The dimensions of Gladio (5/10/2007)

THE DIMENSIONS OF GLADIO

The Italian people had received many signs over the years that the centrist parties (the Christian Democrats and the Socialists) were promoted and to some degree controlled by Washington. But it was only when the Italian government officially admitted it in 1990 that the ruling coalition began to crumble, ready to be picked apart two years later by corruption scandals. The startling story of Gladio, which continues to make headlines in Europe, has barely been mentioned in the U.S., where many of its darkest chapters remain secret.

The program in Italy was aimed at the threat that communists might mount an insurrection or gain a share of political power through the ballot box. An insurrection was unlikely, however, since nearly all posts in the bureaucracy were filled after the war by solidly anticommunist veterans of Mussolini's forces, with Allied approval.

During the war, most Americans considered themselves heroes who freed Western Europe from its brutal Nazi and fascist rulers. It wasn't long after the American landings on Italian soil, however, that the white hats got sullied. While some OSS agents worked with antifascists to help lay the basis for Italian democracy, many of those higher up the ladder conspired with backers of Mussolini or the former king to impede it. 3

Although many European intelligence agencies have admitted participating, the CIA has denied any connection with Gladio. But enough information has emerged to show that the CIA sponsored and financed a large portion of the terrorism and disruption that plagued Italy for nearly half a century. Among other things, the U.S. government:

Forged secret alliances with the Mafia and right-wing elements of the Vatican to prevent the left from playing any role in government; Recruited Mussolini's ex-police into paramilitary bands secretly financed and trained by the CIA, ostensibly to fight Soviets, but really to conduct terror attacks blamed on the left; Employed the gamut of psychological warfare tactics, including paying millions in slush funds to political parties, journalists, and other influential contacts to tilt parliamentary elections against the left; Created a secret service and a parallel government structure linked to the CIA whose ``assets'' attempted several times to overthrow the elected government; and Targeted Prime Minister Aldo Moro, who was later kidnapped and murdered under mysterious circumstances after offering to bring communists into the Cabinet. THE SECRET NATO COVER

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) provided international cover for Washington's postwar operations in Italy. A secret clause in the initial NATO agreement in 1949 required that before a nation could join, it must have already established a national security authority to fight communism through clandestine citizen cadres. This ``Stay Behind'' clause grew out of a secret committee set up at U.S. insistence in the Atlantic Pact, the forerunner of NATO. Each NATO member was also required to send delegates to semiannual meetings on the subject. 4

U.S. authority for such moves flowed in a steady stream of presidential directives transmitted through the National Security Council (NSC). In December 1950, the council gave the armed forces carte blanche to use ``appropriate'' military force even if the communists merely ``gain participation'' in government by legal means or ``threaten to achieve control...or the government ceases to evidence a determination to oppose communist internal or external threats.'' 5

The CIA helped the Italian police set up secret squadrons staffed in many cases with veterans of Mussolini's secret police. 6 The squadrons were trained for intensive espionage and counter-espionage, against communists and other perceived enemies of the status quo. The plan to use ``exceptional means'' was patterned after the highly militarized French intelligence service, the Suret Nationale, which was reportedly so tough on communists that many fled to other countries. 7

The newly organized intelligence agency, SIFAR, began operations in September 1949, under the supervision of an undercover American, Carmel Offie, nicknamed ``godfather'' by the Italians. 8 Interior Minister Mario Scelba headed the operation. At the same time, Scelba was directing a brutal repression, murdering hundreds of workers and peasants who sought improved conditions after the war. 9

OPERATION DEMAGNETIZE

With the Italian secret service under control, the Americans then expanded it under the name Operation Demagnetize and tied it to an existing network of cadre in northern Italy. In 1951, the Italian secret service formally agreed to set up a clandestine organization within the military to coordinate with the northern cadres. In 1952, SIFAR received secret orders from Washington to adopt ``a series of political, paramilitary and psychological operations destined to diminish the power of the Italian Communist Party, its material resources, and its influence on government. This priority objective must be attained by all means.'' 10

Operation Demagnetize marked the institutional hardening of Gladio. A State Department historian characterized it as the ``strategy of stabilization,'' 11 although it could be more accurately described as one of destabilization. From the start, the offensive was secretly directed and funded by the U.S. government. In 1956, the arrangement was formalized in a written agreement, using the name ``Gladio'' for the first time. According to 1956 documents uncovered in Italy in 1990, Gladio was divided into independent cells coordinated from a CIA camp in Sardinia. These ``special forces'' included 40 main groups. Ten specialized in sabotage, six each in espionage, propaganda, evasion and escape tactics, and 12 in guerrilla activities. Another division handled the training of agents and commandos. These ``special forces'' had access to underground arms caches, which included hand guns, grenades, high-tech explosives, daggers, 60-millimeter mortars, 57-millimeter machine guns and precision rifles. 12

In 1956, Gen. Giovanni De Lorenzo was named to head SIFAR on the recommendation of U.S. Ambassador Claire Boothe Luce, the avidly anticommunist wife of the publisher of Time magazine. 13 A key player in Gladio was now in place. In 1962, the CIA helped place De Lorenzo at the head of the national police (carabinieri), while he retained effective control of the secret service.

The general brought with him 17 lieutenants to begin purging insufficiently right-wing officers. It was the first step to a right-wing coup attempt, with U.S. military attaché Vernon Walters in the vanguard. In a memo to De Lorenzo the same year, Walters suggested types of intervention aimed at provoking a national crisis, including blocking a center-left coalition, creating schisms among the socialists, and funding forces favorable to the status quo. 14

Meanwhile, according to CIA files found in Rome in 1984, CIA station chief William Harvey began to recruit ``action teams'' based on a list of 2,000 men capable of throwing bombs, conducting attacks, and accompanying these actions with indispensable propaganda. 15 These teams had a chance to practice their skills in 1963 as part of an anti-union offensive. U.S.-trained gladiators dressed as police and civilians attacked construction workers peacefully demonstrating in Rome, leaving some 200 wounded and a large section of the city in shambles. The link to Gladio was made in later testimony by a former general in the secret service. 16

SIFAR Lt. Col. Renzo Rocca was also training a civil militia composed of ex-soldiers, parachutists and members of Junio Valerio ``Black Prince'' Borghese's paramilitary organization, Decima MAS (Tenth Torpedo Boat Squadron), for the pending coup. 17 President Antonio Segni reportedly knew of the plan, which was to conclude with the assassination of Prime Minister Aldo Moro, under fire for not being tough enough with the communists. 18

The long-planned takeover, known later as Plan Solo, fizzled in March 1964, when the key carabinieri involved remained in their barracks. As a subsequent inquiry moved to question Rocca about the coup attempt, he apparently killed himself, possibly to fulfill Gladio's oath of silence. After officials determined that state secrets were involved, three hamstrung inquiries failed to determine the guilty parties. 19

THE STRATEGY OF TENSION

Despite the failure of Plan Solo, the CIA and the Italian right had largely succeeded in creating the clandestine structures envisioned in Operation Demagnetize. Now the plotters turned their attention to a renewed offensive against the left.

To win intellectual support, the secret services set up a conference in Rome at the luxurious Parco dei Principi hotel in May 1965, for a ``study'' of ``revolutionary war.'' The choice of words was inadvertently revealing, since the conveners and invited participants were planning a real revolution, not just warning of an imaginary communist takeover. The meeting was essentially a reunion of fascists, right-wing journalists, and military personnel. ``The strategy of tension'' that emerged was designed to disrupt normality with terror attacks in order to create chaos and provoke a frightened public into accepting still more authoritarian government. 20

Several ``graduates'' of this exercise had long records of anticommunist actions and would later be implicated in some of Italy's worst massacres. One was journalist and secret agent Guido Giannettini. Four years earlier, he had conducted a seminar at the U.S. Naval Academy on ``The Techniques and Prospects of a Coup d'Etat in Europe.'' Another was notorious fascist Stefano Delle Chiaie, who had reportedly been recruited as a secret agent in 1960. He had organized his own armed band known as Avanguardia Nationale (AN), whose members had begun training in terror tactics in preparation for Plan Solo. 21

General De Lorenzo, whose SIFAR had now become SID, soon enlisted these and other confidants in a new Gladio project. They planned to create a secret parallel force alongside sensitive government offices to neutralize subversive elements not yet ``purified.'' Known as the Parallel SID, its tentacles reached into nearly every key institution of the Italian state. Gen.Vito Miceli, who later headed SID, said he set up the separate structure ``at the request of the Americans and NATO.'' 22

FRATERNAL BONDS

Two ancient, mysterious, international fraternities kept the loosely-linked Gladio programs from flying apart. The Knights of Malta played a formative role after the war (see box), but the order of Freemasonry and its most notorious lodge in Italy, known as Propaganda Due (pronounced ``doo-ay'' ), or P-2, was far more influential. In the late 1960s, its ``Most Venerable Master'' was Licio Gelli, a Knight of Malta who fought for Franco with Mussolini's Black Shirts. At the end of World War II, Gelli faced execution by Italian partisans for his Nazi collaboration, but escaped by joining the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps. 23 In the 1950s, he was recruited by SIFAR.

