Episode 67: Operation Gladio, Part 1 Artwork

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Episode 67: Operation Gladio, Part 1

April 30, 2025 • Episode 67

"Operation Gladio was the codename for clandestine 'stay-behind' operations of armed resistance that were organized by the Western Union (WU) (founded in 1948), and subsequently by NATO (formed in 1949) and by the CIA (established in 1947), in collaboration with several European intelligence agencies during the Cold War. Although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind organizations, Operation Gladio is used as an informal name for all of them. Stay-behind operations were prepared in many NATO member countries, and in some neutral countries.

According to several Western European researchers, the operation involved the use of assassination, psychological warfare, and false flag operations to delegitimize left-wing parties in Western European countries, and even went so far as to support anti-communist militias and right-wing terrorism as they tortured communists and assassinated them, such as Eduardo Mondlane in 1969. The United States Department of State rejected the view that they supported terrorists and maintains that the operation served only to resist a potential invasion of Western European countries by the Soviet Union." -Wikipedia

In 1992, the BBC released a three-part documentary exposing Operation Gladio and it is, quite frankly, utterly terrifying.

Sara's book Decoding the Unicorn: A New Look at Dag Hammarskjöld is available now! Click here to buy it on Amazon.

Transcription by Otter.ai. Please forgive any typos!

Keywords
Operation Gladio, BBC docuseries, Cold War, NATO stay-behind, fascist networks, psychological warfare, false flag operations, anti-communist militias, right-wing terrorists, CIA involvement, Italian parliament, Belgian stay-behind, Nazi true believers, secret structures, covert operations.

Welcome to con-sara-cy theories. Are you ready to ask questions you shouldn't and find information you're not supposed to know? Well, you're in the right place. Here is your host, Sara Causey.

Hello, hello, and thanks for tuning in. In tonight's episode, I will be talking about the first installment of a three part Docu series that the BBC produced in 1992 to talk about Operation Gladio. If you're not familiar with Gladio, allow me to assure you that it's terrifying. It's nightmare fuel. It's the sort of thing that beggars belief. You don't want to believe that your government can be involved in such a thing that's horrifying. So choose a frosty beverage of choice. You might want a very hard adult beverage if you're of age, because Wow, just wow, and we will saddle up and take this ride. I initially learned about Operation Gladio when I was reading David Talbot's book The Devil's chessboard. If you have not read that, I highly, highly encourage you to check it out. Yes, it too is terrifying. It is nightmare fuel. It's the kind of book, along with Dave McGowan's book program to kill where you read it and you're not going to sleep so well at night after you've read it. But it is so important, I highly recommend that you check it out. I intend to do a set of episodes around the devil's chessboard. I also still, yet I keep talking about program to kill. I need to reread that book, refresh my memory, even though I'm kind of like, oh, this is going to be a journey down a very dark road. I need to reread it and record a series of episodes around it, because, along with Operation Paperclip, and then learning about aporazia ASO via him, and learning that the Soviets didn't have their hands clean in repatriating Nazis after the war, when I read Dave McGowan's book program to kill, I just thought, my God, we Do not live in the world that we think we live in. The Devil's chessboard will also help you to arrive at that conclusion. So I encountered Operation Gladio when I was reading the devil's chessboard, and I want to just read a brief couple of paragraphs from the devil's chessboard for you. Now it is unlikely that Dulles was shocked by gellen's proposal to reinstitute fascism in Germany. I'm going to stop for a moment and clarify he's talking about Allen Dulles and Reinhardt gellen. If you want to learn more about Reinhardt gellen, specifically, I will drop a link to an article from history net, and it is literally titled, When the Charlie India Alpha bank rolled a Nazi spy chief, because gellen was a Nazi intelligence officer that winds up not facing justice, let's just call it what it is, not facing justice being repatriated. It is unlikely that Dulles was shocked by gellings proposal to reinstitute fascism in Germany, since Charlie India Alpha officials had long been discussing such authoritarian contingency plans with the gellan organization and other right wing elements in Germany in 1952 West German police discovered that the agency was supporting a 2000 member fascist youth group led by Ex Nazi officers who had their own alarming plans for terminating democracy, police investigators revealed that the agency backed group had compiled a black list of people to be liquidated as unreliable in case of a conflict with the Soviet Union, included on the list were not just West German communists, but leaders of the Social Democratic Party serving in the Bundestag, as well as other left leaning government officials, there were cries of outrage in the German parliament over the revelations, but the state department worked strenuously behind the scenes to suppress the story, and similar alarming measures continued to be quietly contemplated throughout the Cold War, these authoritarian plans were part of a sweeping covert strategy developed in the earliest days of the Cold War by US intelligence officials, including Dulles, to counter a possible Soviet invasion of Western Europe by creating a stay behind network of armed resistors to fight the Red Army, code named Operation Gladio, the secret Charlie India Alpha funded networks attracted fascist and criminal elements, some of which later displayed subversive roles in West Germany, France and Italy, disrupting democratic rule in those countries by staging T word acts and plotting coups and pop pops, end quote in. Oh, wow. That's our starting point. That's our jumping off point for this episode. It's already horrifying, and we're only a few minutes in. I'm going to hop over now to Wikipedia, just so we can get a quick and dirty working definition of Operation Gladio. Operation Gladio was the code name for clandestine stay behind operations of armed resistance that were organized by the Western Union, founded in 1948 and subsequently by NATO, formed in 1949 and the Charlie India Alpha established in 1947 in collaboration with several European intelligence agencies during the Cold War, although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay behind organizations. Operation Gladio is used as an informal name for all of them, stay behind. Operations were prepared in many NATO member countries and in some neutral countries. According to several Western European researchers, the operation involved the use of pop pops psychological warfare and false flag operations to delegitimize left wing parties in Western European countries, and even went so far as to support anti communist militias and right wing T word as they tortured communists and pop pop them such as Eduardo mon Lane in 1969 I'm Going to butt in and say this is not the only example. The United States Department of State rejected the view that they supported T words and maintains that the operation served only to resist a potential invasion of Western European countries by the Soviet Union. End, quote,

