XI: The Gladio "stay-behind network" created by the CIA and MI6:

"The executive agents in the creation of the stay-behind networks were the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States and the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) of the United Kingdom. Other major actors included security services in a number of European countries."

XII: The NATO secret armies remained hidden until the Italian government revealed the existence of its own secret army in 1990

XIV: The author, Daniele Ganser, begins four years of study into Operation Gladio + 1959 Document proves CIA / NATO link:

"When looking for a PhD research topic in early 1998, I became interested in the Gladio phenomenon, of which I had not previously heard. After some research I realized that despite its great importance for the most recent political, social and military history of Western Europe and the United States, only very limited work had been carried out on the phenomenon of the secret NATO armies, with no single study on the topic available in English…many well-meaning friends advised me against taking it as a PhD topic. Very sensibly they argued that I would gain access neither to the archives of the secret services, nor to primary data on the topic from NATO and its Office of Security. Furthermore they predicted that the number of countries, which by the end of my research had unexpectedly risen to fourteen, as well as the time frame I intended to investigate in each of these countries, five decades, not only would wear me out, but would also necessarily leave my findings fragmented and incomplete. That in addition to these problems I would have to work with texts in more than ten different European languages, of which I personally could only read five, made matters crystal clear: Gladio was not a suitable PhD research topic.

…I nevertheless embarked upon the research project and dedicated the next four years of my life to the investigation. At the time my determination to proceed, and my ability to convince my advising professors, was based on one single original document from the Italian military secret service SIFAR, dated June 1, 1959 and entitled 'the special forces of SIFAR and Operation Gladio.' This document proved that a CIA- and NATO-linked secret army code-named Gladio had existed in Italy during the Cold War…"

XV: "The so-called stay-behind armies had existed in all 16 NATO countries during the Cold War" and also in four neutral countries + CIA, NATO and other government agencies won't release documents:

"Next to the challenges that rise with respect to the number of countries, gathering data for each single country too proved difficult. It was most distressing that governments, NATO and secret services withheld requested documents despite a FOIA request to the CIA, numerous letters to NATO, and official requests to European governments…the analysis had therefore to be based on numerous secondary sources, including parliamentary reports, testimonies of persons involved as reported by the international press, articles, books and documentaries, needless to say, such secondary sources can never be a substitute for the original primary documents, and all future research must clearly aim for access to primary documents. If, however, the data presented hereafter first of all enables researchers to gain an overview of a phenomenon which otherwise might have remained inaccessible, and in the second place enabled processes which in the future will lead to access to primary documents, then the main purposes of this book will have been achieved."

1-2: Good introduction info and summary:

"As the details of the operation emerged, the press concluded that the 'story seems straight from the pages of a political thriller.' The secret armies were equipped by the CIA and the MI6 with machine guns, explosives, munitions and high-tech communication equipment hidden in arms caches in forests, meadows and underground bunkers across Western Europe. Leading officers of the secret network trained together with the US Green Berets Special Forces in the United States of America and the British SAS Special Forces in England."

[The pretext for setting up the armies was to counter the consequences of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe] "Yet the Soviet invasion never came. The real and present danger in the eyes of the secret war strategists in Washington and London were the at-times numerically strong Communist parties in the democracies of Western Europe. Hence the network in the total absence of a Soviet invasion took up arms in numerous countries and fought a secret war against the political forces of the left. The secret armies, as the secondary sources now available suggest, were involved in a whole series of terrorist operations and human rights violations that they wrongly blamed on the Communists in order to discredit the left at the polls. The operations always aimed at spreading maximum fear among the population and ranged from bomb massacres in trains and market squares (Italy), the use of systematic torture of the opponents of the regime (Turkey), the support for right-wing coup d'états (Greece and Turkey), to the smashing of opposition groups (Portugal and Spain)."

3: Peteano Car Bomb in 1972, false report designed to discredit communists:

"For more than a decade the Italian population believed that the Red Brigades had committed the Peteano terrorist attack. Then, in 1984, young Italian Judge Felice Casson reopened the long dormant case after having discovered with surprise an entire series of blunders and fabrications surrounding the Peteano atrocity. Judge Casson found that there had been no police investigation on the scene. He also discovered that the report which at the time claimed the explosive used in Peteano had been the one traditionally used by the Red Brigades was a forgery…Judge Casson was able to prove that the explosive used in Peteano…was C4, the most powerful explosive available at the time, used also by NATO. 'I wanted that new light should be shed on these years of lies and mysteries, that's all,' Casson years later told journalists…"

4: Judge Casson conducts investigation, it revealed "right wing organization" and "Italian Secret Service" were responsible for bombing. Vincenzo Vinciguerra confessed and testified:

"Casson's investigation revealed that…Ordine Nuovo [New Order] had collaborated very closely with the Italian Military Secret Service…Together they had engineered the Peteano terror and then wrongly blamed…the Red Brigades. Judge Casson identified Ordine Nuovo member Vincenzo Vinciguerra as the man who had planted the Peteano bomb... He confessed and testified that he had been covered by an entire network of sympathizers in Italy and abroad who had ensured that after the attack he could escape. 'A whole mechanism came into action', Vinciguerra recalled" (the Italian military police), "'the Minister of the Interior, the customs services and the military and civilian intelligence services accepted the ideological reasoning behind the attack.'"

5: Gladio operatives killed indiscriminately to discredit the Red Brigades + Piazza Fontana bombing and others including Bologna:

"According to an evil strategy the terror was wrongly blamed on the Communists and the extreme left, traces were covered up and arrests followed immediately. The population at large had little chances to find out the truth, as the military secret service went to great lengths to cover up the crime…The atrocities culminated on a sunny afternoon during the Italian national holiday when on August 2, 1980 a massive explosion ripped through the waiting room of the second class at the Bologna railway station, killing 85 people in the blast and seriously injuring and maiming a further 200…Contrary to the Red Brigades who ended up in jail, the terrorists of the right mysteriously escaped after each massacre because, as Vinciguerra correctly pointed out, the security apparatus of the Italian state and the military secret services protected them."

6: General Giandelio Meletti, former head of Italian counterintelligence, implicates the CIA under oath:

"General Giandelio Meletti…suggested that next to the Gladio secret army, the Italian secret service and a group of Italian right-wing terrorists, the massacres which had discredited the Italian communists had also been supported by the White House in Washington and the US secret service CIA…Maletti testified: 'The CIA, following the directives of its government, wanted to create an Italian nationalism capable of halting what it saw as a slide to the left, and, for this purpose, it may have made use of right-wing terrorism…The impression was that the American would do anything to stop Italy from sliding to the left.'"

