still ruled by the Salazar regime, a supposed media group named Aginter Press was set up in 1965. Despite its cover, the company was actually a front for Portuguese intelligence, and worked closely with far-right figures linked to stay-behind operations across Europe. According to a document found after the downfall of Salazar in 1974, their efforts went as far as infiltrating leftist movements, with the intention of attacking liberalism under the guise of Communism, effectively trying to kill their two most hated enemies with one stone.
A leading Italian member of the Aginter Press was Stefano Delle Chiaie, also a member of the P2 lodge, who had formed the Avanguardia Nazionale (‘National Vanguard’) organisation in 1960. Unlike the larger neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI), Delle Chiaie’s group rejected parliamentary participation, seeking to bring down the Italian Republic through force. For a time, Delle Chiaie had been close with another Aginter operative, Pino Rauti of the Ordine Nuovo (‘New Order’), which functioned as a cultural group outside of electoral politics. An unorthodox figure in the far-right, Rauti was heavily influenced by fascist ideologue Julius Evola, claiming that his brand of fascism was a left-wing movement. Given his closeness to Aginter and alleged employment by the Italian security services however, it appears this was likely part of the Gladio agenda.
Officially, Stefano Delle Chiaie and Rauti had gone their separate ways in the 1960s, with the former establishing Avanguardia Nazionale, which was more involved with protest and street fighting. Given that Delle Chiaie would also be implicated in various Gladio operations over the coming years, it could be that their supposed rift was intended to disguise the ongoing attempts to carry out the Gladio agenda.
Even as Aldo Moro’s centre-left cabinet was being negotiated in 1963, rumours had swirled of an impending coup. Although these were broadly confirmed decades later, it remains unclear whether they were entirely genuine, or a means of pressuring Moro over his discussions with the Socialists. At any rate, the plot, codenamed Piano Solo, was to be carried out by the Carabinieri police force, led by Giovanni de Lorenzo, who had formerly headed Italy’s military intelligence agency, SIFAR. As in many NATO countries, SIFAR had been instrumental in setting up the Gladio operation, with a 1959 document indicating that the agency had direct responsibility for its affairs.
According to the files, the Americans were aware of the plans, having been informed by an unknown party, but took no apparent role in the plot. Although it is likely that the CIA saw no problem with threatening to a coup to scare Moro, it appears that the Agency was reluctant to endorse the full restoration of fascism in Italy. The tension between the Americans and their contacts in the Italian far-right would be an ongoing issue for the Gladio network, which would sharpen further as Moro’s centre-left cabinet held on to power. Furthering the issue, Giuseppe Saragat, head of the Italian Democratic Socialist Party, became President in 1964. As an ally of Moro, he would back the Prime Minister’s reforms of the country’s intelligence services in response to Piano Solo, which saw SIFAR dissolved and replaced by the Servizio Informazioni Difesa (SID).
In May 1965, as the Moro government was pushing through its reforms, a conference took place at the Parco dei Principi hotel, uniting various figures linked to Gladio operations. Allegedly financed by SIFAR, the participants included Stefano Delle Chiaie and Pino Rauti, along with representatives of the state. The gathering saw several speeches, mostly concerning a doctrine for ‘revolutionary war’ against Communism. According to subsequent reporting, it was decided at the Parco dei Principi to pursue a ‘strategy of tension’ to combat the influence of the left, through encouraging the spread of political violence that would justify authoritarian measures.
Despite going through several reshuffles, Aldo Moro’s first government lasted for five years. All throughout, the Socialists would remain part of the cabinet, supporting Moro in his battles with the more conservative factions of Christian Democracy. Further to the left than the PSI were the Communists (PCI), who had entrenched their position as the leading opposition party through their base in trade unionism and local politics, particularly in the North of Italy.
Combining support for the Soviet Union with a moderate platform of liberal reformism, the PCI had come to be closely intertwined with the country’s intellectual scene, counting figures such as film-maker Pier Paolo Pasolini as prominent supporters. A strident critic of Christian Democracy, Pasolini’s career was marked by scandal for his rejection of traditionalism. Like many older Communists, he would also express a dislike for the new generation of student radicals, who were strongly influenced by the New Left, as well as the more local Autonomist movement.