wow. Yet again. Yet again. Holy shit.

As I mentioned, in 1992 the BBC released a three part Docu series around Operation Gladio. It's difficult to imagine that such a docu series would be made today. First of all, I'm doubtful that anyone would really watch it, especially in America. I mean, I feel like I'm allowed to say this, because I am American, but it's like our TV shows and the network seem to set an awfully low bar. I mean, I released those episodes around the men who killed Kennedy docuseries, along with how the History Channel had an an official rebuttal episode with the official Wasp historians that came out and told us what we were allowed to believe, what we should and should not think. And then I went over to the History Channel and looked at their programming lineup. It's a freaking joke. That's like how the Learning Channel used to be ostensibly about educational materials, and now it's just stuff like 90 day fiance and Sister Wives. The hell are you gonna learn from that? So I find it hard to believe that there would even be an audience of people, a large audience of people. Obviously there is an audience because I watched it. Others have watched it. You're tuning into this podcast because you want to find out what the hell happened with Operation Gladio. But there wouldn't be a large mainstream audience of people that would give a shit. Let's just call it what it is. People in America would not care, and I don't think that you could trust any mainstream outlet to talk about it and to be real like hey. By the way, there were these pockets of sleeper cells in modern nomenclature, that's what we would call them, sleeper cells of far riders, Nazis, SS officers, Mussolini sympathizers, Italian fascists and Neo fascists that stayed behind, just in case the Soviets came in. Oh, and then they also did bombings and all kinds of acts of T, E, R, R, O, R, oh, my God. So episode one of this BBC series is titled The Ring masters. We will begin at the beginning here with episode one. It opens eerily with the quote, deception is a state of mind, and the mind of the state, which is from James Jesus Angleton, who we've talked about before, if you've been reading the conspiracy theories blogs, if you've been listening to these podcast episodes, you've heard the name before. I'm sure we then see a man who tells us, one day, a man came to my house to see if I would like to participate in a confidential mission. He said that it was something within the framework of NATO. We learned that he is Michelle van. You sold a Belgian Gladio from 1987 to 1991 I will also very quickly tell you, I will do my best with place names and surnames, etc. I'm going to really try, but I'm not. Perfect. My French accent is really appallingly bad. I can usually limp along in German. I'm better with Slavic languages, obviously, Patu Yaga, but when it comes to things like French in particular, or Dutch, I mean, I'm Yeah, I leave a lot to be desired. So I'm going to apologize up front. I may butcher some names. I don't mean to, but I am going to try my best. So we learned that this is Michelle Van usle, a Belgian Gladio from 1987 to 1991 he didn't explain much. It was advisable not to be too specific, because this was one of the most secret organizations that has ever existed. We had a radio at our disposal. Our base was near London, with a second base near Boston. We then meet decimal garrau, a trainer at Capo meragou, Gladio base. I worked with special American, English, French and Belgian units. Normally, these exercises involved dropping Special Forces who came directly from France, Belgium or England. They were parachuted in, and the men we had trained guided them down to the ground and then helped them get to safe houses. Next, we meet Vincenzo Vinci Guerra, a former member of the Neo fascist group or Dean nuovo, probably ordinai. Nuovo, Gladio, as it is defined nowadays, forms part of what I have always referred to as parallel structures. That is an invisible army that is not poised for battle against a hypothetical invader, but rather one meant to be used internally against what the military have always called the fifth column of the USSR, the Communist Party and the extreme left. On November 9, 1990 the prime minister of Italy, Giulio Andreotti, revealed to his own parliament and the world the existence of this network of secret agents known as Gladio. The intention of this stay behind network was to fight communism in Europe, or so we're told, the media reacted to his announcement, and the concern was that the stay behind agents, and the stay behind agents also interfered with internal workings within these countries. Senator Roger lalemand, head of Belgian parliamentary inquiry into Gladio. He says the Belgian stay behind issue was brought to our attention about what they call Gladio, the scandal unleashed after the revelation of stay behinds in Italy, our Minister of Defense was called by his Italian colleague, who wanted to know what decisions had been made at the last meeting of the European stay behinds. Then we meet Minister guy comb Comey, I'm not sure, again, trying my best Belgian minister of defense, 1988 to 1991 in November 1990 an Italian delegation came to me to ask if I knew what Gladio was. I didn't know anything except that on that very day, I read about it in an Italian newspaper on a flight to Brussels, I learned of the scandal in Italy called Gladio la limond Again, the minister, let this amazing detail be known, that a stay behind existed in the Belgian army and The state security. So let's, let, let's just pause there. Think about this, a group of stay behinds, ultra right wingers, Nazis, actual Nazis and SS officers, along with Mussolini style fascists from Italy. Oh, by the way, there's a stay behind that existed in the Belgian army and state security. Senator Libero Gualtieri, head of Italian parliamentary inquiry into Gladio, he says, Gladio has always