After some years of self-imposed exile in Argentine fascist circles,24 he saw his calling in Italy as a Mason. Quickly rising to its top post, he began fraternizing in 1969 with Gen. Alexander Haig, then assistant to Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's national security chief. Gelli became the main intermediary between the CIA and SID's De Lorenzo, also a Mason and Knight. Gelli's first order from the White House was reportedly to recruit 400 more top Italian and NATO officials. 25

To help ferret out dissidents, Gelli and De Lorenzo began compiling personal dossiers on thousands of people, including legislators and clerics. 26 Within a few years, scandal erupted when an inquiry found 157,000 such files in SID, all available to the Ministers of Defense and Interior. 27 Parliament ordered 34,000 files burned, but by then the CIA had obtained duplicates for its archives. 28

Provocateurs on the Right

In 1968, the Americans started formal commando training for the gladiators at the clandestine Sardinian ``NATO'' base. Within a few years, 4,000 graduates had been placed in strategic posts. At least 139 arms caches, including some at carabinieri barracks, were at their disposal. 29 To induce young men to join such a risky venture, the CIA paid high salaries and promised that if they were killed, their children would be educated at U.S. expense. 30

Tensions began to reach critical mass that same year. While dissidents took to the streets all over the world, in Italy, takeovers of universities and strikes for higher wages and pensions were overshadowed by a series of bloody political crimes. The number of terrorist acts reached 147 in 1968, rising to 398 the next year, and to an incredible peak of 2,498 in 1978 before tapering off, largely because of a new law encouraging informers ( penitenti ). 31 Until 1974, the indiscriminate bombers of the right constituted the main force behind political violence.

The first major explosion occurred in 1969 in Milan's Piazza Fontana; it killed 18 people and injured 90. In this and numerous other massacres, anarchists proved handy scapegoats for fascist provocateurs seeking to blame the left. Responding to a phone tip after the Milan massacre, police arrested 150 alleged anarchists and even put some on trial. But two years later, new evidence led to the indictment of several neofascists and SID officers. Three innocent anarchists were convicted, but later absolved, while those responsible for the attack emerged unpunished by Italian justice. 32

Conclusive Gladio links to political violence were found after a plane exploded in flight near Venice in November 1973. Venetian judge Carlo Mastelloni determined that the Argo-16 aircraft was used to shuttle trainees and munitions between the U.S. base in Sardinia and Gladio sites in northeast Italy.33 The apogee of right-wing terror came in 1974 with two massacres. One, a bombing at an antifascist rally in Brescia, killed eight and injured 102. The other was an explosion on the Italicus train near Bologna, killing 12 and wounding 105. At this point, President Giovanni Leone, with little exaggeration, summed up the situation: "With 10,000 armed civilians running around, as usual, I'm president of shit." 34

At Brescia, the initial call to police also blamed anarchists, but the malefactor later turned out to be a secret agent in the Parallel SID. 35 A similar connection was also alleged in the Italicus case. Two fascists who were eventually convicted were members of a clandestine police group called the Black Dragons, according to the left-wing paper, Lotta Continua. 36 Their sentences were also overturned. Although in these and other cases, many leftists were arrested and tried, fascists or neofascists were often the culprits, in league with Gladio groups and the Italian secret services. Reflecting the degree to which these forces controlled the government through the Parallel SID, nearly all the rightists implicated in these atrocities were later freed.

By 1974, right-wing terror began to be answered by the armed left, which favored carefully targeted hit-and-run attacks over the right's indiscriminate bombings. For the next six years, leftist militants, especially the Red Brigades, responded with a vengeance, accounting for far more acts of political violence than the right. 37 For several years, Italy plunged into a virtual civil war.

PLOTTING COUPS D'ETAT

Meanwhile, groups of right-wingers were busy planning more takeovers of the elected government, with the active encouragement of U.S. officials. A seminal document was the 1970 132-page order on ``stability operations'' in ``host'' countries, published as Supplement B of the U.S. Army's Field Manual 30-31. Taking its cue from earlier NSC and CIA papers, the manual explained that if a country is not sufficiently anticommunist, ``serious attention must be given to possible modifications of the structure.'' If that country does not react with adequate ``vigor,'' the document continues, ``groups acting under U.S. Army intelligence control should be used to launch violent or nonviolent actions according to the nature of the case.'' 38

With such incendiary suggestions and thousands of U.S.-trained guerrillas ready, the fascists again attempted to take over the government by force in 1970. This time, the instigator was the ``Black Prince'' Borghese. Fifty men under the command of Stefano Delle Chiaie seized the Interior Ministry in Rome after being let in at night by an aide to political police head Federico D'Amato. But the operation was aborted when Borghese received a mysterious phone call later attributed to General Vito Miceli, the military intelligence chief. The plotters were not arrested; instead, they left with 180 stolen machine guns. 39

News of the attack remained secret until an informer tipped the press three months later. By then, the culprits had escaped to Spain. Although the ringleaders were convicted in 1975, the verdict was overturned on appeal. All but one of the machine guns were returned earlier. 40

It was in this atmosphere that the U.S. decided to make another all-out effort to block the communists from gaining strength in the 1972 elections. According to the Pike Report, the CIA disbursed $10 million to 21 candidates, mostly Christian Democrats. 41 That amount did not include $800,000 that Ambassador Graham Martin, going around the CIA, obtained through Henry Kissinger at the White House for General Miceli. 42 Miceli would later face charges for the Borghese coup attempt but, fitting the pattern, he was cleared.

Police foiled another attempted coup that same year. They found hit lists and other documents exposing some 20 subversive groups forming the Parallel SID structure. Roberto Cavallaro, a fascist trade unionist, was implicated, as were highly placed generals, who said they got approval from NATO and U.S. officials. In later testimony, Cavallaro said the group was set up to restore order after any trouble arose. ``When these troubles do not erupt [by themselves],'' he said, ``they are contrived by the far right.'' Gen. Miceli was arrested, but the courts eventually freed him, declaring that there had been no insurrection. 43

Still another right-wing attempt to overthrow the government was set for 1974, reportedly with the imprimatur of both the CIA and NATO. Its leader was Edgardo Sogno, one of Italy's most decorated resistance fighters, who had formed a Gladio-style group after the war. Sogno, who had gained many influential American friends while working at the Italian embassy in Washington during the 1960s, was later arrested, but he, too, was eventually cleared. 44

GLADIO UNRAVELS

A triple murder at Peteano near Venice in May 1972 turned out to be pivotal in exposing Gladio. The crime occurred when three carabinieri, in response to an anonymous phone call, went to check out a suspicious car. When one of them opened the hood, all three were blown to bits by a boobytrap bomb. 45 An anonymous call two days later implicated the Red Brigades, the most active of the left's revolutionary groups. The police immediately rounded up 200 alleged communists, thieves and pimps for questioning, but no charges were brought. Ten years later, a courageous Venetian magistrate, Felice Casson, reopened the long-dormant case only to learn that there had been no police investigation at the scene. Despite receiving a false analysis from a secret service bomb expert and confronting numerous obstructions and delays, the judge traced the explosives to a militant outfit called New Order and to one of its active members, Vincenzo Vinciguerra. He promptly confessed and was sentenced to life, the only right-wing bomber ever locked up. 46

Vinciguerra refused to implicate others, but described the coverup:

"The carabinieri, the Ministry of Interior, the Customs and Excise police, the civilian and military secret services all knew the truth behind the attack, that I was responsible and all this within 20 days. So they decided, for totally political reasons, to cover it up. 47"

As for his motive, the fascist true believer Vinciguerra said his misdeed was ``an act of revolt against the manipulation'' of neofascism since 1945 by the whole Gladio-based parallel structure. 48

Casson eventually found enough incriminating evidence to implicate the highest officials of the land. In what was the first such request to an Italian president, Casson demanded explanations from President Francesco Cossiga. But Casson didn't stop there; he also demanded that other officials come clean. In October 1990, under pressure from Casson, Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti ended 30 years of denials and described Gladio in detail. He added that all prime ministers had been aware of Gladio, though some later denied it. 49

Suddenly, Italians saw clues to many mysteries, including the unexplained death of Pope John Paul I in 1978. Author David Yallop lists Gelli as a suspect in that case, saying that he, ``for all practical purposes, ran Italy at the time.'' 50

MEMENTO MORO

Perhaps the most shocking political crime of the 1970s was the kidnapping and murder of Prime Minister Aldo Moro and five of his aides in 1978. The abduction occurred as Moro was on his way to submit a plan to strengthen Italian political stability by bringing communists into the government.