7: Vinciguerra's admits: "had to attack civilians:"

"Vinciguerra…related: 'You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple…to force these people…to turn to the State to ask for greater security. This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the State cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened…With the massacre of Peteano, and with all those that have followed,' Vinciguerra explained on trial in 1984, 'the knowledge should by now be clear that there existed a real live structure, occult and hidden, with the capacity of giving a strategic direction to the outrages...[it] lies within the state itself...There exists in Italy a secret force parallel to the armed forces, composed of civilians and military men, in an anti-Soviet capacity...A secret organization, a super-organization with a network of communications, arms and explosives, and men trained to use them...A super-organization which…took up the task, on NATO's behalf, of preventing a slip to the left in the political balance of the country. This they did, with the assistance of the official secret services and the political and military forces.'"

9: Finally, Italian government is forced to admit Gladio's existence:

"On August 3, 1990, Prime Minister Andreotti took a stand in front of the parliamentary commission and for the first time in Italy's post-war history confirmed as acting member of the Italian government that a NATO-linked secret security structure had existed in the country."

12-13: Details about Gladio and CIA-supplied arms caches + Andreotti contradicts Vinciguerra's testimony on terror links, but says no members of the network can be questioned

14: Gladio kept secret for 45 years

19: In Spain, Gladio "was the government"

"In neighboring Spain, which similar to Portugal during most of the Cold War had been a right-wing dictatorship which fought the political opposition with terror and torture, Alberto Oliart, Defense Minister in the early 1980's, considered it to be 'childish' to ask whether…a secret right-wing army had existed in the country because 'here Gladio was the government.'"

20: Gladio in Turkey "involved in torture, massacres and assassination operations as well as coup d'états..." Turkish Defense Minister warned the Prime Minister that he had better keep his fucking mouth shut.

"In Turkey the ruling elite took a stand on the Gladio issue on December 3 when [Turkish generals] confirmed to the press the existence of a secret NATO army in Turkey directed by the 'Special Warfare Department…' While the Generals stressed that the members of the Turkish Gladio were all good 'patriots' the press and former Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit stressed that the secret army (called Counter-Guerrilla) had been repeatedly involved in torture, massacres and assassination operations as well as the coup d'états the country had suffered from…Thereafter the ruling military refused to answer questions from parliament and civil Ministers, and Turkish Defense Minister Giray warned that 'Ecevit had better keep his fucking mouth shut!'"

22-23: Good quote on "No Democratic Control + critical summary of Gladio by EU

"Dutch MP Vandemeulebroucke captured the feeling of many Europeans well when he summarized that 'This affair leaves a bad taste in the mouth, since it has been going on for as long as the European Community has been in existence, and we claim to be creating a new form of democracy…it now emerges that there are centres for taking decisions and carrying them out which are not subject to any form of democratic control…I should like to protect most strongly against the fact that the American military, whether through SHAPE, NATO or the CIA, think they can interfere in what is our democratic right.'

Following the debate the parliament of the EU decided to pass a resolution on the Gladio affair in which the parliamentarians critically reflected upon the Gladio phenomenon and…attempted to summarise the main features of the Gladio phenomenon:

1. Having regard to the revelation by several European governments of the existence for 40 years of a clandestine parallel intelligence and armed operations organisation in several Member States of the Community
2. Whereas for over 40 years this organisation has escaped all democratic controls and has been run by the secret services of the states concerned in collaboration with NATO;
3. Fearing the danger that such clandestine networks may have interfered illegally in the internal political affairs of Member States or may still do so;
4. Whereas in certain Member States military secret services (or uncontrolled branches thereof) were involved in serious cases of terrorism and crime as evidenced by various judicial inquiries;
5. Whereas these organisations operated and continue to operate completely outside the law since they are not subject to any parliamentary control and frequently those holding the highest government and constitutional posts are kept in the dark as to these matters;
6. Whereas the various 'Gladio" organisations have at their disposal independent arsenals and military resources which give them an unknown strike potential, thereby jeopardising the democratic structures of the countries in which they are operating or have been operating;
7. Greatly concerned at the existence of decision-making and operational bodies which are not subject to any form of democratic control and are of a completely clandestine nature at time when greater Community co-operation in the field of security is a constant subject of discussion.'" (Emphasis added.)

25: First NATO denied Gladio, then it withdrew the denial:

"At the time of the Gladio discoveries in 1990, NATO…reacted with confusion to the revelations of Italian Prime Minister Andreotti and feared for its image when the secret stay-behind armies were linked to massacres, torture, coup d'états and other terrorist operations in several countries of Western Europe…After almost a month of silence on Monday November 5 1990, NATO categorically denied Andreotti's allegation concerning NATO's involvement in operation Gladio and the secret armies. Senior NATO spokesman Jean Marcotta said at SHAPE headquarters… 'NATO has never contemplated guerrilla war or clandestine operations; it has always concerned itself with military affairs and the defense of the Allied frontiers.' Then, on Tuesday November 6, a NATO spokesman explained that NATO's denial of the previous day had been false. The spokesman left journalists only with a short communique which said that NATO never commented on matters of military secrecy and that Marcotta should not have said anything at all."

27: Supreme Allied Commander of NATO always a U.S. General

28: CIA officer confirms Gladio "run by NATO" + German press on American / British involvement:

"Retired CIA officer Thomas Polgar confirmed after the discovery of the secret armies in Western Europe that they were coordinated by 'a sort of unconventional warfare planning group' linked to NATO. This was also confirmed by the German press which highlighted that this secretive department of NATO had during the entire Cold War remained under the dominance of the United States. 'The missions of the secret armies are co-ordinated by the 'Special Forces Section' in a strictly secured wing of NATO headquarters…The Special Forces Section is directed by British or American officers exclusively and most papers in circulation carry the stamp American Eyes Only.'"

29: Secret Protocols necessary for NATO membership

31: Denied information by NATO:

"Still years after the discovery of the top-secret network, the official response, much like in 1990, is characterized by silence and denials. When the author during his research in summer 2000 contacted NATO archives with the request for more information on Gladio and specifically on ACC and CPC the military alliance replied: 'We have checked our Archives and cannot find any trace of the Committees you have mentioned.' When the author insisted, NATO's archive section replied: 'I wish to confirm once more that the Committees you refer to have never existed within NATO. Furthermore the oranisation you refer to as 'Gladio' has never been part of the NATO military structure.' Thereafter the author called NATO's Office of Security but was not allowed to either speak to the Director, nor know his name, for that was classified. Mrs Isabelle Jacobs at the Office of Security informed the author that it was unlikely that he would get any answers concerning sensitive Gladio questions and advised the author to hand in Gladio questions in writing via the embassy of his home country."

32: CIA by definition is a "terrorist organization" + a long list of CIA-directed coups

"Founded in 1947, two years before the establishment of NATO, the main task of the CIA during the Cold War was to combat Communism globally in covert action operations and promote the influence of the United States. 'By covert action operations,' US President Richard Nixon once defined the tactic, 'I mean those activities which, although designed to further official US programs and policies abroad, are so planned and executed that the hand of the US government is not apparent to unauthorized persons.' …From a systematic scientific perspective the covert action department of the CIA according to the definition of the FBI is…a terrorist organisation. Because 'Terrorism,' according to the FBI, 'is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.'"