been protected. There is one clear example. Morrow was called to testify. They asked if he knew of a parallel secret structure inside the services. And more asked the services, what sort of answer should I give? They told him it didn't exist. So more said, I've been told that this doesn't exist. When he's talking there about Moreau, I believe he's talking about Aldo Moreau, who was kidnapped, I think, in the 1970s and then it traces back to involvement with Operation Gladio. Carlo Schmidt, head of Swiss parliamentary inquiry into Gladio, he says part of the Swiss authorities knew of the existence of the structure. Some MPs in a secret council had some control, but it was ineffective, because these MPs knew virtually nothing. We go back now to Vincenzo. These parallel structures used the extreme right for the simple reason that they fought the communists in 1945 the Second World War ended and the Third World War started. I've written in my personal notes, wow. Let's just stop for a second. And. Think about that. Just think about the nomenclature that he chooses to use there. For him, the Cold War could really be classified as world war three. You know, we keep talking about the opening volley of world war three, all of this tension, and by the time this hits the airwaves, I hope not, I pray not. We may be in world war three, but it's like for him, the Cold War was World War Three, and I think that if we knew more about the operations and the subterfuge and the insanity that really went on behind the scenes, we might come to the same conclusion as well. The Germans left secret agents inside the countries they had occupied. So on the face of things, it appears that they have packed up and left, but not entirely. These stay behinds were considered to be Nazi true believers, members of the SS and the fascist black shirts that were supposed to be the foot soldiers in the next war against communism. Again, let's just stop and think about that Nazi true believers we're going to leave behind these clusters of sleeper cells of SS members, Nazi true believers and fascist black shirts. God, what a world. There was a massive meeting in Brussels called peoples of Europe against Bolshevism. We go now to a rather interesting character named Peter Tompkins, who was an OSS officer in Rome 1943 to 1945 I came in and I was sent by General Donovan, and I got in touch with the rest of the committee. I'm going to stop here just for a second, so we can make some definitions. When he's talking there about general Donovan, he's talking about William Donovan, aka Wild Bill Donovan, who was the head of the OSS and is regarded as one of the founding fathers of the Charlie India Alpha. He's also going to mention Andy birding, who I believe he's referring to Andrew birding, who was the US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs from 57 to 61 he was also part of the OSS during World War Two. And he's also going to talk about unio Borghese. Borghese was nicknamed The Black Prince, and he was an Italian navy commander during Mussolini's reign, and was regarded as being a hardliner for Neo fascist politics. So that gives us a little bit of context here. I'll start again. I came in, and I was sent by General Donovan, and I got in touch with the rest of the committee, the joint partisan groups. Andy birding was the first x2 guy in Rome. He'd been an old AP correspondent, and I thought he was trustworthy, so we turned our files over to him regarding German stay behinds in August, James Angleton shows up and recruits fascists because he thinks the best way to control communists is fascists. One of the toughest was Borghese, the Black Prince. He was part of the decimal Flotilla, or the 10th Flotilla, where they would execute people and hang them from lamp posts all over Italy. Angleton made a deal with Borghese and rushed up to save this Commander from the partisans who wanted to lynch him for all the murders he'd committed. Wow. Yet again, just wow. We go back now to Vincenzo Prince Borghese takes us right to the heart of the American secret services. He was saved and protected by Angleton in 1945 when he gave himself up at Milan at the end of the Second World War in Italy, the decimal moss, the group that he commanded, promised the allies to take up arms in the event of a Soviet invasion. We go now to Licio, or Licio Geli, Venerable Master of the p2 Masonic Lodge. The documentary says that he had also been attached to the SS. He says we were taken prisoners by a group of Canadians who handed us over to the OSS. I was treated well by them and held for about a week. They brought me paper, and an officer told me to write down my life story. A week later, they asked if I wanted to parachute into the North. It was a US colonel who asked, but I said, No, my work was over. We go back now to Peter Tompkins to show what a cynical game it is. A young policeman, Federico domato, the knight the allies, came in. He rounded up the German stay behind, whose addresses he had put them in jail and gave them to the Americans, and they were disposed of. The German stay behinds were turned over to the Italians and sentenced by Italian courts. Now we hear from Federico D'Amato, head of political police, Ministry of Interior, 1972 to 1974 he says, I was working at the hotel where General Mel. Was based. He was the head of the German armed forces in Rome. The central command of the oberloft was also there. One day, I managed to get into one of the rooms with some risk, and I got the list of names. When the Germans left, contrary to expectations, these people remained, because there was an operation to leave them in place once they were retreating so they wouldn't have to cross the lines. When the Americans came for these men, they were already in custody. It was from that moment that I started working with them, always in agreement with my government and the authorities. Peter Tompkins says from the day