In time, Italy’s New Left would clash bitterly with the far-right, but there were some moments of apparent unity during the 1960s. The country’s fringe politics had seen the emergence of various syncretic groups in this period, a phenomenon labelled ‘Nazi-Maoism’ by observers years later. Along with the wider context of the Sino-soviet split, it appears that Gladio operatives sought to further this division through measures such as the ‘Chinese posters operation’ of 1966. First proposed at the Principi conference, the disinformation campaign saw Stefano Delle Chiaie and his followers put up Maoist posters to further division on the left:
Meanwhile, Rauti was making connections with Nazi-Maoist group Giovane Nazione (‘Young Nation’), a splinter group from the MSI who were also linked to the Aginter Press. The group’s militants included a young student named Renato Curcio, who would later become a leading member of the Maoist guerilla group Brigate Rosse (‘Red Brigades’). In 1963 however, it appears that he was the head of the GN branch in Albenga, where he studied at a local technical institute. This would not be the only case of a former far-right militant seemingly reinventing themselves as a leftist revolutionary during the period, likely reflecting the strategy laid out in the document later found at the headquarters of the Aginter Press.
During the protests which swept the developed world in 1968, Italy would not be spared, despite the opposition of both the Socialists and Communists. Instead, it seems that a driving force within the protests were Stefano Delle Chiaie’s Avanguardia Nazionale, along with New Left groups. In particular, militants from the far-right group took a leading role during demonstrations in Rome, which saw intense clashes with the Italian police. Conveniently, the ‘Battle of Valle Giulia’ took place shortly before the first general election since 1963. As a result of the vote, the Moro cabinet finally fell apart, with a more conservative Christian Democrat, Giovanni Leone, stepping into the role.
Despite the collapse of Moro’s government, Leone lacked majority support from parliament, and was forced to resign after only a few months. Instead, he was replaced by Mariano Rumour, a CD figure closer to Moro and the left, who formed yet another cabinet with support from the Socialists. Again, the inability of the Italian right-wing to hold power had been exposed, driving some of its more extreme elements to embrace revolution against the state.
In December 1969, an explosion ripped through the headquarters of the Banca Nazionale dell’Agricoltura (National Agricultural Bank) in Milan’s Piazza Fontana, leaving seventeen dead and eighty-eight wounded. Part of a spate of bombings across the North of Italy, the massacre would be initially blamed on anarchists, with dozens rounded up in the immediate aftermath. During the crackdown, Giuseppe Pinelli, head of the Anarchist Black Cross organisation, fell to his death while in police custody. This official cause of death was quickly disputed, with allegations swirling that Pinelli had been murdered by the authorities.
It was around this time that Pino Rauti rejoined the Italian Social Movement. Although many of his New Order followers would follow him into electoral politics, some remained outside parliament in the Movimento Politico Ordine Nuovo (‘New Order Political Movement’). These followers were later accused of involvement in the Piazza Fontana bombing, as well as a series of other attacks that took place during the onset of the Years of Lead. Rauti’s role in these attacks remains disputed, with the neo-fascist ideologue charged in 1972 for several acts of terrorism, including the attack on the Piazza Fontana. That same year however, he became an MP for the MSI, and received immunity from the charges.
To date, nobody has been convicted of physically planting the bomb at the Piazza Fontana. In the years following, political violence would increase dramatically, with further bombings accompanied by riots and assassinations. Mirroring the conflict in the streets, Italy’s parliament would be beset by turmoil, with political crises leading to a succession of short-lived cabinets. All throughout, the men of Gladio would continue to operate in the shadows.
Part Two coming soon. For more on intelligence operations in Cold War Italy:
How the CIA helped the French Connection smuggle heroin
God’s banker: The CIA, Operation Gladio and the death of Roberto Calvi