Operation Gladio

[Futility Personified]

I was watching Archer and saw an interesting reference to something called Operation Gladio. Supposedly NATO began financing fascist groups to fight leftist groups and cause disruption in Europe to "stem the tide". Has anyone got any good sources giving an overall account of this silliness?

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

The Wikipedia article on it is pretty good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_tension

I'd be interested in some book suggestions if anyone has some as well.

[Red Commissar]

The Wikipedia article on it is pretty good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_of_tension



Wikipedia also an article about Gladio itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

Long story short Gladio was the codename for Italy's fallback group, a series of cells that NATO directed to acted as a source of resistance in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion and occupation. The problem with them came as they ended up becoming their own source of power and doing things often on their own decision. They were in a sense entirely separate from the state apparatus.

Italy's was the largest and thus its code name "Gladio" became the common one for all of the others. Italy's was apparently the most robust due to the political situation there- unlike other western European countries the "left" was completely dominated by a nominally pro-Moscow Communist Party (while France also had a strong Communist Party, it's strength began to wane by the end of the 50s). The PCI had an anti-NATO position and it was believed that if they managed to successfully win an election, that they would pull Italy out of NATO.

The NATO cell, seeing this as a threat, apparently went into action and was accused of instigating terror to cause violence from far-right and far-left groups (strategy of tension as posted above) in order to undercut their support and ensure that the political scenario would never develop such that Italy would no longer be a strong, committed member of NATO.

There's been similar accusations that Turkey had a similar cell, which is referred to there as the "Deep State", which was referring to far-right nationalist groups which intimidated and murtrade unionists, leftists, Alevis, and later Kurds. More recently the Luxemburg PM resigned from office over a mess from his country's intelligence chief wiretapping the royals' residence. This led to some people speculating that the intelligence chief may have had something to do with some bombings in Luxemburg back in the 80s along the lines of Gladio.

I asked this question too (http://www.revleft.com/vb/operation-gladio-t145321/index.html?t=145321) long ago about some books about it. Two that came out of that thread were



NATO's secret armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe (http://www.worldcat.org/title/natos-secret-armies-operation-gladio-and-terrorism-in-western-europe/oclc/54966165) by Daniele Ganser
The Beast Reawakens (http://www.revleft.com/vb/The Beast Reawakens) by Martin Lee


The first book catalogs alot of possible Gladio Operations, including ones outside of Italy, the second one is mainly a warning about fringe right-wing terror and it includes Gladio in that. The first book is more indepth, you can get an idea of what to expect by looking at this online archive about Gladio (the author contributed to it). I can vouch for the first one, the second one was recommended to me in that thread but I didn't get much out of it.

http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/collections/colltopic.cfm?v52=84994&coguid=FC32A76C-ACD5-A8B7-90AD-68DB91618803&lng=en&v45=82317&id=15301

Edit: I should mention for context though that Ganser's interpretation of the documents might not be completely accurate, and as it is in these kind of situations might be prone to fanciful conspiracy weaving when the story on the surface may have been adequate. I don't agree with him for example on his 9/11 conspiracies.