of his joining Jim Angleton, he ran the secret police for the next 40 years. D'Amato, again, says many police officers were forced to follow Mussolini north. They were in a sorry state at that time, since my father was a police official and knew everyone, the x2 branch of the OSS decided to parachute me, a complete novice, into the region of Salo, where I luckily managed to arrive safely, and where I met with the main officials of the Republic of Salo, they naturally agreed to collaborate. After the war, they became important leaders of the Italian state in the police forces and the Ministry of the Interior. We go now to Colonel Oswald lewinter, who is a Charlie India Alpha ITAC liaison officer Europe. Gladio was a joint brainchild, but its most intense architect was Angleton. And Angleton, as most people know, was a sort of professional paranoiac. One of his favorite sayings was, even paranoiacs have enemies, and Angleton felt that you couldn't trust anyone, particularly not any foreign country. Now, the story of winter is its own can of worms. If you want to learn more about that, you can go to his Wikipedia page, where he's alleged to have been part of the October surprise conspiracy theories, which I want to get into in another episode. There's some good meat and potatoes there. There are also people who say that he tried to present documents that had something to do with Diana's fatal car crash, but he, I guess, was, was accused of fraud, and people said that he he's just a storyteller. He's lying, and he's not a credible source. Go check that out for yourself. I just wanted to say that because I feel like we have to be as transparent as possible. Is this person the best possible resource? I don't know. You'll have to make up your own mind. D'Amato again, he says, As time passes, as more is discovered about World War Two and the Cold War, we will learn what an extraordinary man. Angleton was a truly extraordinary man, even to the point of being slightly crazy. For as Erasmus of Rotterdam said, a little madness is needed in everything. And when you were recruited by the OSS, which was the service the Charlie India Alpha grew out of, there was a sign saying, to join the OSS, you don't have to be crazy, but it helps. I really think Angleton wrote that. Now I've written in my personal notes, I guess one man's extraordinary man is another person's scumbag, because I remember on the C span book talk where David Talbot was discussing the devil's chessboard, he said something about Angleton being a lifelong Catholic, and when he was dying, he said that he knew he was going to hell and he would see other people involved in the same services alongside him. I'll drop a link to that too, in case you want to check it out. We go now to William Colby, who was the Charlie India Alpha director from 1973 to 1976 we anticipated another world war, a World War with the occupation of Western Europe by Soviet forces. Therefore, we were preparing to set up the base for a resistance movement which could exist during the war. I've written in my personal notes, he sounds so rehearsed. Ray Klein, Deputy Director of the Charlie India Alpha 1962 to 1966 he says the Soviet Union was viewed as our primary antagonist, our enemy. And I think that was true. The Stalinist period was a really vicious period, and we thought in the late 40s that Stalin might invade Western Europe. John singalob, US major US Army, Major General, 1972 to 1978 he says it was the plan that I knew about that the people who had a logical reason for being in a given area where we felt it was essential to have stay behind, and whose activities could continue, even after an attack by the Warsaw Pact, he would be given additional training. He would know the location of some of the arms and communications and that he would be able, as the result of his training, to recruit additional personnel to augment his network, and that it would include not only communications, but also the ability to use explosives. We go back now to Ray Klein. The stay behind effort, in my view, is simply to be sure that if the worst came to worst, that if the Communist Party came into power, that there would be some agents there who would tip us off and tell us. Was happening, and could provide information even after the coup might occur. I've written in my personal notes, the American officials in this documentary make everything sound so smooth, like they have all the justification in the world for doing this. We just needed boots on the ground. We just needed some informants that would tell us so we would know. We go now to Thomas Polgar, Charlie India, alpha Germany, 1951 with the emergence of NATO in Western Europe, in specific response to the Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in 1948 and the Berlin Blockade directives that were issued to establish European wide stay behind organizations along the lines which existed in the final years of World War Two in Western Europe. We go back now to the winter there was an amendment to the NATO protocol, and that amendment was absolutely necessary. You didn't get in the door unless you signed. And what it was in that amendment was the agreement of the government not to prosecute right wing activists activities anti communist activists in their own countries. We return now to Ray Klein. It's not unlikely that some right wing groups were recruited and made to stay behind, because they would indeed have tipped us off if a war were going to begin. So using right wingers, if you use them, not politically, but for intelligence purposes, is okay. And I've written in my personal notes, these assholes, in my opinion, can sit here with a smile on their face and justify anything. It's okay to use Nazis, it's okay to use black shirts. It's okay to use SS officers if you're using them for intelligence purposes, but not for politics, okay, all right. Erhard daubering House us counterintelligence