34: "All branches of government must be accountable to public questions regarding the legality of its actions" + CIA refused FOIA requests

35: Appeal accepted, but CIA stonewalling:

"As FOIA requests are the only method available to get hold of any CIA Gladio documents, the author on December 14 2000 placed a FOIA request with the CIA, whereupon two weeks later the CIA replied to the author's request 'pertaining to Operation Gladio' in an evasive manner by stating that 'The CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records responsive to your request.' By raising FOIA exemptions B1 and B3 the CIA Information and Privacy Coordinator, Kathryn I. Dyer, with her letter declined all information on operation Gladio. The author appealed this decision of the CIA and argued that 'The documents that were withheld must be disclosed under the FOIA, because the secrecy exemptions (b)(1) and (b)(3) can only reasonably refer to CIA operations which are still secret today.' …In February 2001 the CIA replied that 'Your appeal has been accepted and arrangements will be made for its consideration by the appropriate members of the Agency Release Panel. You will be advised of the determinations made.' …At the time of writing, almost four years later, the CIA Agency Release Panel had still not answered the author's request for information."

36: MI6 finally admits its involvement in stay behind armies via a museum exhibit in 1995

44: BBC documentary, "the Unleashing of Evil", showed how U.S. and British Special Forces involved in torture and training Pol Pot genocide squads

53-54: 1947 NSC plan to prevent communists from winning democratic election in Italy succeeded, so it was expanded:

"Operations in Italy weakened the Communists and were a success. President Truman became fascinated with covert action as an instrument of statecraft and urged that the power of the CIA in the field had to be extended beyond Italy. Therefore on June 18, 1948 the NSC passed the notorious directive NSC 10/2 which authorised the CIA to carry out covert action operations in all countries of the world and within the CIA created a covert action branch under the name of 'Office of Special Projects,' a label soon changed to the less revealing 'Office of Policy Coordination' (OPC). NSC 10/2 directed that OPC shall 'plan and conduct covert operations.' By 'covert operations' NSC 10/2 designated all activities 'which are conducted or sponsored by this government against hostile foreign states or groups or in support of friendly foreign states or groups but which are so planned and conducted that any US Government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorised persons and that if uncovered the US Government can plausibly disclaim any responsibility for them.' Specifically covert action operations according to NSC 10/2 'shall include any covert activities related to propaganda; economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition, and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance movements, guerrillas and refugee liberation groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world.'" (Emphasis added)

59: Allen Dulles involved in MK Ultra, Iran, Guatemala, and Gladio:

"Dulles authorised CIA assassination attempts on Castro and Lumumba as well as the CIA's LSD experiments with unwitting subjects…Together with Wisner he organised the overthrow of Iran's President Mossadeh (sp) in 1953, and the coup d'état that overthrew the Socialist President Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954…Allen Dulles during his time as Director of CIA had been the brain behind the secret anti-Communist armies. When the Gladio secret armies were discovered across Western Europe in 1990, an unnamed former NATO intelligence official explained that 'Though the Stay Behind operation was officially started only in 1952, the whole exercise had been in existence for a long time, in fact ever since it was born in the head of Allen Dulles."

60: Richard Helms lied when he denied the CIA's role in the coup against President Salvador Allende in Chile; Helms had to resign as director of CIA and was fined $2,000 + CIA agent William Colby's role in "liquidating" 20,000 Vietcong in "Operation Phoenix", he wouldn't comment on how many of them dies of torture.

63-66: The CIA joins forces with the Mafia in Italy, Italian communists who fought alongside Americans and British to defeat the fascist regimes of Mussolini and Hitler are abandoned by Truman after the war. The CIA, recruited and protected known fascists like "The Black Prince" + Italian secret service controlled by the CIA:

"Prince Valerio Borghese, nicknamed 'The Black Prince,' was among the most notorious fascists recruited by the United States. As the commander of a murderous anti-partisan campaign under Mussolini…Borghese with his…Special Forces corps of 4,000 men…officially recognized by the Nazi High Command, had specialized in tracking down and killing hundreds of Italian Communists. At the end of the war the partisans captured Borghese and were about to hang him when [OSS employee and later CIA agent James Angleton, rescued] Borghese.

70: CIA vs Kennedy in Italy:

"The absurd situation developed in which President Kennedy found himself up against the Secretary of State and the Director of the CIA."

71-72: 1964 Italian coup, plus Rocco assassinated when he agreed to talk:

"Kennedy had allowed Italy to shift to the left. As the Socialists were given cabinet posts the Italian Communists, due to their performance at the polls, also demanded to be rewarded with posts in the cabinet and in May 1963 the large union of the construction workers demonstrated in Rome. The CIA was alarmed and members of the secret Gladio army disguised as police and civilians smashed the demonstration leaving more than 200 demonstrators injured. But for Italy the worst was yet to come. In November 1963, US President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas…And five months later the cIA with the SIFAR, the Gladio secret army and the paramilitary police carried out a right-wing coup d'état which forced the Italian Socialists to leave their cabinet posts they had held only for such a short period.

Code-named 'Piano Solo' the coup was directed by General Giovanni De Lorenzo…In close cooperation with CIA secret warfare expert Vernon Walters, William Harvey, chief of the CIA station in Rome, and Renzo Rocca, Director of the Gladio units within the military secret service SID, De Lorenzo escalated the secret war. Rocca first used his secret Gladio army to bomb the offices of the DCI and the offices of a few daily newspapers and thereafter blamed the terror on the left in order to discredit both Communists and Socialists…on June 14, 1964, De Lorenzo gave the go-ahead and with his troops entered Rome with tanks, armoured personnel carriers, jeeps and grenade launchers while NATO forces staged a large military manoeuvre in the area to intimidate the Italian government…After the coup the Gladio traces were covered up. Several years later, in July 1968, investigators wanted to question Gladio commander Renzo Rocca. The Gladiator was willing to cooperate but the day before his testimony was found dead, shot with a pistol through his head, in his private apartment in Rome. A judge who started to follow the assassination track was taken off from the case by higher authorities."

72-73: Spying on Italian elite for purposes of blackmail: "Extramarital relationships, homosexual relationships and regular contacts with feminine and masculine prostitutes" all monitored to keep the elite "by the balls."

"De Lorenzo…secretly monitored the entire Italian elite…The persons were spied upon with cameras making close up pictures from afar, secret systems with which their correspondence was controlled, recordings of what they had said in their phone calls, documentation with pictures of their extramarital relationships or sexual habits."

73-74: Licio Gelli, the CIA, and the Freemason's secret "Propaganda Due" (P2) lodge + good quote about subverted Democracy:

"Henry Kissinger 'authorized Gelli in the fall of 1969 to recruit 400 high ranking Italian and NATO officers into his Lodge.'…In April 1981, Milan magistrates in the context of a criminal investigation broke into the villa of Licio Gelli…and discovered the files of the P2, the existence of which had been unknown. A parliamentary investigation…revealed that the secretive anti-Communist P2 member lists…counted at least 962 members, with total membership estimated at 2,500….[It] included not only the most conservative but also some of the most powerful members of Italian society…The most prominent member was Silvio Berlusconi, who was elected Prime Minister of Italy in May 2001, by coincidence, almost exactly 20 years after the discovery of the P2.