Earlier versions of the plan had sent U.S. officials into a tizzy. Four years before his death, on a visit to the U.S. as foreign minister, Moro was reportedly read the riot act by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and later by an unnamed intelligence official. In testimony during the inquiry into his murder, Moro's widow summed up their ominous words: ``You must abandon your policy of bringing all the political forces in your country into direct collaboration...or you will pay dearly for it.'' 51

Moro was so shaken by the threats, according to an aide, that he became ill the next day and cut short his U.S. visit, saying he was through with politics. 52 But U.S. pressure continued; Senator Henry Jackson (D-Wash.) issued a similar warning two years later in an interview in Italy. 53 Shortly before his kidnapping, Moro wrote an article replying to his U.S. critics, but decided not to publish it. 54

While being held captive for 55 days, Moro pleaded repeatedly with his fellow Christian Democrats to accept a ransom offer to exchange imprisoned Red Brigade members for his freedom. But they refused, to the delight of Allied officials who wanted the Italians to play hardball. In a letter found later, Moro predicted: ``My death will fall like a curse on all Christian Democrats, and it will initiate a disastrous and unstoppable collapse of all the party apparatus.'' 55

During Moro's captivity, police unbelievably claimed to have questioned millions of people and searched thousands of dwellings. But the initial judge investigating the case, Luciano Infelisi, said he had no police at his disposal. ``I ran the investigation with a single typist, without even a telephone in the room.'' He added that he received no useful information from the secret services during the time. 56 Other investigating magistrates suggested in 1985 that one reason for the inaction was that all the key officers involved were members of P-2 and were therefore acting at the behest of Gelli and the CIA. 57

Although the government eventually arrested and convicted several Red Brigade members, many in the press and parliament continue to ask whether SID arranged the kidnapping after receiving orders from higher up. Suspicions naturally turned toward the U.S., particularly Henry Kissinger, though he denied any role in the crime. In Gladio and the Mafia, Washington had the perfect apparatus for doing such a deed without leaving a trace.

PENETRATING THE RED BRIGADES

That the Red Brigades had been thoroughly infiltrated for years by both the CIA and the Italian secret services is no longer contested. The purpose of the operation was to encourage violence from extremist sectors of the left in order to discredit the left as a whole. The Red Brigades were a perfect foil. With unflinching radicalism, they considered the Italian Communist Party too moderate and Moro's opening too compromising.

The Red Brigades worked closely with the Hyperion Language School in Paris, with some members not realizing it had CIA ties. The school had been founded by three pseudo-revolutionary Italians, one of whom, Corrado Simioni, had worked for the CIA at Radio Free Europe. 58 Another, Duccio Berio, has admitted passing information about Italian leftist groups to SID. 59 Hyperion opened an office in Italy shortly before the kidnapping and closed it a few months later. An Italian police report said Hyperion may be ``the most important CIA office in Europe.'' 60 Mario Moretti, one of those who handled arms deals and the Paris connection for the Red Brigades, managed to avoid arrest in the Moro case for three years even though he personally handled the kidnapping. 61

Venice magistrate Carlo Mastelloni concluded in 1984 that the Red Brigades had for years received arms from the PLO. 62 Mastelloni wrote that ``the de facto secret service level accord between the USA and the PLO was considered relevant to the present investigation into the ... relationship between the Red Brigades organization and the PLO.'' 63 One Gladio scholar, Phillip Willan, concludes that ``the arms deal between the PLO and the Red Brigades formed part of the secret accord between the PLO and the CIA.'' 64 His research indicates that the alleged deal between the CIA and the PLO occurred in 1976, a year after the U.S. promised Israel that it would have no political contacts with the PLO.

At the time of the Moro kidnapping, several leaders of the Brigades were in prison, having been turned in by a double agent after they kidnapped a judge. According to journalist Gianni Cipriani, one of those arrested was carrying phone numbers and personal notes leading to a high official of SID, who had boasted openly of having agents inside the Red Brigades. Other intriguing finds included the discovery in the Brigade offices of a printing press which had previously belonged to SID and ballistics tests showing more than half of the 92 bullets at the kidnapping scene were similar to those in Gladio stocks. 65

Several people have noted the unlikelihood of the Red Brigades pulling off such a smooth, military-style kidnapping in the center of Rome. Alberto Franceschini, a jailed member of the Brigades, said, ``I never thought my comrades outside had the capacity to carry out a complex military operation. ... We remembered ourselves as an organization formed by inexperienced young lads.'' 66 Two days after the crime, one secret service officer told the press that the perpetrators appeared to have had special commando training. 67

When letters written by Moro were found later in a Red Brigades site in Milan, investigators hoped they would reveal key evidence. But Francesco Biscioni, who studied Moro's responses to his captors' questions, concluded that important sections had been excised when they were transcribed. Nonetheless, in one uncensored passage, Moro worried about how Andreotti's ``smooth relationships with his colleagues of the CIA'' would affect his fate. 68

The two people with the most knowledge of Moro's letters were murdered. The Carabiniere general in charge of anti-terrorism, Carlo Alberto Della Chiesa, was transferred to Sicily and killed Mafia-style in 1982, a few months after raising questions about the missing letters. 69 Maverick journalist Mino Pecorelli was assassinated on a Rome street in 1979 just a month after reporting that he had obtained a list of 56 fascists betrayed to the police by Gelli. 70 Thomas Buscetta, a Mafia informer under witness protection in the U.S., accused Andreotti of ordering both killings for fear of being exposed. 71 But an inquiry by his political peers last year found no reason to prosecute the prime minister.

Della Chiesa and Pecorelli were only two of numerous witnesses and potential witnesses murdered before they could be questioned by judges untainted by links to Gladio. 72 President Cossiga, the interior minister when Moro died, told BBC: ``Aldo Moro's death still weighs heavily on the Christian Democrats as does the decision I came to, which turned my hair white, to practically sacrifice Moro to save the Republic.'' 73

THE BOLOGNA TRAIN STATION BOMBING

A huge explosion at the Bologna train station two years after Moro's death may have whitened the hair of many Italians - not just for the grisly toll of 85 killed and more than 200 injured - but for the official inaction that followed. Although the investigating magistrates suspected neofascists, they were unable to issue credible arrest warrants for more than two years because of false data from the secret services. By that time, all but one of the five chief suspects, two of whom had ties to SID, had skipped the country. 74 The T4 explosive found at the scene matched the Gladio material used in Brescia, Peteano and other bombings, according to expert testimony before Judge Mastelloni. 75

In the trial, the judges cited the ``strategy of tension and its ties to `foreign powers.''' They also found the secret military and civilian structure tied into neofascist groups, P-2, and the secret services. 76 In short, they found the CIA and Gladio.

But their efforts to exact justice for the Bologna bombing came to nothing when, in 1990, the court of appeals acquitted all the alleged ``brains.'' P-2 head Gelli went free, as did two secret service chiefs whose perjury convictions were overturned. Four gladiators convicted of participating in an armed group also won appeals. That left Peteano as the only major bombing case with a conviction of the actual bomber, thanks to Vinciguerra's confession.

The sorry judicial record in these monstrous crimes showed how completely the Gladio network enveloped the army, police, secret services and the top courts. Thanks to P-2, with its 963 well-placed brothers, 77 the collusion also extended into the top levels of media and business.

FRUITS OF GLADIO

By the early 1980s, however, court data revealed enough CIA fingerprints to provoke strong anti-U.S. sentiment. In 1981, the offices of three U.S. firms in Rome were bombed. In 1982, the Red Brigades kidnapped James L. Dozier, a U.S. general attached to NATO, calling him a ``Yankee hangman.'' 78 He was freed after five weeks by police commandos, reportedly with the help of the CIA's Mafia connections. 79 But damage to the U.S. image has been remarkably constrained considering what the U.S. did to Italian society and government for 50 years in the name of anticommunism.

Moro's final prediction came true. Instead of bolstering the center parties, Gladio, helped by the corruption scandals, destroyed them. Instead of destroying the leftists, Gladio revelations helped them win control of major cities while retaining one-third of parliament. By the early 1980s, the Red Brigades were wiped out, but the major sources of right-wing terrorism - the Mafia and the neofascists - remained active.80

The end results lead some to question the whole rationale of U.S. involvement in Italy, particularly in regard to the ``communist menace.'' According to Phillip Willan, who wrote the definitive book on Italian terrorism:

"The U.S. has consistently refused to recognize the Italian Communist Party's increasingly wholehearted commitment to the principles of Western democracy and its validity as an alternative to the generally corrupt and incompetent political parties that have governed Italy since the war. Had it done so, much of the bloodshed resulting from the strategy of tension might have been avoided. 81" Willan goes on to ask ``whether U.S. and Italian intelligence officials may have deliberately over-emphasized the communist threat in order to give themselves greater power and greater leeway for their own maneuvers.'' 82

THE LESSONS OF GLADIO

As long as the U.S. public remains ignorant of this dark chapter in U.S. foreign relations, the agencies responsible for it will face little pressure to correct their ways. The end of the Cold War brought wholesale changes in other nations, but it changed little in Washington. In an ironic twist, confessed CIA mole Aldrich Ames has raised the basic question of whether the U.S. needs ``tens of thousands of agents working around the world primarily in and against friendly countries.'' ``The U.S.,'' he adds, ``still awaits a real national debate on the means and ends - and costs - of our national security policies.'' 83

The new government in Italy touts itself as a revolution of the disenfranchised, a clean break from the past. But the fascists are back and gaining ground. The anti-Mafia party has been rejected, and the big cartels have tightened their grip on the economy. With P-2 brother Berlusconi continuing to trade on the Cold War fear of communists, the Gladio perpetrators still unpunished, and ``experts'' in Washington raising fears of more terrorism, 84 it looks like business as usual in Italy.

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Gladio's Roots

The policies that would evolve into Gladio began nduring World War II, when U.S. anticommunist nphobias combined with geopolitical fears of a victorious USSR to create a holy war against the left. An ``ends justify the means'' atmosphere within the U.S. government and particularly within the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), fostered the creation of ``Stay Behind'' programs throughout Western Europe, ostensibly as the first line of defense in case the Soviets invaded.