Germany, 1948 to 1949 he says, in 1948 I was a special agent with the CIC, that's our Counter Intelligence Corps in occupied Germany. I was stationed in Augsburg, and I spoke fluent German. I was assigned to handle a network of German informants, including Klaus Barbie and Klaus I discovered later was wanted for murder by the French. I reported this to my superiors, and they told me to keep nice and quiet. He's still valuable. When he's no longer valuable, we'll get him to the French I thought that I get a promotion, but instead they told me to keep quiet. Colonel Gunther Bernal was an agent, an informant working for the military intelligence in Stuttgart. We provided him a home as a safe house, and I met him three times a week, and he brought us information about communists and whatever we wanted to hear, he told us he was certainly a very strong Nazi. I sat in his office one day and opened his album with pictures from the war, and in the middle of the album, it showed a nice picture of Adolf Hitler several other high ranking SS officers who came to visit him in the safe house we had provided for him. And he told me that if for any reason he needs help, by one telephone call, he could contact 200 former SS leaders from Hamburg to Munich. I remember him taking me to one particular spot, which we dug out. And there were boom sticks, small arms, grenades, all nicely wrapped. And he said, We have 1000s of these all over the country. That made me suspicious, and I reported it. And they said, Well, we know this. They're all working for us, in case the communists come across the Iron Curtain. The former SS General Paul Houser was a frequent visitor at bernals house, and they worked together, hand in glove about certain projects that we didn't know anything about, and I wasn't even asked to find out more about it. Somebody above me must have been running this network already at that time. Holy shit. Klaus Barbie, in case you're struggling to remember, was known as the Butcher of Lyon. He was a German officer of the SS as well as the German intelligence agency who worked in Vichy France in the Second World War, and he tortured his prisoners, primarily Jews and members of the French Resistance. So here you have this officer saying, hey, one of these guys was Klaus Barbie. I go and I try to blow the whistle on this, and I just get told, Oh, keep it nice and quiet. He's still valuable to us when we don't want him anymore, when we don't need him anymore, then we'll let the French have him. But for right now, just shut the fuck up. Can you believe this. Can you fucking believe this? The Butcher of Leon and he's just carrying on doing whatever he wants. Oh, and then here's this other SS officer that has pictures of Adolf Hitler and claims I can, with one phone call, get a hold of 200 SS officers. Oh, and there's boomsticks and grenades. Buried all over the country. My God, my God. We go back now to the winter. The man in Adenauer office, who I guess had his fullest confidence, who oversaw Gladio at its earliest stages, was Dr globke, who was an ex Nazi who Adenauer had brought into the government, just as he'd brought a lot of ex Nazis into the government. There was a documentary material that when Colby was station chief in Stockholm, that he had been in touch with former Swedish volunteers in the Nordic legions of the SS, and that he was recruiting these people. Now we go back to William Colby. What we were doing is either with the government, secretly or independently, on our own, looking for people who might perform this function in some country where you didn't have that connection with government, or maybe you did as a supplement, but maybe one or two extra people would have this training, would stay there during a Soviet occupation and be the base you could then use To recruit other people to join again. So blase. No big deal. We weren't doing anything that major. The fucking Butcher of Lyon is here, but we're not doing anything major. The first scandal connected to the stay behind groups broke in 1952 with the discovery of Pop Pop teams linked to the Bund Deutscher junggend, the BDJ, which is the League of German youth. So automatically, the Bund Deutsch union sounds an awful lot like Hitler Youth, doesn't it? We go now to Thomas Polgar in all those countries, some elements of the democratic or socialist parties align themselves with the communists and to so called National Unity parties, or socialist unity parties. The presumption was that, should the Soviet Army make a move toward the west, they would try to make a German puppet government in the German territory which they would occupy, the Bund Deutsche younggend was right wing political organization loosely affiliated with one of the political parties in the state of Hesse in Germany, and it was deemed that these people have the motivation and the willingness to serve as part of the underground should the Soviet Army indeed overrun all or part of West Germany. Now, as these preparations, as part of these preparations, someone's enthusiasm ran away with his judgment, and they drew up a list of German politicians, including many prominent social democrats who they thought might be the kind of people the Soviet army would look for in trying to organize a puppet government. When the story broke, there was considerable Flack, and it was deemed desirable that general Truscott explained to people what had happened, and we explained the situation, first to Adenauer and then to general Ridgway of NATO and to pm George Zen of Hesse, who himself was on that list. And the general Truscott explained that this was an unauthorized activity, only an exercise, only a sheet of paper, but of which he was unaware, and it shouldn't cast aspersions on our confidence in prime ministers in I've written in my personal notes. The verbiage here, it sounds like a hit list, but hey, don't take it seriously. Don't take it personal. The