'We have come to the definite conclusion that Italy is a country of limited sovereignty because of the interference of the American secret service and international freemasonry,' [stated] Communist member of the Anselmi commission, Antonio Bellocchio… 'If democracy is a system of rules and procedures which define the parameters within which political action can take place, what happens when alongside this system there is another one whose rules are mysterious, its procedures unknown, its power immense and which is able to protect itself against the formal institutions of democracy by a wall of secrecy?,' the parliamentarians asked the obvious question and sharply criticized this 'dangerous side of extra parliamentary activity.'"

76-78: Second Italian coup ("Operation Tora Tora") called off:

"Members of the Italian Mafia, which the CIA had recruited to support the conspirators, later testified on trial that Soviet intelligence had learned about the planned coup whereupon both Washington and NATO had noticed that numerous Soviet ships were cruising in the Mediterranean. 'Nothing was done and the coup came to nothing, partly because there were a lot of Soviet ships cruising in the Mediterranean at the time,' Mafia super grass Tommaso Buscetta testified to anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone in 1984…Who had made the mysterious phone call after midnight that had stopped the Gladio army? CIA Director William Colby implicitly suggested that it had been President Nixon himself."

Giovanni Tamburino, an investigative magistrate of the Italian city Padua, critically investigated the Tora Tora operation and to his massive surprise…discovered the involvement of a mysterious secret army, later discovered to be Gladio. Thereafter he arrested Vito Miceli, the acting Director of the SID who before had directed NATO's Security Office in Brussels. Tamburino charged Miceli with 'promoting, setting up, organizing, together with others, a secret association of military and civilians aimed at provoking an armed insurrection to bring about an illegal change in the constitution of the state and the form of government.' [Since] Gladio had not yet been discovered the structure during questionings was referred to as 'Super-SID.' On trial on November 17, 1974 an angry Miceli shouted: 'A Super SID on my orders? Of course! But I have not organized it myself to make a coup d'état. This was the United States and NATO who asked me to do it!...if you want details, I can not give them to you.' …In 1990 when Prime Minister Andreotti revealed the Gladio secret in front of the Italian parliament, Miceli was greatly annoyed and shortly before his death he shouted at Andreotti's revelation."

79-80: Moro defies Kissinger, Moro assassinated:

"In a heavy confrontation with Henry Kissinger…the Italian representatives were told that under no circumstances must the Italian left be included in the Italian government…The visit weighed heavily on Aldo Moro who had already lived through both the Piano Solo Gladio coup and the Tora Tora Gladio coup and hence had no illusions concerning the influence of the United States on Italy's First Republic.

Upon his return to Italy, Moro was sick for days and contemplated his complete withdrawal from politics. 'It's one of the few occasions when my husband told me exactly what had been said to him, without telling me the name of the person concerned,' Moro's wife Eleonora later testified. 'I will try and repeat it now: You must abandon your policy of bringing all the political forces in your country into direct collaboration. Either you give this up or you will pay dearly for it.' In the national elections of June 1976, the PCI secured its best ever result at the polls…and clearly defeated the DCI. Consequently, acting president of the DCI Aldo Moro found the courage to defeat the USA's veto. On March 16, 1978 he packed the documents of the 'historical compromise' into his suitcase and ordered his driver as well as his bodyguards to bring him to the palace of the Italian parliament in Rome where he was determined to present the plan to include the Italian Communists in the executive. Moro's car was approaching a crossroads…when a white Fiat suddenly reversed around the corner and blocked the path…Two men from the white car and a further four who had been waiting in the street opened fire on Moro's five bodyguards. Moro after his return from Washington had become uneasy and had asked for a bulletproof car, yet the request had been turned down. And thus the shots went through the care and his bodyguards were killed right away….Moro himself was captured and held hostage in central Rome for 55 days. Thereafter Moro's bullet ridden body was found in the [trunk] of an abandoned car in central Rome symbolically parked halfway between the headquarters of the DCI and the headquarters of the PCI.

Italy was in shock. The military secret service and acting Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti immediately blamed the left-wing terrorist organisation Red Brigades for the crime and cracked down on the left. 72,000 roadblocks were erected and 37,000 houses were searched.

The Senate commission investigating Gladio and the massacres suspected the CIA and the Italian military secret service including its Gladio hit squads to have organised the Moro crime. It therefore reopened the case but found with much surprise that almost all files on the Moro kidnapping and murder had mysteriously disappeared from the archives of the Ministry of the Interior."

81-82: Conclusion of 2000 investigation into the terrorist attacks in Italy:

"'It emerges without the shadow of a doubt that elements of the CIA started in the second half of the 1960's a massive operation in order to counter by the use of all means the spreading of groups and movements of the left on a European level,' the official Italian Senate investigation into Gladio and the massacres concluded in 1995…[A follow up investigation in 2000 concluded] 'those massacres, those bombs, those military actions had been organized or promoted or supported by men inside Italian state institutions and, as has been discovered more recently, by men linked to the structures of United States intelligence.'"

88: Plan Bleu in France, use terror, blame the left

92: Join Chiefs of Staff "Operation Demagnatise" for France and Italy:

"A top-secret memorandum of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, dated May 14, 1952 and entitled 'Operation Demagnetise,' detailed how 'political, paramilitary and psychological operations' shall be employed according to the directive in order 'to reduce the strength of the Communist Party in France.' 'The final aim of the plan is to reduce the strength of the Communist parties, their material resources, their influence in the Italian and French governments and particularly in the unions,' the secret Pentagon paper specified, 'in order to reduce as much as possible the danger that Communism could gain strength in Italy and France and endanger the interests of the United States in the two countries.'

The secret CIA armies run by the SDECE were instructed and trained within this strategic context, for, as the document specified, 'the limitation of the strength of the Communists in Italy and France is a top priority objective. This objective has to be reached by the employment of all means.' The war had to remain strictly secret and 'the Italian and French government may know nothing of the plan Demagnetise, for it is clear that the plan can interfere with their respective national sovereignty.'"

93-97: The fourth Republic in France "commits suicide," de Gaulle assumes control and OAS secret soldiers attempt to overthrow him:

"The secret war of the OAS, which had involved secret soldiers of the NATO stay-behind, in the end failed to both overthrow de Gaulle and prevent Algeria from becoming independent. The agreement for peace in Algeria and the independence of the country was signed between the FLN and the government of de Gaulle in Evian in March 1962, whereupon also the OAS collapsed about a year after its creation…"

98-99: de Gaulle throws NATO out of France, secret protocols of NATO membership revealed (members must betray the electorate if it goes against NATO):

"In a spectacular decision de Gaulle took France out of NATO's military command on March 7, 1966 and expelled the entire NATO organisation together with its covert action agents from French territory…Belgium Gladio author Jan Willems drew attention to the sensitive fact that when de Gaulle withdrew the French army from the military-integrated command of NATO, some of the secret agreements between France and the United States were cancelled. 'On this occasion it was revealed that secret protocols existed concerning the fight against Communist subversion, signed bilaterally by the United States and its NATO allies.' De Gaulle denounced the protocols as an infringement of national sovereignty.