But the main worry was internal. The Americans' great fear for Italy was that communist partisans fighting in the north would join with organized labor to bring the left to power. The OSS and its successors were apparently prepared to use any measures to forestall that event, including political assassination, terrorism, and alliances with organized crime. According to one OSS memo to Washington, the U.S. seemed to support a monarchist plan to use ``fascist killers'' to commit acts of terror and blame the left. 1 U.S. involvement in Italian politics began in 1942, when the OSS successfully pressured the Justice Department to release imprisoned mobster Charles ``Lucky'' Luciano. In return for early freedom, Luciano agreed to make contacts with Mafia pals to ease the way for the U.S. invasion of Sicily in 1943.2

The Luciano deal forged a long-standing alliance between the U.S. and the international Cosa Nostra. It also set a pattern of cooperation between U.S. intelligence agencies and international criminal organizations involved in drugs and arms traffic. The deal's godfather was Earl Brennan, OSS chief for Italy. Before the war, he had served in the U.S. Embassy, using his diplomatic cover to establish contacts with Mussolini's secret police and leading fascists. 3

The Catholic Church also cooperated. U.S. ties to the Vatican were already substantial; one of the strongest links was a secret fraternity, the Rome-based Sovereign Military Order of Malta, which dates back to the First Crusade. OSS head William ``Wild Bill'' Donovan was a member. So were other top U.S. officials, including Myron Taylor, U.S. envoy to the Vatican from 1939 to 1950, and William Casey, an OSS operative who rose to CIA chief under Reagan. OSS Italy chief Brennan had contacts as early as 1942 with Vatican Under-Secretary of State Gian Battista Montini, who became Pope Paul VI in 1963.4

Among the notable OSS operatives was James Jesus Angleton, the legendary, paranoid, future CIA counter-intelligence chief. Angleton built on family and business connections in Italy to lay the basis of Gladio by forming and financing a clandestine network of right-wing Italians who shared his fierce gung-ho style. 5 The paramilitary groups were filled with devout anticommunists ready to wage war on the left. He also helped notorious Nazi/fascist mass-murderers such as Junio Valerio ``Black Prince;; Borghese elude justice at war's end. 6

U.S. officials were worried that the communists and socialists would join forces after the fighting. The communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in 1948 added to their fears. As a result, the U.S. cooked up a variety of plans to manipulate Italian politics. Angleton, who by late 1948 had been promoted to special assistant to CIA director Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, used the Vatican's 20,000 Civic Committees to conduct psychological warfare against communist influences, particularly in the unions. 7

The newly formed National Security Council (NSC) also joined the fray: ``If the Communist Party wins the [1948] election,'' the NSC advised, ``such aggression should immediately be countered by steps to extend the strategic disposition of U.S. armed forces in Italy.'' 8 The Communists did not win that pivotal election (nor any subsequent ones). But that didn't stop the U.S. from trying to destroy the left. The total cost to American taxpayers for such activities (and various aid programs) was $4 billion from the end of the war to 1953. 9 And that was just the beginning of the U.S. assault on Italian sovereignty.

 

Conclusive evidence on building 7 (5/25/2007)

9/11: Major Italian TV network: conclusive evidence that WTC Building 7 was demolished with explosives

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context= viewArticle&code=MAZ20070503&articleId=5550

 

 

The Neo-con Cabal (5/31/2007)

From http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

Neo-con cabal born in treason in the late 1970s. Lying, massive fraud, illegal weapons smuggling, forged documents . . . all sound like a description of the lead-up to the war in Iraq. However, this same situation existed in the late 1970s. Some of the same players who got this nation into the bloody quagmire of Iraq also criminally conspired to bring down the administration of President Jimmy Carter. President Carter's indignation about the neo-cons -- their blind support for Israel, their whittling away of our Constitution, our neo-con foreign policy -- is rooted in the treason they committed against the United States during his administration. There is no statute of limitations on treason and the neo-cons should face double barrel treason charges from incidents a generation apart.

The neo-con attacks on President Carter were planned in the office of the late Democratic Senator from Washington, Henry "Scoop" Jackson. Jackson was the Joe Lieberman of his day -- more concerned about representing the interests of a defense contractor, Boeing (Lieberman represents the interests of General Dynamics), and the expansionists and military-intelligence complex of Israel (as does Lieberman), than in doing what was best for America. Jackson's treason against the United States is honored today in Britain, where the Henry Jackson Society pushes the neo-con agenda in the British Parliament and media. Jackson, his chief assistant, Richard Perle, and foreign and defense policy aides Frank Gaffney, William Kristol, Douglas Feith, and Elliott Abrams, as well as unofficial Jackson adviser Paul Wolfowitz, did everything possible to derail U.S.-Soviet detente and arms limitation treaties, including the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II).

Jackson and Perle helped initiate sanctions against the USSR, at the expense of American farmers, with the help of Ohio Democratic Rep. Charles Vanik (the Jackson-Vanik sanctions act). Jackson's Coalition for a Democratic Majority (CDM) was the "Democratic Leadership Council" of its time. CDM worked tirelessly to damage President Carter and among its ranks were, in addition to Jackson, Texas Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen, Oklahoma Senator David Boren, Georgia Senator Sam Nunn, Louisiana Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Ben Wattenberg, Irving Kristol, Max Kampelman, Richard Pipes, John Roche, Samuel Huntington, and James Woolsey. In 1976, the CDM helped form the Committee on the Present Danger, reactivated in 2004 by Lieberman, Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl, Laurie Mylroie, Norman Podhoretz, Frank Gaffney, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Boeing, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation.

The treason committed by these neo-cons against the Carter administration centered on machinations in Rome (Rome was also at the center of the later conspiracy to drive the United States into war in Iraq). Arch neo-con and foreign policy adviser to Karl Rove, Michael Ledeen, served as the Rome correspondent for The New Republic from 1975 to 1977 and a journalist for the right-wing Milan newspaper Il Giornale. In Rome, Ledeen cultivated close ties with neo-fascist groups.

Jackson's and his staffs' first documented case of treason against the United States concerned the leak to Jackson and Perle in 1978 of a Top Secret CIA report on the SALT talks by CIA nuclear weapons analyst Daniel S. Sullivan. Sullivan, believing the Soviets deceived the U.S. in the SALT talks, took it upon himself to pass Top Secret information to Jackson and his band of neo-cons. However, rather than being prosecuted, Sullivan was permitted to resign due to "insubordination" and not for illegally passing classified information to unauthorized persons. Sullivan later joined the staff of Senator Bentsen and received another Top Secret clearance as a member of Bentsen's staff.

However, the leak of the Top Secret SALT CIA document to Jackson may not have been the only leak to have taken place. In February 2005, the Everett (WA) Herald reported that five federal agents from the Departments of Defense and Energy removed several documents from the archived papers of Jackson housed at the University of Washington's Suzzallo-Allen Library. The seized documents were re-classified by the government. The retention by Jackson and his staff of top secret documents is reminiscent of the Larry Franklin-AIPAC case, in which Franklin, opposed to U.S. policy on Iran, passed a number of classified CIA documents to AIPAC and the Israeli embassy's Mossad station in Washington.

Rather than being treated as the traitor he was, Jackson is today lauded by Democrats of various political stripes. His ideological descendants are at the core of the Republican pre-emptive strike foreign policy construct.

In 1976, two years after Secretary of State Henry Kissinger threatened then-Italian Foreign Minister Aldo Moro about forming a coalition with the Communists, Jackson, on a trip to Italy, issued a similar warning to Moro. In Phillip Willan's Puppetmasters, Moro's widow recounted Kissinger's warning, which was undoubtedly echoed by Jackson: "You must abandon your policy of bringing all the political forces in your country into direct collaboration . . . or you will pay dearly for it." Moro was kidnapped for 55 days by the so-called Red Brigades, who were later found to be in the service of Italian fascists, Italian intelligence, the P-2 Masonic Lodge, a parallel SID [Italian Defense Intelligence Service], and the CIA. Some of these same elements would be behind the infamous Niger yellowcake forgeries used by the neo-cons to prove the case for war against Iraq.

The same neo-con network would transform Mehmet Ali Agca, the would-be assassin of Pope John Paul II, from a right-wing member of the Turkish Gray Wolves to a Communist in the employ of the KGB and Bulgarian intelligence. The Judith Miller-like journalist in those days who spun the story about Agca's Soviet Bloc connections was Claire Sterling, whose disinformation was quickly picked up by The Reader's Digest, New York Times, NBC News, and other mainstream media outlets. Sterling's fellow disinformation journalist was Ledeen.

Agca told a fantasy story about his orders to kill the Pope coming from a Bulgarian "control officer" and that he had also been involved in a plot to kill Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba, and Malta's Prime Minister Dom Mintoff. In fact, there was a plot to overthrow and possibly kill Mintoff, Allende-style, but it was being crafted by U.S. Navy intelligence in conjunction with the neo-fascist and renegade Italian intelligence elements in Rome. The U.S. Navy wanted to overthrow Mintoff to gain access to its former NATO base on the island nation off the Libyan coast. Bourguiba was not popular with the neo-cons because he allowed Yasir Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization to maintain its headquarters-in-exile in Tunis.