linguistics here, the verbal gymnastics, is just insane. Completely insane. We go back now to lewinter from the beginning. Gladio was really divided into two spheres of influence, British and American, because the original agreement between sir Stuart Menzies and the OSS people Wisener et al was that the British would retain their sphere of influence in the countries that were traditionally British, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Spain and the US, had very little to do with those. I would see documents having to do with it, but if anything needed to be done, I would have to contact somebody who had that responsibility. In di six, we go back now to La limond After the war, the head of the intelligence service, Mr. Menzies, contacted the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Spock. They agreed on the principle of creating a Belgian stay behind in peace time, aiming to avoid, naturally, the obstacles associated with stay behinds during the war. We go back now to minister guy Comey, the relationship between the British and Belgian intelligence services originates in the contacts which took place between Spock and the head of British intelligence service, and in the tripartite meeting between the USA, Great Britain and Belgium, these networks were set up within the secret services, namely the military and State Security Intelligence Services. We go now to Francesco cociga, former president of Italy 1985 to 1992 it started in 1951 Americans, English and French, became concerned with what might happen to Europe if it were invaded. They acted following the example of two major organizations, which together. Had organized resistance in Europe against Nazism, the British Special Operations executive and the American office for Strategic Services. We go now to Senator Gualtieri again. There is a huge debate over the legitimacy of Gladio. Constitutionally, Parliament should have been informed. The fact is, even if it were necessary to have secret structures and in international agreements, there are often secret clauses. However, everything on these secret Matters has to be passed on by each former prime minister to the new one. The president elect of the United States spends two months being briefed by the former president. Therefore, the prime minister who authorized Gladio should have passed the information to his successors. Instead, we have found that after having questioned those who are still alive, some of them were informed in a very superficial way, and others were not informed at all. Senator Fauci who was pm, six times, Minister of the Interior, several times, secretary of the Christian Democrats, and a very powerful Secretary too was never informed. According to his testimony, he was never informed. Others were also never informed. Now in my personal notes, I've written, I'm just going to butt in here and say we're having to just take these people's word for it that they had no knowledge of what was going on. It could very well be true at the same time, it could be a cya measure. As members of the public, we really don't know. We go back to lewinter, only those people who were friendly to American aims and policies were made aware. Any political leader who was inimical or was untrustworthy knew nothing. And I've written in my personal notes, it sounds like the agency did this domestically too. Cosega again, stay behind networks were not part of NATO, that is the integrated military organization. They were established inside the Atlantic Alliance. So even France, after leaving NATO, still took part in stay behinds. Go back now to lewinter. Within NATO itself, there was no coordinating responsibility for Gladio. However, superimposed over NATO, there was a coordinating office in something called ITAC, which was nominally in the Defense Department intelligence tactical assessment center, in which there were, among other things, a NATO desk. That NATO desk was owned by the agency, although it was nominally with the Defense Intelligence Agency, and it was staffed, traditionally by the Charlie India Alpha Secret Service. Documents from several member countries reveal Gladio to be a European wide organization, including Denmark, Norway, Holland, Spain, Turkey and Greece. All Gladio secret information is coordinated in Brussels through the CPC, the clandestine Planning Committee, which meets periodically with chairmanship handed from one country's Secret Service to the next. The entire organization is handled outside of NATO cos again. Gladio started in Italy in 1951 when the general in charge of the secret services, general broccoli, wrote to the head of the Chief of Staff, saying he had to send six officers to an intelligence course in England, general Gerardo Sara Vale, commander of Gladio, 1971 and 1974 I simply took part in demonstrations of teaching by the staff of English stay behind. That is how they train their men, above all, in the use of explosives and arms. As for the presence of other officers. I was with other Italian officers and English officers that accompanied us. I don't even know whether they were army or intelligence officers. My English friends and colleagues took me into their confidence and said that other English Special Forces used to pass through too including the Special Branch, if I remember correctly, it was created specifically to fight the IRA. Decimal gurao, again, I was in England for a week at pool invited by the Special Forces. I was there for a week and did some training with them. I did a parachute jump over the channel. I got on well with them. Then I was at Hereford to plan and carry out an exercise with the SAS. I've written in my personal notes. One thing that strikes me in watching this documentary are the participants who act like it was no big deal. They talk about Gladio like it was the same thing as going to an ice cream social on Sunday afternoon, or that it was like a group of guys who