Similar secret clauses were also revealed in other NATO states. In Italy Giuseppe de Lutiis revealed that when becoming a NATO member Italy in 1949 had signed not only the Atlantic Pact, but also secret protocols that provided for the creation of an unofficial organisation 'charged with guaranteeing Italy's internal alignment with the Western Block by any means, even if the electorate were to show a different inclination.'" (Emphasis added)

104: Spanish civil war (dictator Franco takes control) and origin of the term 5th column:

"Hitler and Mussolini supported the fascist General while the governments of Great Britain, France and the United States…feared Spanish Communism more than a Spanish fascist dictator and thus silently consented to the death of the Spanish republic." (Silently consented? More like "actively assisted." See page 150 of Tragedy and Hope 101 for Quigley's account.) "The British Government ended the struggle of the Spanish Republic when it announced its recognition of Franco as the legitimate leader of Spain. Hitler and Mussolini had secured their Western flank and agreed with Franco that Spain would stay neutral during the Second World War."

108: Delle Chiaie (nicknamed "Caccola") best known terrorist member of the secret armies:

"In Spain, Delle Chiaie linked up with right-wing extremists from other European countries including Otto Skorzeny, a former Nazi…Skorzeny was employed by Franco's secret service as a 'security consultant' and hired Delle Chiaie to target opponents of Franco in both Spain and abroad, whereupon Delle Chiaie carried out well over a thousand bloodthirsty attacks, including an estimated 50 murders. The secret war in Spain was characterized by assassinations and acts of terror. Members of Delle Chiaie's secret army, including Italian right-winger Aldo Tisei, later confessed to Italian magistrates that during their Spanish exile they had tracked down and killed anti-Fascists on behalf of the Spanish secret service….After Franco's death in 1975, Delle Chiaie decided that Spain was no longer a safe place and left for Chile. There CIA-installed right-wing dictator Pinochet recruited him to haunt and kill Chilean oppositionals in 'Operation Condor' across the Americas. Thereafter Caccola moved to Bolivia, set up death squads to protect the right-wing government and engaged once again in 'murder unlimited. Delle Chiaie…remains the best known terrorist member of the secret armies who clandestinely fought Communism in Europe and abroad during the Cold War.

Aged 51 the untouchable was finally arrested on March 27, 1987 in the capital of Venezuela by the local secret service. Only hours later, agents of the Italian secret service and the CIA were present on the scene. Caccolla did not express regret for his actions but, with few words, drew attention to the fact that in his secret wars against the left, he had been protected by a number of governments, which in turn wanted him to carry out certain actions, which he then carried out: 'The massacres have taken place. That is a fact. The secret services have covered up the traces. That is another fact.'" (And, just in case you're wondering whether or not he was punished; this from Wikipedia: "Delle Chiaie was arrested in Caracas, Venezuela in 1989 and extradited to Italy to stand trial for his role in the Strage di Piazza Fontana bombing of Milan on December 12, 1969. Delle Chiaie was acquitted by the Assize Court in Catanzaro in 1989, along with fellow accused Massimiliano Fachini. On 20 February 1989 he was declared not guilty. On 5 July 1991 on appeal was acquitted for the case and for participation to subversive association. He was also charged with subversive association in relationship to the 1980 Bologna railway station bombing, but was acquitted on appeals.")[1]

114-115: Portugal dictator an ally of Franco, Hitler and Mussolini + Portuguese stay-behind army, "Aginter Press."

"Despite Salazar's support for the coup in Spain and his alliance with Hitler and Mussolini, to the surprise of many, Portugal in 1949 was able to figure among the founding members of NATO…The existence of secret CIA and NATO-linked armies in Portugal was revealed for the first time in 1990 following the exposure of the Italian Gladio stay-behind. 'In Portugal a Lisbon radio station has reported that cells of the network associated with Operation Gladio were active during the 1950's to defend the rightist dictatorship of Dr. Salazar,' the international press revealed. And five years later US author Michael Parenti, without giving any further sources, claimed that Gladio operatives 'helped prop up a fascist regime in Portugal.'

More specifically the local press claimed in 1990 that the secret army in Portugal was allegedly called 'Aginter Press.' Under the headline 'Gladio was active in Portugal,' the Portuguese daily O Jornal informed a stunned audience in the country that 'The secret network, erected at the bosom of NATO and financed by the CIA…had a branch in Portugal in the 1960's and the 1970's. It was called Aginter Press' and was allegedly involved in assassination operations in Portugal as well as in the Portuguese colonies in Africa.

Aginter Press was no press at all. The organisation did not print books or anti-Communist propaganda leaflets but trained right-wing terrorists and specialised in dirty tricks and secret warfare in Portugal and beyond. The mysterious and brutal organisation was supported by the CIA and run by European right-wing officers who with the help of the PIDE recruited fascist militants. The investigation of the Italian Senate into Gladio and the secret war and massacres in Italy discovered that Italian right-wing extremists had also been trained by Aginter Press. '…Aginter Press,' the Italian Gladio report concluded, 'in reality, according to the latest documents acquired by the criminal investigation, was an information centre directly linked to the CIA and the Portuguese secret service, that specialized in provocation operations.'"

117: Delle Chiaie + Guerin Serac and Aginter Press

"In Portugal Guerin Serac…erected Aginter Press as an ultra-secret anti-Communist army with the support of both the PIDE and the CIA. Aginter Press set up training camps in which it instructed mercenaries and terrorists in a three-week course in covert action techniques including hands-on bomb terrorism, silent assassination, subversion techniques, clandestine communication and infiltration and colonial warfare.

Next to Guerin Serac, Italian right-wing terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie was among the founding fathers of Aginter Press. 'We acted against the Communists and against the bourgeois state, against the democracy, which deprived us from our liberty. And thus we had to use violence,' Delle Chiaie later reasoned. 'We were considered to be criminals, but in reality we were but the victims of an anti-Fascist liberal movement.' …Aged 30, Delle Chiaie in the mid-1960s together with Guerin Serac and the support of the CIA set up the Aginter secret army. 'Together with a French friend of mine [Guerin Serac] I decided back then [1965] to establish the press agency Aginter Press, in order to be able to defend our political views.' In the Years that followed Delle Chiaie became maybe the most brutal right-wing terrorist directly linked to the secret war. In Italy he engaged in coup detats and massacres, including the Piazza Fontana massacre of 1969, and in Latin America together with Nazi Klaus Barbie, the 'butcher of Lyon,' he propped up right-wing dictatorships.