The Turkish Gray Wolves and the pan-Turkic National Action Party (NAP) made common cause with the neo-cons and their Israeli friends. The Wolves and the NAP considered the peoples of Soviet Central Asia to be "captive Turks." The Turkish right-wing nationalists foresaw a nuclear-armed Turkey extending from Thrace to the central Asian steppes. The anti-Soviet concordat between the Turkish right (and the Turkish intelligence agency MIT) and the neo-cons in America, Israel, and Italy would later serve as a basis for the political alliance between AIPAC and the American Turkish Council.

Ledeen operated a right-wing cell in Rome that included Francesco Pazienza, an Italian businessman linked to P-2, Italian SISMI military intelligence chief General Giuseppe Santovito, and the mafia; P-2 "Venerable Master" Licio Gelli; and Banco Ambrosiano chief Roberto Calvi (later murdered Masonic ritual-style in London on Blackfriar's Bridge). Ledeen provided a conduit between this group and Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State Alexander Haig.

In an attempt to embarrass President Carter during the 1980 presidential race, Santovito, Pazienza, and Ledeen conspired to entrap Bill Carter, the president's brother, into a business relationship with Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. La Repubblica reported on the Italian investigation into the conspiracy:

"The scandalous material was gathered mostly by Pazienza and by his American friend Michael Ledeen . . . Pazienza availed himself of SISMI both for the use of some secret agents and for the expenses of organizing the scandalous plan. It seems that the organizers got a huge payoff for "Billygate." Moreover, Santovito and Pazienza got great advantage in return from American officials, in fact, may have been helped in other obscure affairs. The "Billygate" operation did not come from SISMI's institutionally mandated task, and for that reason Judge Sica brought charges of pursuing private interests through official activities." [Translated in Diana Johnstone, "The Ledeen Connection," In These Times, Sept. 8-14, 1982].

Rather than being charged and prosecuted for treason against the United States, Ledeen was rewarded with a consulting job for the State Department and Pentagon in the Reagan administration, a position from which he was free to continue his anti-American activities with fellow traitors from the Henry Jackson staff.

While the traitors in the Washington office of Jackson and Ledeen in Rome were conspiring against President Carter, George H. W. Bush, Carter National Security Council staffer Robert Gates, and William Casey criminally conspired with the Ayatollah Khomeini's government to keep 52 hostages held in Tehran captive in return for a shipment of weapons. A meeting between Casey, Gates, and Bush and Iranian agents was held in Paris on October 19, 1980, in what became known as the "October Surprise." The deal was worked out using the auspices of the Sun Shipyard in Chester, PA, which had a close link to the CIA since the shipyard's building of the Soviet submarine raising ship, SS Glomar Explorer, under cover provided by Howard Hughes' Summa Corporation, in 1973. As WMR has previously reported, the CIA arranged a pre-election weapons shipment, unknown to President Carter, to Iran on the SS Poet from Chester, PA to Iran. The Poet was later disposed of along with its American crew by U.S. intelligence or those in its service. And what magazine later debunked the "October Surprise" story of a Bush-Casey treasonous deal with Iran? None other than Ledeen's old employer, The New Republic.

 

Nazis, the Vatican and CIA Knights of Darkness (5/10/2007)

From ......... COVERT ACTION INFORMATION BULLETIN

Issue title: SPECIAL: NAZIS, THE VATICAN, AND CIA KNIGHTS OF DARKNESS

THE SOVEREIGN MILITARY ORDER OF MALTA

The Sovereign Military and Hospitaler Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, known also as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, or SMOM, is juridically, politically, and historically unique in the world today.

Representing initially the most powerful and reactionary segments of the European aristocracy, for nearly a thousand years beginning with the early crusades of the Twelfth Century, it has organized, funded, and led military operations against states and ideas deemed threatening to its power. It is probably safe to say that the several thousand Knights of SMOM, principally in Europe, North, Central, and South America, comprise the largest most consistently powerful and reactionary membership of any organization in the world today.

Although an exclusively [Roman] Catholic organization, in this century it has collaborated with, and given high awards to non-Catholic extremists in its current crusade against progressive forces in the West, the national liberation movements, and the socialist countries.

To be a Knight, one must not only be from wealthy, aristocratic lineage, one must also have a psychological worldview which is attracted to the "crusader mentality'' of these "warrior monks." Participating in SMOM including its initiation ceremonies and feudal ritual dress members embrace a certain caste/class mentality; they are sociologically and psychologically predisposed to function as the ''shock troops" of Catholic reaction. And this is precisely the historical role the Knights have played in the wars against Islam, against the Protestant "heresy,'' and against the Soviet ''Evil Empire."

The Catholic Right and the Knights of Malta, in particular Baron Franz von Papen, played a critical role in Hitler's assumption of power and the launching of the Third Reich's Twentieth Century Crusade.

SMOM's influence in Germany survived World War II intact. On November 17, 1948 SMOM awarded one of its highest honors, the Grand Cross of Merit, to Reinhard Gehlen, the Nazi chief of intelligence on the Soviet front. He was subsequently installed by the Americans as the first chief of West Germany's equivalent of the CIA, the Bundesnachtrichtdienst (BND: federal secret service), under West German Chancellor Adenauer, a devout Catholic who had received the Magistral Grand Cross personally from SMOM Grand Master Prince Chigi.

After the appointment of Knight of Malta William Casey as head of the Central Intelligence Agency, and another Knight, James Buckley, as head ot U.S. propaganda against Eastern Europe at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, several historians noted with interest President Reagan's call during the summer of 1982 for a "crusade" against the "Evil Empire" in Eastern Europe.

[ including Balkans ...... JP ]

In addition to Casey, and James Buckley, its current members, or Knights, after the feudal fashion, include Lee Iacocca, John McCone, William Buckley, Alexander Haig, Alexandre de Marenches (the chief of French Intelligence under Giscard d'Estaing, himself a Knight of SMOM), Otto von Hapsburg, and various leaders of the fascist P-2 Masonic lodge in Italy. While its organizational funding is relatively modest, its leverage is maximized by the presence of its Knights in key positions in other private and governmental structures throughout the world.

FRANZ von PAPEN

A leading figure in Hitler's coming to power was SMOM Franz von Papen, known as "the devil in a top hat." A devout Catholic aristocrat from an old family of Westphalian nobility, a former military attache and spy against the United States in 1915, von Papen became Chancellor in May 1932, with the support of the Nazis. In June he ordered the dissolution of the Reichstag, calling for new elections in July, in which the Nazis emerged as the largest party in the new Reichstag. After a meeting with Hitler, von Papen persuaded President von Hindenberg to offer Hitler the Chancellorship, which he assumed on January 30, 1933. Von Papen became his Vice-Chancellor.

In April 1933 von Papen was elevated to Knight Magistral Grand Cross of SMOM. After the murder of Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss in Vienna in July 1934, von Papen became Hitler's Ambassador to Austria, and, in March 1938 stood by the Fuhrer's side at his triumphal entry into Vienna. From 1939 until August 1944 he was the Nazi Ambassador to Turkey, and at the Nuremberg trials he was charged with conspiracy to wage aggressive war. He was one of several Nazi leaders acquitted, and subsequently received a generous pension from the first postwar Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer.

Page 28

The President of the American Eastern Association of SMOM is J. Peter Grace, President of W.R. Grace Company, who was a key figure in Operation Paperclip, which brought Nazi scientists to the U.S. 1

SMOM's Sovereign Diplomacy

As its name suggests, SMOM is both a ''sovereign'' and, historically, a "military" organization. Its headquarters, occupying a square block in Rome at 68 Via Condotti, enjoys the extra-territorial legal status granted to an embassy of a sovereign state. The Italian police are not welcome on its territory, it issues its own stamps, and has formal diplomatic relations and exchanges ambassadors with a number of countries.

On November 13, 1951 Italian President Alcide de Gasperi recognized the diplomatic sovereignty of SMOM, although he held off formal exchange of diplomatic envoys.2 On January 11, 1983 the New York Daily News announced that,

"The Vatican and the order of the Knights of Malta, believed to be the smallest sovereign state in the world, have agreed to establish full diplomatic relations, a joint statement said today. "

President Reagan's Ambassador to the Vatican, William Wilson, is, coincidentally, a Knight of Malta.3

On September 5, 1984 French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson signed a formal protocol with SMOM for various cooperative projects includlng "aid to victims of conflicts."4 (See below on Americares.)

Historical Antecedents

Already in existence at the time of the first Crusade in 1099, in 1113 the Order of St. John was given its independence by Pope Pascal II, permitted to elect its own Grand Master, and soon the Order began military participation in the Crusades along with with the Knights Templar and Teutonic Knights. The Order of St. John recruited successfully among the Eurupean aristocracy and soon controlled extensive estates throughout the continent, assimilating those previously belonging to the Knights Templar which it had helped crush during the first two decades of the 14th Century, with the Templar leadership burned alive as heretics.

J. Peter Grace and Project Paperclip

On January 16, 1980 ABC-TV broadcast a special "News Closeup," "Escape from Justice: Nazi War Criminals in America" which discussed Grace's Role in Project Paperclip.