were LARPing but not really taking anything seriously. Meanwhile, it was Nazis, ss, Italian Ultra fascist, etc. La Lemond. At first, financing was guaranteed by the British and the Americans. We have established that the Belgian state behinds were given gold coins, money for agents or instructors in time of war. In my personal notes, I've written, He emphasizes in this interview that they were given gold coins. In fact, he says, notably, gold coins. So immediately I think of Nazi gold, and I wonder if there's a subtext here. I could be reading too much into it. Maybe I'm misunderstanding. But the thought occurred to me, we go back now to the winter. There's a 149 force, basically, logistics, supply planning, no action. Taking part, because there would always have to be deniability. So it was always, we will help you, and we will teach you, but you guys have to do it yourselves, and we're not even going to tell you what to do, but we assume that you'll know. Mark Wyatt, Charlie India, alpha Deputy Chief Rome. 1962 to 1964 I was once in charge of low country affairs, and I know how the Dutch and the Belgians and the Luxembourg felt about stay behinds, and how very carefully they handled it and how extremely secret it was. I know when I was chief in the low countries, the chief of service didn't want to discuss it in his office. We'd walk in the park and talk about burials that were being put down communication equipment and so forth. Andre moyen Belgian military intelligence, 1938 to 1952 in september 1945 I was called back by my boss and sent to the Belgian Minister of the Interior, Mr. De vlie shower. Albert V schwer said to me, I need you go see my Italian colleague, Mario shelba. I went to Rome, and Mario told me, We have set up a stay behind network Gladio. He showed me how his forces could be active within six minutes. The Italian problem was different because their principal enemy was not the Soviet Army, but the threat posed by Italian communism, they got 40% in the elections, and this was shelbas worry. That's why he had these task forces. Michael Ledeen, State Department consultant Italy. There were people inside the American government. George Kennan, most notably, who were arguing that the chance of the Communist Party winning in 1948 elections was so great that the United States should use military force to stop the elections. Just cancel the elections, send the Army in and say to the communists, we're not going to risk elections because there's a chance of you winning. This was laughed out of school by the President and Secretary of State and all other responsible government officials. None of that was ever put into effect, and the US said, Okay, we'll run the elections and we'll compete in the elections. Wow. Again, wow. Well, why don't we just cancel the elections? Because we think the commies might win. We go back now to mark Wyatt, General Marshall and James Forrestal and Allen Dulles, all realized that in 1948 it was an absolutely critical moment, and that the US had an intelligence service which was quite new and young to collect intelligence. It could have counter intelligence, but it could not carry out a covert operation. There was no charter for it. So that was remedied quite rapidly in 1947 1948 Geli again, Gladio, was set up in 1948 and operational by the end of the year. It was formed with a very careful choice of personnel. Many were in the Spanish Civil War. Many came from the fascist Republica de sallo, people who could handle arms. They were in squads of nine people with two leaders, as someone had to know where the arms deposits, caches of supplies and money were located. Cociga, again, in 1948 I'm referring to my experience as a youth, as a member of the young Christian Democrats in my province. I was 20 years old, a nobody. We formed groups in the regional capital and in other towns nearby, armed with light machine guns. I personally had a stin gun. I The heads of the local Coronavirus supplied us with hand grenades in the event that the Communist Party would ignore the electorate and attempt to stage a coup, as in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland or Bulgaria, there was no need for Gladio to be activated in Italy in 1948 the Charlie India alpha's first major covert operation succeeded without it, large sums of money to political parties helped the Christian Democrats defeat the communists. Earlier, there had been an attempt on Togliatti life. It's never been discovered who was behind this, but Italian press declared it was the work of a mad man. The documentary is talking there about Palmyra togliotti, who was leader of Italy's Communist Party for almost 40 years. We go back now to Andre moyen. It has been claimed that the Charlie India Alpha created Gladio impossible. The Charlie India Alpha was created in september 1949 Gladio existed in Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium and probably Spain before september 1949 before the creation of the Charlie India Alpha. But the Americans jumped on the bandwagon. I've written in my personal notes. Okay, dude, you know, go look at David Talbot's book, The Devil's chessboard, and we get a different picture. We go now to Etienne verhoean and historian. After the war, a rather powerful Communist Party arose, having 21 members. Of Parliament, which was unique in Belgium, and given the international context of communism, right wing people were afraid of what they called the communist danger in Belgium. Julian lahont was the honorary president of the Communist Party, which doesn't mean he was the most powerful man in the party, but he was a symbol for workers action. He was arrested by the Germans and liberated in 1945 at that moment, he was appointed honorary president. He was also the man who at the beginning of August 1950 when Prince bauci, who is now king of the Belgians, took his oath. Lahore was the man who cried in the parliament Viva lit