Guerin Serac himself, together with many others, was convinced that in order to defeat Communism in Western Europe secret terrorist operations were necessary: 'In the first phase of our political activity we must create chaos in all structures of the regime' he declared without specifically indicating the state targeted. 'Two forms of terrorism can provocate such a situation: the blind terrorism (committing massacres indiscriminately which cause a large number of victims), and the selective terrorism (eliminate chosen persons).' In each case the terror carried out secretly by the extreme right had to be blamed on the left, as the master and eminence grise of anti-Communist terrorism insisted: 'This destruction of the state must be carried out as much as possible under the cover of Communist activities.' The terrorist attacks of the secret armies are designed as a means to discredit the ruling government and force it to shift to the right: 'After that, we must intervene…in order to influence popular opinion, suggest a solution, and clearly demonstrate the weakness of the present legal apparatus…Popular opinion must be polarised in such a way, that we are being presented as the only instrument capable of saving the nation.'

The CIA and Salazar's military secret service PIDE provided the finances for the terrorism…An Aginter document, entitled 'Our Political Activity'…describes how a country can be targeted with secret warfare: 'Our belief is that the first phase of political activity ought to be to create the conditions favouring the installation of chaos in all of the regime's structures.' As the most essential component of the strategy the violence inflicted had to be blamed on the Communists and traces had to be planted accordingly. 'In our view the first move we should make is to destroy the structure of the democratic state under the cover of Communist and pro-Chinese activities.' The document continued to stress that left-wing militant groups had to be infiltrated and manipulated: 'Moreover, we have people who have infiltrated these groups and obviously we will have to tailor our actions to the ethos of the milieu – propaganda and action of a sort which will seem to have emanated from our Communist adversaries.'

Such false flag operations, the secret soldiers concluded, 'will create a feeling of hostility towards those who threaten the peace of each and every nation,' i.e. the Communists."

122: More false flags:

"After the fall of the Portuguese dictatorship Guerin Serac and his militant anti-Communists had fled to neighbouring Spain and protected by Franco re-established headquarters in Madrid. True to their trade, Aginter secret soldiers in exchange for asylum agreed with Franco's secret service to hunt down and assassinate leading members of the Bask separatist movement ETA. Furthermore they continued their clandestine operations abroad and amongst others attempted to discredit the Algerian liberation movement. 'I can provide you with another very interesting example,' Italian judge Salvini related to the Italian Senators, whereupon he explained that from their Spanish base in 1975 the group of Guerin Serac, together with the American Salby and militant French, Italian and Spanish rightists, had organised a series of bomb attacks each time leaving the signal SOA, which signifies 'Algerian Opposition' in order to discredit a group of the Algerian opposition.

'The bombs were planted at Algerian embassies in four different countries, France, Germany, Italy and Great Britain' and made the Algerian opposition look bad, while 'in reality the bombings were carried out by the group of Guerin Serac, who thus demonstrated his great camouflage and infiltration capabilities.' The bomb in front of the Algerian embassy in Frankfurt did not blow up and was meticulously analysed by the German police. 'In order to understand the links of Guerin Serac and Aginter Press, it is important to notice the complex fabrication of the bomb,' judge Salvini highlighted. 'It contained C4, an explosive exclusively used by the US forces, which has never been used in any of the anarchist bombings. I repeat, this was a very sophisticated bomb. That Aginter had C4 at its [disposal] certainly shows which contacts it enjoyed.'"

133: Van User on his role in Gladio:

"In the end Van Ussel agreed to become a secret soldier… 'Above all, it was pure curiosity which made me do it, Van Ussel reflects upon his motives to become a Gladiator, 'to penetrate this strange world, which one depicts as made up of silhouettes, trench coats, and false beards.' As he saw it most Gladiators were simply curious and adventurous. 'This is a far cry,' he notes in his book, 'from such noble motives as honour, sense of duty, or patriotism…which some have wanted to see as the motive of members, which in fact they did not even know.'"

135: Smuggling an agent from Norway to Italy:

"'First of all, we are dealing here with an international network which could evacuate clandestinely a person from Norway to Italy. This implies a very close collaboration and strict co-ordination on an international level between a series of secret services,' the Senators noted in their report. 'What secondly is astonishing is the perfect technical infrastructure which the stay-behind was equipped with: The persons and the material were moved on or intercepted by sea, by air, by parachute. Their arrival zones were marked and controlled. The persons were housed in secure buildings.'"

135-136: Gladio Marines involved in ops:

"Has the Belgian Gladio used its arms and explosives in Belgium during times of peace, or, alternatively, did it assist clandestine right-wing groups which engaged in such military operations? After their investigation of the secret army the Belgian Senators answered this sensitive question in the affirmative. They were able to reconstruct at least one case, the so-called Vielsalm incident. In 1984 a squad of US Marines had set out from an airport north of London. Above Belgium they parachuted into a designated rea and were met by a local Belgian agent from SDRA8 who offered them guidance…hiding from the Belgian population, the US Special Forces and Belgian secret soldiers prepared for their mission: To attack the police station in the sleepy southern Belgian town of Vielsalm. Stealthily the US Marines approached their objective and opened fire. A Belgian warrant officer at the Vielsalm station was killed, and one US Marine lost an eye in the operation…When in 1990 the entire stay-behind network was exposed, Belgian secret soldier Dislaire explained in front of the camera in a Gladio documentary that next to Vielsalm there had also been other exercises with US Special Forces."

138-147: Brabant Massacres: Seemingly random mass shootings in Belgium; men, women and children are gunned down in public (16 separate armed assaults in all) while the killers always escape without a trace.

157: Operation Ajax – CIA overthrows the Iranian government and installs the Shah

"The CIA and the MI6 by the 1950s collaborated closely in covert action operations and in 1953 overthrew the Iranian government of Mossadegh who had attempted to distribute parts of the oil wealth to the population."

166: Parliamentarians are too talkative, can't keep a secret (so they must be kept in the dark)

169: Former CIA director William Colby admits to setting up Gladio / stay behind armies

181: 60,000 pounds of equipment:

"It was agreed that CIA and MI6 should regularly receive the detailed reports on the secret army, allegedly also in order to give the two foreign secret services an idea concerning 'the seriousness and the hard work involved in the distribution of more than thirty tons of equipment…'"

182: Despite Norwegian concerns, CIA and MI6 gain "considerable amount of control over the Norwegian secret army."

185: If the people rise up against their European government, The United States shall intervene with or without the host government's consent:

"Norwegian journalists during the politically agitated period of the late 1960s – characterised by flower power, say-no-to-violence movements, student protests and anti-Vietnam demonstrations – decided that the United States should not be trusted and in December 1967 published a top-secret undated NATO document to support their claim. 'In the case of domestic unrest, that might seriously affect the US troops or their mission, such as a military uprising or a large domestic resistance against the government of the host country [the US army] has to do everything in its power to suppress such unrest, using its own resources.' The document made specific reference to Western Europe, in particular, Norway, Greece, Turkey, West Germany, France, Italy Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg and Denmark.