The transcript of the program, available from ABC on request, states,

"Project Paperclip ....... from the end of WW II to the mid-1950's brought more than 900 German scientists to the United States. ..... Otto Ambros ..... was a chemist and a Director of the notorious I.G. Farben Company which supplied gasoline and rubber for Hitler's war effort. Ambros ...... played a supervisory role in the construction of Farben's plant in the Polish village of Auschwitz. For I.G. Farben, Auschwitz concentration inmates provided a plentiful source of cheap labor. ..... The Nuremberg prosecution charged that each day at Farhen's plant one hundred people died from sheer exhaustion. ...... Otto Ambros was convicted of slavery and mass murder and sentenced to eight years in prison. But even while on trial at Nuremberg, Ambros was a target for U.S. recruiters from 'Project Paperclip.' His prison sentence was commuted after only three years by American officials and he was helped in a bid to enter the United States by ...... J. Peter Grace, President of W. R. Grace, a major American chemical company. .....

An internal State Department document describes how J. Peter Grace helped Otto Ambros in his efforts to enter the U.S. In a memorandum to the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Grace acknowledges that Ambros was a war criminal. But he adds that in the years he's known Ambros, ...... 'we have developed a very deep admiration, not only for his ability, but more important, for his character in terms of truthfulness and integrity.'

Today Otto Ambros does consulting work tor W. R. Grace and Company and lives here in Mannheim, Germany. In a recent telephone interview Ambros [said] 'I'm happy to still be working as a chemist ...... but it's funny. Now I'm helping the Americans.' "

In June 1981, largely in response to the efforts of well known war crimes researcher Charles Allen, Yeshiva University cancelled a $150-a-plate dinner it had organized to honor Grace. (See also, Joe Conason and Martin A. Rosenblatt, "The Corporate State of Grace," 'Village Voice', April 12, 1983.)

When the scandal broke in West Germany over the Flick company paying huge sums of money to various politicians and parties, it was learned that additionally Flick had taken improper tax waivers and used the money to pump millions of dollars into W. R. Grace Co., becoming a major shareholder. Friedrich Karl Flick himself sits on the Grace Board. As the Moscow New Times reminded its readers (No. 8, 1983, citing Der Spiegel), Friedrich Karl's father, Flick Sr., had poured money into the coffers of the Nazi party in January 1933, and, ''after Goering had promised the Ruhr magnates that "the March 5 elections will be the last elections in this decade and perhaps in this century,'' he contributed another 200,000 marks; this sum was handed to SS Reichfuhrer Himmler. Flick Sr. was subsequently sentenced at Nuremberg to seven years for using slave labor, spoliation and being an accessory to the crimes of the SS. To ensure a good beginning for his son, the war criminal sent him after the war for early training with W. R. Grace.

Page 29

In 1187 the Order was driven militarily from Jerusalem by Saladin. The Knights were forced to flee successively to Acre, Cyprus (1291), and finally Rhodes (1310) where they subdued the local population and establishcd a military dictatorship enjoying territorial sovereignty for the first time. In 1522 they were defeated by Sultan Suleiman's forces of 200,000 troops and 250 ships after a six-month siege. By 1530 under Grand Master Villiers de l'lsle-Adam, the Knights established their headquarters on the island of Malta which had been given to them by Charles V.

Martin Luther was born in 1483, the same year that Torquemada unleashed the fury of the Inquisition, and while the Knights waged war against foreign heresies, they were soon confronted by the liberalizing Reformation challenge to Catholic Orthodoxy.

In England Henry Vlll's assertion of an independent national policy was complicated by his marriage to Katherine who was the aunt of Emperor Charles V, patron of the Knights of Malta who in England were a militant bastion of Papal loyalty. By 1534 Pope Clement VII had excommunicated the King and two years later Pope Paul III published a Bull deposing the King and charging the Emperor with its execution. According to King and Luke's authoritative history 5 of the Order in England

The staunchest supporters of Papal supremacy were naturally to be found among the religious Orders, and ....... the Knights were the loyal servants of the Pope, whose claims to universal dominion [the King] had repudiated, ....... it was thus a sheer impossibility for the King to permit the existence in England of an Order so powerful and so highly organized unless it was prepared to renounce its loyalty to his most determined enemy. Inevitably the Knights would become a center of disaffection and a rallying point for all the forces of reaction. ......

In July 1539, after two of the Knights had already chosen the martyr's crown, the King wrote letters to the Grand Master which practically constituted an ultimatum, demanding that the Papal supremacy should cease to be recognized by the Order in England. ..... But it was impossible to accept the King's conditions. In April 1540 ..... Parliament passed an Act dissolving the Order in England and conferring its estates upon the Crown. ...... 6

Meanwhile on the continent and in the Mediterranean the wars against the infidels of the East continued. Since the military defense of Christendom required naval support, the Order created a powerful fleet and patrolled the seas of the Eastern Mediterranean fighting many naval actions.

Military operations ranged as far as Egypt and Syria, and by 1565 under Grand Master Valette, they resisted the Turkish siege of Malta. In 1571 SMOM's fleet participated in the defeat of the Turks at the naval battle of Lepanto, and remained a major military presence in the Mediterranean until 1789 when Napoleon defeated the Knights and occupied the island. The Order finally sought temporary protection under the Russian Emperor Paul I in 1797; in 1834 Pope Leo XIII established its headquarters in Rome.

 

Article for Basso magazine, Finland (5/25/2007)

ARTICLE FOR BASSO MAGAZINE (FINLAND) BY LEO LYON ZAGAMI

US president George W. Bush will hold his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI on 9 June at the Vatican, the White House has announced. US ambassador to the Holy See Francis Rooney said Bush and the pontiff would discuss the "shared commitment of the United States and the Holy See to promoting human dignity around the world." The president and his wife Laura Bush will stop in Vatican City after attending a Group of Eight (G8) summit on 6-8 June in Heiligendamm, Germany. What will Ratzinger realy say to the Pope is a different story, we can only immagine the pious Bush in front of his evil Master Pope Ratzinger, the US President is a degenerate individual and a slave of the satanic system promoted by the Vatican and some of most prominent Zionist families , he is used as a good actor for their evil play.We find also very interesting at present the meeting to be held in Rome in secret this month between Dan Brown and the Vatican clergy ,a meeting organized by the illustrius Freemason and Grand Master of the illuminati Giuliano Di Bernardo. This meeting will include the presence of the powerfull Cardinal from Bavaria Friedrich Wetter Bishop of Monaco and the Billionaire illuminati Rupert Murdoch plus actor Tom Hanks and Scientology film director Ron Howard... So what a mix for this illluminati dinner in Piazza di Spagna 35 in Rome just a month before the arrival of the US President George W.Bush one of their most promminent illuminati puppets of the New World Order. The illuminati in Rome are officialy discussing the release of the film Angels and Demons, I think thats a very apppropriate move and its definetely gonna be a very special dinner between Mind Controllers of the first kind dont you think so? But let's go back to George and his Papal visit to submit once again to the mighty man in white sitting in St.Peter's throne , a visit clear like the light of the day that will finaly get thinking a few conspiracy nuts out there that this is the real thing, this is the USA submission to Vatican Luciferian Powers! In the meantime Italy is rocked by satanic, drug-induced sexual abuse in kindergarten, Children say they were forced in satanic sexual abuse and forced to drink blood in rituals. For this reason six persons were arrested in Rome accused of sexually abusing 15 children from the age of three to the age of six at the nursery school “Olga Rovere” of Rignano Flaminio, in the vicinities of Rome. Satanism is definetely expanding and on the rise and we have to stay aware of this problem especialy in these times. Today, Satan has free hands. This does not mean that he has more power than in the past, but the door is wide open to him. Primarily, today we live in a period of little faith. It is purely mathematical: when faith declines, superstition grows. When we abandon God, we give ourselves to practices that open the door to Satan. There is no doubt that today’s media piloted by the illluminati have done much in favour of Satan, first by the immorality of certain shows, the abundance of movies showing violence, horror or sex. Well it seems we have to fight Satan now more then ever and I dont think that sitting down doing nothing is the right solution , we need to be active against all the evil promoted by Satan and his followers around the world we need to start a dialogue with those people who like us want a better world. Lets pray and hope God will give us the strength. Regarding myself I got to meet a very interesting man and what seems to be a great believer last week, strangely enough that man was the Secretary for Interreligious Dialogue for the Society of Jesus ...yes the Jesuits! Well I know it sounds a bit strange but Fr. Thomas Michel , SJ as been a pleasant surprise for me as he seems a person who is a true witness to God's universal mercy and he didnt mind the criticism I moved against the Jesuits (thats a nice start for a friendship..)

See you next time

Leo Lyon Zagami

 

Tour of Hope (5/25/2007)

TOUR OF HOPE SUPREME COUNCIL OSLO 2007

Thank you for your enquiry and various questions about how to join the Committee of Hope. We welcome you on board and wish you and your friends a warm welcome in our new organization.With this Charter we give you the possibility of meeting (obviously free of charge) on a regular basis to discuss our NWO resistance plans. And we hope to help in this process of understanding by regularly updating our web sites with the latest. And In the near future me Leo Zagami and Greg Szymanski will love to come and visit you in your area for a date of the TOUR OF HOPE .

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE WILLING ORGANIZERS: JUST GET A VENUE AND A SPONSOR TO HELP YOU OUT AND ARRANGE FOR OUR FLIGHTS AND OUR STAY IN YOUR TOWN AND WE ARE GONNA BE OUT THERE TO SPREAD THE MESSAGE OF THE TOUR OF HOPE .