Republik King Leopold had been imported to Germany and then Switzerland after the war, and center right and right wing people were agitating to bring him back to the throne. The Left wing was opposed to the Return of the King, so the right wingers were for the return of the king, and some of these groups established in 1948 its first contact within the American embassy with an officer called Parker who insisted on not only the leopoldist agitation, he insisted on the formation of stay behind groups to assure anti communist resistance. Julian Lahore was murdered in 1950 the man who killed Lahore came out of right wing resistance groups called the secret army, and very soon after the war, he was engaged in anti communist intelligence and action work. The action work was done among other people with Andre moyen. We go now to Andre moyen again. This was August, 1949 this was three months later, a man that I knew during the war, but not for my service, came to me and said, I need your advice. You have experience. He told me that he killed Lahore. And I said, You're mad that Lahore was nothing, a front man. He said he killed Lahore, and gave details that only he could know about who he had been with, the weapon, the car. Everything we learned that allegedly, a man named Francois, go son with the alleged code named Adolf, made a deathbed confession that he killed Julian Lahore. So there's a lot to unpack here towards the end of this documentary, laho is the victim of an unsolved murder. This time, it's a left wing politician killed by a right winger in JFK murder. It's a supposed left winger going into hostile right wing territory who is somehow killed by a pro communist lone nut Kook. In some ways. What happens to Lahore foretells the murder of Gregory lam brackas, who was killed by right wingers in 1963 I'm going to go now to Lahore's Wikipedia page. The aftermath of the liberation of Belgium saw a prolonged period of political crisis known as the Royal question, over whether King Leopold, the third who was living in exile due to his decision to surrender to Nazi Germany in 1940 could return to his position as monarch. The crisis came to a head in 1950 when Leopold returned to Belgium, but quickly had to let his son Beaudoin assume royal duties. He would abdicate in Bon favor. A year later, on August 11, 1950 Baldwin took the constitutional oath as regent before a joint session of both chambers of Parliament. During the proceedings, one of the communist deputies present shouted, Viva la Republique Maho was reported to have been the deputy responsible, though, in the confusion of the moment, this remains unconfirmed. A week later, on August 18, 1950 Lahore was pop pop by two unknown pop poppers outside his home. If you remember, not long ago, I covered the 1969 film z, which is about the death of lam brackas, I'm going to go now to his Wikipedia page on May 22 1963 shortly after he had delivered the keynote speech at an anti war meeting, two far right extremists driving a three wheeled vehicle struck Lam brackas with a club over the head in plain view of a large number of people and allegedly some police officers, he suffered brain injuries and died in the hospital five days later on, may 27 end quote, so I think in some respects, it's like how the death of Michael Collins in Ireland is eerily similar to what happens to JFK in Dallas on the conserracy theories blog, I wrote a post about Michael Collins, and in this I write, feel free to stop me when this story sounds an awful lot like a prominent one from American history that I talk about often, a man of war becomes a man of peace. He challenges the status quo. He goes into hostile territory in an open vehicle. He doesn't serve. Vibe the trip. That's one of the things that I thought of, because as this episode one concludes, they show some rather depressing funeral footage from Lahore's funeral. And I'm like, Okay, so I'm reading about this, that two supposedly low nut crazies show up at Lahore front door and they murder him, and he's this left wing leader, and we're supposedly told it's those two right wingers that go after him, Oh, we're not sure who they were, exactly, wink, wink. And then, in the case of lamb brackets, he's at an anti war rally. He's a, you know, a left winger in the sense of being anti war for sure. And he's at this anti war rally and two far riders decide to club him over the head, and it happens in plain view, and he dies several days later. I just thought it's interesting and depressing how these historical events, events just seem to repeat, isn't it? Next time around, I will cover episode two, which is titled the puppeteers. If it's anything like Episode One, I'm sure it will further be nightmare fuel for all of us. Naturally, I will drop a link. There are several places on YouTube and on Dailymotion where you can see this BBC documentary in its entirety for yourself. Please watch it. Please don't think, well, this is something from ancient history. Why should I still care? You should still care.

You can't. I want to try and be somewhat careful here, and I've written about this before on the con-sara-cy theories blog. It's like you couldn't swing a dead cat within the halls of power without hitting Nazis, fascist right wingers, people who have been informed by that ideology, people who, even if it's closeted, that's what they still really think past is prolog. So I don't want you to watch this documentary and think, Well, that was then, this is now. That would just never happen now. Just never happen again, right, right, sure, of course, of course not. Of course not. It is nightmare fuel, but it's the type of thing that's so important. We cannot turn a blind eye to it. You need to know and understand that these things happened, and I suspect quite highly, happen even now.

Stay a little bit crazy, and I will see you in the next episode.

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