The United States feared, due to the massive anti-Vietnam demonstrations, that governments or populations in Western Europe including Norway might turn against them and threaten the operability of both US Forces and NATO. Signed by US General J.P. Mc. Connell…the document continued to explain most sensitively that under special circumstances the US shall intervene in a European NATO country even without the consent of the national government in order to suppress domestic unrest: 'If these initiatives do not suffice, or in case the government concerned asks for assistance, or if the Commander of the US forces comes himself to the conclusion that the government is not able to suppress such unrest, then the US troops can carry out those measures deemed necessary by the US commander on their own initiative or in co-operation with the government concerned.'"

186: The clandestine commandments; especially important commandment on "recruiting operatives"

"'When the agent candidate is to be considered and analysed with regards to recruiting – use all possible...sources and means of control and check: police, schools, societies, work places, friends, relatives, neighbours, eaves dropping, house searches. There must be a continuous and long lasting surveillance of the candidate before recruitment.'"

190: U.S. protects and recruits Klaus Barbie; the Butcher of Lyon:

"On the orders of the Pentagon in Washington the newly created US Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) tracked down German Nazis and brought them to the Nurnberg trials, while the CIC also secretly recruited selected right-wing extremists for the anti-Communist army….the US Justice Department confirmed that SS Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie had been recruited by the CIC in 1947, had thereafter been hidden from the war crimes investigators and had then been spirited out of Europe to Argentina through a clandestine 'ratline' in 1951.

Barbie, during the war known as the 'Butcher of Lyon,' had during his stay in the French town from 1943 – 1944 been responsible for the murder of at least 4,000 resistance workers and Jews, as well as the deportation of another 15,000 to concentration camps. Barbie was condemned to death in absentia by a French court soon after the war for crimes against humanity as witnesses described him as a sadistic torturer who terrified men, women and children with his whip and Alsatian dog."

200: Allen Dulles flippant remark about working with a Nazi:

"When CIA director Allan Dulles was once asked whether he did not feel ashamed to cooperate with Nazi Gehlen the former replied: 'I don't know if he is a rascal. There are few archbishops in espionage…Besides, one needn't ask him to one's club.'"

204: East German Stasi were aware of West German Gladio (named "BND")

206-207: 1980 German Munich bomb Massacre (prior to public knowledge of Gladio)

"Some of the troubles might have derived from the fact that the Munich massacre led police to the Lembke arms caches which led to the German stay-behind army which led to the world's largest military alliance NATO and the world's superpower United States. Even if the US, NATO and the BND had nothing to do with the Munich terror, the discovery of a secret army linked to right-wing extremists would have raised very serious questions. For example, how well were the secret soldiers and their arms arsenals controlled by Germany's democratic institutions?

One day after the massacre the German criminal police investigating the crime had received information that Lembke had supplied the right-wing extremists. 'Mister Lembke showed us different sorts of explosives, detonators, slow matches, plastic explosive and military explosive,' [Raymund Homle revealed to police during interrogation] '…he said that he had many caches full of such material buried in the wood, and that he could provide a lot of them…Mister Lembke told us that he was instructing people in the use of explosive devices…'"

209: Lembke (in jail) decides to talk, "commits suicide" before he can provide full details:

"It was only several weeks after the discovery of the arms caches that Lembke was arrested and jailed. But for a different reason. He was accused of having unlawfully refused to testify in the case against his friend and fellow right-wing leader Manfred Roeder of the terrorist group 'Deutsche Aktionsgruppen.' In prison Lembke suddenly changed his mind and declared that he was going to testify, both on the Roeder case, and the arms caches, and many other things he knew.

Lembke insisted that he was willing to speak only to the public prosecutor who without success had interrogated him in the Roeder case. The request was granted and the prosecutor immediately travelled to Lembke's prison cell. There Lembke finally talked, revealing in detail all the 33 arms caches of which until then only some had been found. That evening Lembke said to his interrogator that he might reveal to him the next day who was supposed to use the guns and explosives. The next day, November 1, 1981, Lembke was found hanging on a rope from the ceiling of his prison cell."

212: Britain turns on Greece:

[ELAS, founded on the initiative of the Greek Communist Party, essentially wrestled Greece away from the Nazi occupiers.] "In its operations ELAS was supported by the British secret army SOE whose officers advised ELAS on the ground and supplied it with weapons and munitions. Many personal friendships developed between the Greek ELAS resistance fighters and the British SOE liaison officers. Yet the brothers in arms were abruptly separated when Prime Minister Winston Churchill in March 1943 decided to halt all support for ELAS as he feared that Greece after the defeat of the Axis Powers could come under Communist control. Churchill secretly sent his foreign minister Anthony Eden to Stalin in October 1943 to carve up the Balkans. The deal, cemented at Yalta, gave Britain and the United States a free hand in Greece, while Bulgaria and Rumania were to fall under the influence of the Soviet Union."

215: 1947, U.S. invades Greece:

"Greece was the first country to be invaded by the United States during the Cold War according to its strategy of combating Communism globally. In the following decades Washington put forward the argument used in Greece to justify its open or covert invasions of Korea, Guatemala, Iran, Cuba, Vietnam, Kambodscha, Nicaragua, Panama and several other countries."

219: LBJ threat to Greek Ambassador:

"In summer 1964 President Johnson summoned Greek ambassador Alexander Matsas to the White House and told him that the problems in Cyprus had to be solved by dividing the island into a Greek and a Turkish part. When Matsas refused the plan, Johnson thundered: 'Then listen to me, Mr. Ambassador, fuck your parliament and your constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea…If your Prime Minister gives me talk about democracy, parliament and constitution, he, his parliament and his constitution may not last very long.'"

220-222: Coup follows U.S. threat to Greece + torture of those rounded up:

"In the space of some five hours, over 10,000 people were arrested by military squads according to detailed files and planning, and were taken to 'reception centers'…Most of those who were arrested in the first hours after the coup were later moved to police and army cells. Communists, Socialists, artists, academics, journalists, students, politically active women, priests, including their friends and families, were tortured. Their toe and fingernails were torn out. Their feet were beaten with sticks until the skin came off and bones were broken…Filthy rags, often soaked in urine, and sometimes excrement, were pushed down their throats…'We are all democrats here'…the chief of the secret police in Athens was fond of stressing. 'Everybody who comes here talks. You're not spoiling our record.' The sadist torturer made it clear to his victims: 'We are the government, you are nothing…The whole world is in two parts, the Russians and the Americans. We are the Americans. Be grateful we've only tortured you a little. In Russia, they'd kill you.'"

230: Turkish Gladio (named Counter-Guerrilla) and CIA connections:

"The stay-behind research in Turkey discovered that both the MIT and the Counter-Guerrilla units were institutionally united because both were commanded by the notorious and secretive CIA-sponsored Special Warfare Department in Ankara. The special warfare methods taught and commanded by the Special Warfare Department and carried out by the MIT and the Counter-Guerrilla included 'assassinations, bombings, armed robbery, torture, attacks, kidnap, threats, provocation, militia training, hostage-taking, arson, sabotage, propaganda, disinformation, violence and extortion.'"