IF YOU DON’T MANAGE DON’T WORRY AND CONTINUE THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE FORCES OF DARKNESS IN THE NAME OF TRUE FREEDOM AND DIVINE JUSTICE, MEETING REGULARLY WITH YOUR COMMITTEE OF HOPE IS A GREAT OPPURTUNITY TO DO THIS.

My private e-mail is leoyoung1999@yahoo.com

and my phone number +4798411581

Keep us constantely updated with the latest and good luck. Fraternaly yours,

Leo Lyon Zagami Now Khaled Saifullah

 

Gordon Brown becomes Prime Minister and Tony Blair a Catholic...Illuminati Game (6/27/2007)

 

Tony Blair talks with Pope Benedict XVI and prepares to become a Catholic Knight blessed by the Pope now he his leaving his office as a Prime Minister earlier today.The two men (Blair and the gay Pope) met privately for 25 minutes last week in Rome and then were joined for further talks by English Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor. It seems obvious to everybody with a bit of knowledge about Blair that the now ex prime minister has always been working for his Vatican Masters but now Blair is finally coming out of the closet as a Catholic for everybody to see how devoted to Rome he really is.

A Vatican press office called the audience a normal meeting between the pope and a government leader...well how normal is it to visit the Pope before leaving your office as a Prime Minister of Great Britain?

Blair one the most important puppets of the illuminati scene in the last ten years went to the Pope for ultimate Vatican submission, this should be enough to expose Blair in front of the world as the tipical Vatican neo illuminati now ready to show who are his real Masters in Rome, we should point out to our friends and families this episode that makes it quite clear who is in charge of the so called politics.

Later a official stament was made by the Vatican about the talks of Tony Blair with Benedict and the separate meeting he had with Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, they said there was a "frank" assessment of the international situation, including such "delicate" themes as the Middle East conflict and the future of the European Union... are we gonna believe them?

Officially the Vatican opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which Blair has supported but we know very well that this whole war is an illuminati war secretely driven by the Pope in Rome.

The statement said that best wishes were expressed for Blair's future, saying that he has expressed the desire "to dedicate himself in a particular way for peace in the Middle East and for interreligious dialogue". This seems to be the new career the Vatican illuminati have planned for him and earlier this week, President Bush, a close ally, got Blair the job of Middle East envoy for the Quartet of peacemakers — the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia.

Greeted by Benedict, Blair explained that he had just arrived from an EU summit in Brussels.

"I heard it was very successful," Benedict the great illuminati manipulator said.

"Yes, we had a very long night. We finished up at 5:30 in the morning", Blair replied.

In an interview with The Times of London, Blair said Saturday the issue of his religious beliefs was complex and that he was nervous about discussing his faith with the pope....

Rubbish, Blair is simply an illuminati Vatican slave and has always been one.

"It's difficult with some of these things," Blair told the newspaper. "Things aren't always as resolved as they might be".

So Blair is on the verge of formally converting, a spokesman for the prime minister repeated the official line that he remains a member of the Church of England but thats not gonna last too long now he has left his position as Prime Minister of Anglican UK and he is free of showing his true colours to the world.

Blair, his wife and children met Benedict in a private, hour-long audience a year ago. He also met with Pope John Paul II in 2003.

Blair's wife Cherie is Roman Catholic, the couple's children have attended Catholic schools and Blair habitually attends Catholic rather than Anglican services even taking the communion. Well welcome to the Church of Rome Mr Blair and wake up people and get the truth on the real manipulators of our planet. The Zionist families and the Vatican thats it!

I was in Kirby Lodge 2818 in Great Queen Street (home of the United Grand Lodge of England ) back in November 2003 when I heard from illustrius Brother Andrew Hicks of the Corner Stone Society (link) that Gordon Brown was being prepared as successor to Tony Blair who was being totally manipulated and used by the Vatican illuminati elite of the United Grand Lodge of England for their evil illuminati game in collaboration with their USA allies. Tony Blair has been completely brainwashed and mind controlled by the Vatican and their loyal British Queen to this present day.

Leo Lyon Zagami now Khaled Saifullah Khan

 

P2 (6/27/2007)

 

Formed in the 19th century by the Grande Orient of Italy for the elites, the organization evolved out of the violent organization known as the Carbonari. Pagan elements suffused the rituals of the organization to which all Grand Masters of Regular Italian Freemasonry belonged. The head was known as Naj Hannah (King Cobra).

In interviews two former members have described the oaths they took. They were taken to a compound, a Villa hidden in the Apennines in the region of Tuscany. A 12-foot wall seals the neatly manicured grounds from view. In the centre of the main courtyard stands a fountain shaped like a tree trunk. The cobralike sculpture, with its inflated hood, watches over the compound in a protective posture, as if ready to strike. The cobra's head is twice the size of a human skull. It has a single eye, which is blue during daylight and red after nightfall, for inside the cobra's hood and behind its eye there is a closed-circuit camera that follows a visitor, invited or unwelcome, as the fountain rotates in the direction the intruder moves. The fountain- camera is controlled from a room within the villa where eight monitors, each with five stations, cover eight guest rooms, patio, pool, dining room, sitting room, and party room. Approximately ten cameras, including the one inside the cobra, have infrared lenses. All of the exterior cameras are camouflaged by the landscaping. The Villa's interior is magnificent. Every room has marble floors and is furnished with antiques. Observing the high ceilings, the finely crafted gold-leaf moldings, the portraits of Mussolini, Hitler, and Peron, the visitor experiences a feeling, a sort of living, breathing odor of danger and power that penetrates the soul and cell by cell contaminates the mind with fear. The year is 1964.

In the meeting room, twelve members of P-2, dressed in satin ceremonial robes and wearing black hoods reminiscent of those worn by members of the Ku Klux Klan, sit in leather chairs at a red marble conference table. They are the elite members of the Wolf Pack, Gelli's disciples - some say his execution squad. None of the black-clad disciples knows the identity of any of his eleven brothers. Grand Master Licio Gelli is the only one who bares his face. Two Masons stand post at the entrance to the meeting room. Their faces are also covered. They are Naja Hannah's personal bodyguards some say his death squad-former Mussolini Facists whose job is to protect the Grand Master and kill any of the twelve disciples who betray the cause "Il Momento di Passare all"(The Time for Real Action). Like Naja Hannah and his disciples, each bodyguard carries an axe; they also bear automatic weapons.

The ceremony begins. There is an uneven series of knocks at the door. "Your Worshipful," a disciple announces, "a pagan wishes to enter". The Grand Master strikes the table with one blow with his axe. Immediately the oversized door swings open and slams against the inner wall. Two guards escort the initiate to the center of the room where he faces the twelve Masons with his back to the grand masters throne. The Pagan, as he is called, is wearing a plain black hood and a blindfold. His identity is known to Grand Master Licio Gelli but to no one else. He is asked one question by each of the disciples, but the Pagan does not answer, instead, one of the guards speaks for him. Once all the ritual questions about purpose and belief and reason for wanting to become a member of Propaganda Due are answered, the Pagan is turned to face the Grand Master, who asks, "Pagan, are you prepared to die in order to preserve the secrets of Propaganda Due?" The initiate now answers for himself: "I am." "Do you have the necessary quality of contempt for danger?" "I do." "Do you have the necessary quality of courage?" "I am courageous." "Do you proclaim yourself an Anti-Communist?" "I do". "And Pagan, are you prepared to fight and perhaps face shame, even death, so that we who may become your Brothers may destroy this Government and form a Presidency?" "I am". Then the blindfold is removed. It takes a moment for the initiate's vision to clear, because this is the first time since entering the compound that he has been allowed to see light. The blindfold serves a purpose other than security. It also represents the power of P-2: "Without membership one is blind; with the help of the order, however, the way is clear."

St. Peter's Banker Luigi DiFonzo Franklin Watts Ltd. 1983

 

No protests planned for Bohemian Grove event (7/15/2007)

The elite and secretive gathering at the Bohemian Grove in Monte Rio next week, greeted in past years by protesters, will go on this year without a formal demonstration, a longtime organizer said this week.

The reason?

Competing commitments, fatigue and limited time -- the same reasons so many other things don't get done in life, Camp Meeker activist Mary Moore said.

Moore, 72, first helped organize demonstrations outside the Bohemian Grove in 1980 and has been the primary torchbearer since as part of the Bohemian Grove Action Network. She said the protesters may have achieved their chief objective of bringing public attention to the annual rite.

"The corporate and government collusion that so impacts our lives today" is so "much more obvious to the average citizen" than it once was, she said.

The protests, which have drawn up to several hundred people, have been spearheaded over the past 27 years by a coalition of social and environmental organizations.

Though nothing formal is scheduled this year, it's still possible some critics will stake out the encampment, scheduled for Thursday to July 29, Moore said.

The all-male illuminati Bohemian Club, founded in 1872 by five San Francisco men seeking to connect these so called "gentlemen" with art, literature, music and drama, has attracted some of the nation's most powerful captains of industry and government.

Members and guests who have attended the annual two-week retreat dedicated to the ancient pagan divinity Moloch at the Bohemian Grove include presidents -- both Bushes, Ronald Reagan and Richard M. Nixon -- one-time cabinet members including Colin Powell, George Schultz and Henry Kissinger, and industrialists Stephen David Bechtel, Leonard Firestone and David Rockefeller.