234-235: FM 30-31B + despite various denials, CIA deputy director says it's authentic

"As maybe its most sensitive advice FM 30-31 instructs the secret soldiers to carry out acts of violence in times of peace and then blame them on the Communist enemy in order to create a situation of fear and alertness. Alternatively, the secret soldiers are instructed to infiltrate the left-wing movements and urge them to use violence: 'There may be times when Host Country Governments show passivity or indecision in the face of Communist subversion and according to the interpretation of the US secret services do not react with sufficient effectiveness,' the manual describes the situation when a so-called false flag operation must be applied…Ray Cline, Deputy CIA Director for intelligence in the 1960s confirmed: 'This is an authentic document.'"

236-237: Counter-Guerrilla engaged in terrorism, funded by U.S. + assassin "mocks" the court; says he's untouchable:

"As the Counter-Guerrilla stay-behind began to extend its operations Bulent Ecevit, who became Turkish Prime Minister in 1973, also noticed the presence of the clandestine force. According to his own testimony he was startled when in 1974 he first heard of the existence of a secret so-called Special Warfare Department. His surprise increased when the clandestine department asked him for funds which allegedly were needed for a new headquarters. When Ecevit inquired how long the secretive Special Warfare Department had existed and who had funded it the commander of the Turkish army, General Semih Sancar, informed the Prime Minister that the United States had financed the unit ever since the immediate post-war years, and advised Ecevit not to look too closely at the matter for it was touching on the greatest secrets of the state. [Ecevit was concerned that the secret army might use its weapons against domestic targets, and his fears] had been well-founded.

Encouraged by Ecevit, Ankara's Deputy State Attorney Dogan Oez…investigated the links between…right-wing party MHP, the Counter-Guerrilla, the Special Warfare Department and the terror that Turkey suffered in the 1970s. In his final report he found that 'Military and civilian security services are behind all this work. The Contra-Guerrilla are subordinate to the Special Warfare Department.' Furthermore also the MIT was directly involved in the massacres while 'all these activities are guided by MHP members and cadres.' The Attorney had discovered the secret and described it correctly and was thereafter killed on March 24 1978.

His assassin, Grey Wolves member Ibrahim Ciftci, confessed to the crime but mocked the judiciary by claiming that he was untouchable and indeed each time the civilian courts condemned him the highest military court overruled the sentence. The civilian courts were left to note for the record: 'The murder of the state attorney Dogan Oez is an established fact. But we cannot appeal against the decision of the military court. The accused is released.'"

239-240: CIA backed coup in Turkey:

"Us President Carter was at the opera when the coup in Turkey took place. When he heard about it he called Paul Henze, former Chief of the CIA station in Turkey who had left Ankara shortly before the coup to become a security adviser to President Carter in Washington on the Turkey desk of the CIA. On the phone Carter told Henze what the latter already knew: 'Your people have just made a coup!' The President was right. Paul Henze, the day after the coup, had triumphantly declared to his CIA colleagues in Washington: 'Our boys have done it!" Henze, according to Counter-Guerrilla expert Celik, 'was the chief architect of the September 12 1980 coup.'"

240-241: Major Cem Ersever writes a book; admits to false flag operations, torture, murder, rape, etc. …he was assassinated:

"Until today the involvement of NATO's stay-behind in the massacres against the Kurds ranges among the greatest secrets in Turkey and Washington. Major Cem Ersever, a former commander of Turkish paramilitary units that had operated against the PKK, later quite openly described in his book how the Counter-Guerrilla and other paramilitary units employed secret warfare and terror against the PKK. Ersever also revealed how his terror units became rich by raising private taxes along the 'Heroin Highway' as the drugs coming from Afghanistan on their way to the west had to pass through Turkey.

Among the operations of the Counter-Guerrilla which Ersever revealed were the false flag operations in which the Counter-Guerrilla, dressed up as PKK fighters, attacked villages, raped and executed people randomly. This, if the disguise was effective, weakened the support for the PKK in the area and turned the people against the PKK. Ersever confirmed that many former Grey Wolves and other right-wing extremists had been recruited directly from prisons into the stay-behind death squads, which also included captured PKK deserters and Islamists. Ersever had described the situation correctly and after the publication of his book in November 1993 was executed following the classical Counter-Guerrilla method: Tortured and shot through the head Ersevers's body was found with his hands bound behind his back."

242: Investigation blocked in Turkey:

"While the international press pondered on the question of how directly NATO an the US Pentagon had sponsored the massacres in Turkey, the ruling military in Turkey in 1990 blocked all further investigations. There was no parliamentary commission to investigate either the Counter-Guerrilla stay-behind or the Special Warfare Department. The ruling military also refused to answer questions from both parliament and Ministers and Turkish Defense Minister Giray, deposed a month before the Gladio scandal, insisted that 'Ecevit had better keep his fucking mouth shut!'"

242-243: "A policeman, a parliamentarian, a druglord" and a former Turkish beauty queen "turned Mafia hit-women" are involved in a fatal car accident, sparks outrage in Turkey:

[This was] "a somewhat unusual combination of passengers as the press immediately noticed and former Prime Minister Ecevit rightly commented to parliament that 'The accident unveiled the dark liaisons within the state.'

Following the accident Turkey witnessed maybe its strongest movement against the Counter-Guerrilla and corrupt governmental officials when every night at 9 p.m. angry crowds called for 'cleansing the country from the gangs.' …Nearly 100,000 workers marched in protest in the Turkish capital demanding the truth about the stay-behind soldiers while people on the streets in opinion polls expressed their belief that the Turkish judicial system was not working properly and that the government was corrupt, declaring that they were sick and tired of all the violence and secret operations. Millions followed the country-wide protest action 'One minute of darkness for complete Clarification' and in protest switched off all lights each evening at 9 p.m. for over a month and thus darkened whole cities.

Turkish President Suleyman Demirel in front of the press confirmed the obvious when he declared that 'claims are of a highly serious nature' according to which there exists within the Turkish state 'a special operations section at the General Directorate of Security. Some staff members of that section have been engaged in narcotics trading, gambling schemes, extortion and murder…These are murderers working under orders from the state.' While Prime Minister Erbakan stressed: 'You cannot have a gang within the state. Nobody can be allowed to do anything illegal, with no exceptions. Nothing, including fighting the PKK, can be an excuse for crime. If such things happen, those gangs, whatever their makeup, must be disbanded.'

The press sharply attacked the secret service and declared that the 'MIT does not just engage in repression and terror against the people. It is involved in every kind of dirty business, such as the drugs trade, extortion and prostitution…the MIT bears responsibility for the disappeared, for massacres and torture.' …Together with the MIT also the CIA came into the line of fire when the press highlighted the intimate relationship between the two secret services."

245+: Conclusion:

250: Gladio / NATO's stay-behind armies: Chronology of events