The motto of the 2,700-acre grove -- "Weaving Spiders Come Not Here" -- is intended to discourage the conduct of business or world affairs during the encampment, which features elaborate rituals, dinners, plays and drag shows, speeches, drinking and parties.

The world's government and business leaders that are shaping the future without public oversight are doing it here with discussions on defense, economic and public policy topics, particularly during daily "Lakeside Talks" presented by guest speakers.

"I've been saying," Moore said, "if they would publish those lakeside talks, we would go away. I don't care if they pee on trees up there or dance around in tutus."

Well you should care dear Mary Moore...

We have already exposed in the past in my Illuminati Confessions, the connections of this powerful and sick illuminati circle (Bohemian Club) with the american Shriners, the elite of freemasonry secretely manipulated by illustrius Freemason and illuminati dictator Donald Rumsfeld and we welcome the recent publication of the list of officers and Committee members of the Bohemian Club recentely received by infowars, it seems one of the Bohemian rosters has been finally exposed: http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/210607_bg.html

Let's see if the people finally wake up to the perverse activities of the elite at Bohemian Grove, activities I have illustrated so well in this article: http://www.illuminati-news.com/2006/1210b.htm

Enjoy a nice summer and if you are free and in the area go and give a hand to anti-illuminati Mary Moore in Monte Rio, people should stop these gatherings and become involved in the resistance.

Fight the illuminazi scum.

Leo Lyon Zagami now Khaled Saifullah Khan

 

About Lebanon, the Middle East and much more... (7/14/2007)

S.S. wrote:

Leo i will arrange a committee of like minded people in my area & will keep you posted on the progress. Also, as i mentioned my background is Lebanese and my father is extremely interested in Lebanese politics, you would be doing > me a great favor if you could explain the Vatican involvement with Lebanese politics, or even direct me to an english or arabic website about the topic. thanks Wa Aleikum As Salam Assad

Reply by Leo Zagami:

Good , keep up the great work. Finding the right people is important for this project and a truly succesfull Committee of Hope. When I was active in the illuminati I went accross a couple of important Lebanese masons working with the Jesuits and the illuminati. One of them is called Khaled Nachabe, he is part of the new international Federation of P2 influenced Grand Lodges created by the Regular Grand Lodge of England ( http://www.rgle.org.uk ) .These Grand Lodges are connected to the Martinism school of the illuminati trough illustrius Brother Rui Gabirro one of the Puppet Masters of this international conspiracy connected to the Vatican, the CIA and several secret police operations in Europe and the US manipulated by these irregular Freemasons illuminati attending these High Councills. One of the other infamous Brothers involved with Khaled Nachabe in this new illuminati network of Masonic High Councills born in 2005 in London is Mr. Klaus Schmidt, a Senior Police Officer from the Bavarian State Police with more than 40 years of service, a veteran of all EU Police Missions in Albania. To cover up any trace of his masonic work and connections to the infamous illuminati of Bavaria he calls himself MW.Bro. Nikolaus Ehrenfried.Well we truly think people should check for themselfs who is this great german player of the illuminati game who likes to use a false name for his masonic work well Nikolaus no Klaus . .. http://www.intelligencesummit.org/speakers/schmidt.php

and start questioning THE INTELLIGENCE SUMMIT http://www.intelligencesummit.org

a evil illuminati driven organizzation of intelligence criminals involved in the middle like false Sheick Abdul Hadi Palazzi who we already mentioned in connection to the italian Masonic Mafia , the latest scandals and Massimo Pizza.

www.intelligencesummit.org/speakers/SheikhPalazzi.php

So we have to keep an eye on these people 'the Intelligence summit' organizzation and we should carefully check this document of the Regular Grand Lodge of England full of interesting people loyal to the illuminati cause like Lebanese Freemason Khaled Nachabe and others , obviously some names are false but there are some who are not afraid to expose themselfs including their Grand Master HRH The Prince of Araucania, KES, OCS, KCA :

----------------------------------illuminati document--------- Regular Grand Lodge of England ANCIENT AND HONOURABLE FRATERNITY OF FREE AND ACCEPTED MASONS

SIT LUX ET LUX FUIT

Grand Officer Appointments

Whereas, the Most Worshipful Masonic High Council for England and Wales, being in Grand Assembly on the 25th of February 2005, and later being in special session, on the above date did by resolution, duly ratified, agree with their Masters and Wardens and Grand Officers to go into convention on the aforesaid date, adopt a Grand Lodge Constitution, to establish and consecrate in due form a Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons for England and Wales, under the style and title of the Most Worshipful Regular Grand Lodge of England. This being agreed to by the Members of the Masonic High Council, the Grand Assembly proceeded to elect and install on the 5th March / 21st April / 23rd June / 29th September 2005 / 16th September 2006 / 4th November 2006 / 28th April 2007:

HRH The Prince of Araucania, KES, OCS, KCA Grand Master of the Craft Freemasonry

The Masonic High Council the Mother High Council

ANCIENT AND HONOURABLE FRATERNITY OF FREE AND ACCEPTED MASONS

Elected Officers

Following the successful Grand Assembly of the MHC the Mother High Council meeting in Florence, Italy on the 28th of April 2007, we are pleased to announce all the Regular Masonic Jurisdictions of our Federation that the following Officers were proposed, seconded and elected by unanimous vote to their respective offices and duties.

President - MW Bro. Nikolaus Ehrenfried, MHC

Vice Presidents - MW Bro. Dušan MIKUŠ, MHC - MW Bro. Pasquale Cerofolini, MHC - MW Bro. Serge Bouthemy, MHC - MW Bro. Sean Wilmore, MHC

Secretary General - RW Bro. Dimitrij Klinar, MHC

Deputy Secretary Generals - MW Bro. Joseph Burris, MHC - RW Bro. Brian L. Malcolm, MHC - MW Bro. Juan Vicente Núñez, MHC - MW Bro. Carlos L. Pacchioni Valdez, MHC

Treasurer General - MW Bro. J. Siegfried Tonje, MHC

Deputy Treasurer General - MW Bro. Alex Rem, MHC

Chancellor - RW Bro. Jan ASCHE, MHC

Pro Chancellor - MW Bro. Regis LLerena Paredes, MHC - RW Bro. Ivan Pedrazas, MHC - MW Bro. Julio César Duarte González, MHC

Grand Inspector Generals for South America - MW Bro. G. Arisatofanes, MHC - MW Bro. Uatau Brasil de Azevedo, MHC - RW Bro. Juan Calmet Podestá, MHC - RW Bro. Emiliano Lepe Caballero, MHC

Grand Inspector General for Central America - MW Bro. Ricardo Rivas Andrade, MHC - RW Bro. Luis Alberto Serrate M., MHC

Grand Inspector Generals for the USA - MW Bro. Joe Vilanueva, MHC - MW Bro. Carlton Brigham, MHC

Grand Inspector General for the Middle East - MW Bro. Khaled Nachabee, MHC

Grand Inspector General for Western Europe - RW Bro. Steve Philips, MHC

Grand Inspector General for Eastern Europe - MW Bro. Boris Oti, MHC

Grand Inspector General for Northern Europe - RW Bro. Brian L. Malcolm, MHC

Grand Inspector General for Southern Europe - MW Bro. Rodolfo Arrigucci, MHC

Grand Inspector General for Central Europe - RW Bro. Aleksander Klinar, MHC

Grand Inspector General for Western Asian Levant - RW Bro. Marc BENVENISTE, MHC

Grand Inspector General for Oceania - RW Bro. Thomas Darwin, MHC

Grand Inspector General for North Africa - RW Bro. Francesco Lo Iudice, MHC - RW Bro. Hocine BACHAGA, MHC

Grand Inspector General for East Africa - MW Bro. J. Siegfried Tonje, MHC

Grand Inspector General for West Africa - MW Bro. J. Siegfried Tonje, MHC

Grand Inspector General for Central Africa - MW Bro. J. Siegfried Tonje, MHC

Grand Inspector General for Southern Africa - MW Bro. J. Siegfried Tonje, MHC

The Regular Grand Lodge of England

The Regular Grand Lodge of England is the governing body of Regular Craft Freemasonry in England.

Contact the Secretary General Office:

ENGLAND

RW Bro. Steve Phillips Grand Secretary

Email: MHCRGLE@aol.com

FRANCE

Regular Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of France Grande Loge des Maçons Réguliers Francs et Acceptés 91, Rue du FBG ST HONORE 75008 Paris, France

Email: hcmfranceglmrfa@gmail.com

SLOVENIA

Masonic High Council of Slovenia

RW Bro. Dimitrij KLINAR, MHC/ SI

Email: mhcslovenia@gmail.com

SPAIN

District Grand Lodge of Spain

Email: teufen@gmail.com

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

MW Bro. Joseph Burris, MHCUSA Secretary General

Email: mhcusa@gmail.com

MIDDLE EAST Khaled N. Nachabe Grand Inspector ME, MHC Lebanon Mobile: + 9613956450

E mail: mhclebanon@gmail.com

ITALY

Grande Oriente Federale Regolare Dei Liberi Muratori D'italia

Alto Consiglio Dei Liberi Muratori Regolare D’Italia

Parlamento Massonico Regolare Italiano

MW Bro. Gianfranco Funari, MHCIT-R

Email: funarigianfranco@virgilio.it

------------------------------------------------------------

As Salam Aleikum Leo Lyon Zagami now Khaled Saifullah Khan