Stay-behind networks and interim flexible strategy: the ‘Gladio’ case and US covert intervention in Italy in the Cold War

ABSTRACT

This article presents a study on the Italian stay-behind network ‘Gladio’ based on documentary evidence from the Italian secret services made available in recent years. The aim is to re-contextualize the Italian experience with stay-behind networks and use it as a tool to analyse American covert intervention in the country, as well as broader issues of policymaking and strategy.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See, for example, Coglitore and Scarso, La notte dei gladiatori; Ganser, NATO’s Secret Armies; and Flamigni, Dossier Gladio.

2. For pro-‘Gladio’ works see Crocoli, Nome in codice ‘Gladio’; Pannocchia and Tosolini, Gladio, storia di finti complotti e veri patrioti.

3. In 2014, then Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi issued an executive order that required the declassification of all the documents of the Italian secret services that related to the terrorist attacks in the country from 1969 to the mid-Eighties. Due to the suspected involvement of ‘Gladio’ in such activities, the documents released included those relating to stay–behind networks in Italy.

4. Godson, Dirty Tricks and Trump Cards, 36–37; and Callanan, Covert Action in the Cold War, 3–4.

5. The quote is from a paper of the Operations Coordinating Board, which reviewed all of the US policy papers until 1954. ‘Report on US Policy for the Exploitation of Soviet Vulnerabilities’, 11–12, US DDO. This long study (88 pages) was commissioned to the Operations Coordinating Board by the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Robert Cutler, after ‘the desirability of formulating more specific and detailed policy on the exploitation of Soviet vulnerabilities’ emerged in a discussion with the Under Secretary of State Walter Bedell Smith, the Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles, and Charles Douglas Jackson.

6. Foreign Relations of the United States, The Intelligence Community 1950-1955, document 139, PSB D–31.

7. “Report on US Policy for the Exploitation of Soviet Vulnerabilities.

8. See note 6 above.

9. For the continuity during the Eisenhower administrations see, for example, the OCB “Report on US Policy for the Exploitation of Soviet Vulnerabilities’.

10. citation.

11. For this idea and the ramifications of the Korean conflict, see Wells as Fearing the Worst.

12. Evangelista, “Stalin’s Postwar Army,” 135-6.

13. This definition was proposed by Leopoldo Nuti and Olav Riste in their 2007 study, which remains today the most comprehensive collective analysis of the stay–behind phenomenon in Western Europe. See Nuti and Riste, Journal of Strategic Studies 30, no. 6 (2007).

14. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945–1950, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment, doc. 292.

15. Colby and Forbath, Honorable Men, 82.

16. Long, The CIA and the Soviet Bloc, 201-202; Gasiorowski, “The US Stay–behind Operation in Iran”, 3; For NSC 10/4 and 10/5 see Foreign Relations of the United States 1950–1955, The Intelligence Community 1950-1955, documents 42,90.

17. See, in particular, James Miller’s work on US–Italy relations: Miller, ‘Taking off the gloves’; Miller, The United States and Italy, 1940–1950; Miller, ‘Roughhouse diplomacy’.

18. See Barnes, “The Secret Cold War”; Lucas, “Campaigns of Truth”; Lucas, Freedom’s war; Lucas and Mistry, ‘Illusions of Coherence”; and Osgood, “Hearts and Minds”.

19. Mistry, The United States, Italy and the Origins of the Cold War, 5–7.

20. For an overview of US covert activities in Italy between 1948 and 1951 see Mario del Pero, “Gli Stati Uniti e la ‘guerra psicologica’ in Italia, Im 955-961.

21. On the reconstruction of the Italian army after the war and the relationship with the Allies see: Nuti, L’esercito italiano nel secondo dopoguerra. On the topic of Italian military intelligence under British supervision, there are many documents preserved in the UK National Archives. See in particular in the War Office collection: WO 204/12359, WO 204/12378–12385. On the relationship between US and Italian intelligence after the war, see Naftali, “Villa Angleton.”

22. On communism in Italy as a result of poverty and backwardness see Leffler, The Specter of Communism. On the different views in American policymaking regarding Italy see Harper, L’America e la Ricostruzione dell’Italia; and Harper, American Visions of Europe.

23. NARA, RG 59, 62D333, box 7, f. “Psychological Strategy Board’.

24. NARA, RG 59, 62D333, box 5, f. “Psb D-30”, “Planning Activities of the Psychological Strategy Board”, contains a synthetic overview of the action plans for Italy and France. For plan “Demagnetize” see: NARA, RG 59, 62D333, box 1, f. “Psb D–16”.

25. Del Pero, “Gli Stati Uniti e la ‘guerra psicologica’ in Italia,” 966.

26. In January 1953, right after being nominated President, Eisenhower formed the Committee on International Information Activities (called Jackson Committee by the name of its chairman, the Special Assistant to the President for psychological warfare, Charles Douglas Jackson), ‘to make a survey and evaluation of the international information policies and activities of the Executive Branch of the Government and of policies and activities related thereto, with particular reference to the international relations and the national security of this country’. See “The President’s Committee on International Information Activities Report to the President,” US DDO.

27. Del Pero, ‘Gli Stati Uniti e la “guerra psicologica” in Italia’, 975.

28. Most of Clare Boothe Luce’s activities as ambassador in Italy can be reconstructed through her letters and diaries, held at the Library of Congress, in the ‘Clare Boothe Luce Papers’ collection.

29. Colby and Forbath, Honorable Men, 109–115.

30. What we know about Wyatt’s activities is based on several interviews he released after his retirement. Interview with Mark Wyatt, 15/2/1996, CNN Cold War series: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/coldwar/interviews/episode-3/wyatt1.html; extract from the documentary ‘L’Orchestre Noir’ by Fabrizio Calvi and Frédéric Laurent: https://www.foiaresearch.net/media/video/cia-chief-station-felton-mark-wyatt-talks-about-Gladio-italy.

31. See Nuti and Riste, Journal of Strategic Studies 30, no. 6 (2007).

32. Some examples are as follows: Faenza, Il malaffare; Coglitore, Scarso, La notte dei gladiatori; Ganser, NATO’s Secret Armies.

33. Fenyvesi et al., “Cold Warriors’ Untold Tales.”

34. For a history of the Osoppo brigade and how it evolved into organization ‘O’, see Pacini, Le altre Gladio.

35. ACS DIS 2113C, f18 d4, attachment 1.

36. Frazier’s invitation is held in the Archivio Commissione Stragi of the Italian Senate, Lettera del colonnello Peter Frazier al generale Umberto Broccoli, and is quoted in: G. Pacini, Le altre Gladio, p. 180. For Italy’s invitation in the CPC see: ACS DIS 2113 C f18 d4, attachment 9 and 11.

37. See Engelen, “Lesson Learned.”

38. Nuti and Riste, “Introduction – Strategy of ‘Stay Behind’”, 933; Aldrich, The Hidden Hand, 77–80.

39. See the conclusions in: Nuti, Riste, “Introduction – Strategy of ‘Stay Behind’”.

40. COPASIS Report, 13.

41. There are basically no publications dealing with the relationship between American and Italian secret services. The author is working on an article on this subject that will be published in the future.

42. For an overview of the relationship between Italy and the US in the aftermath of the Second World War, see Ellwood, L’alleato nemico; Miller, The United States and Italy 1940–1950; and Woolf, Italia 1943–1950.

43. On the relationship between Gehlen and the US secret services, see internal CIA study available through CREST: Kevin C. Ruffner, “American Intelligence and the Gehlen Organisation,” CIA History Staff, Studies in Intelligence, vol. 41, 1997.

44. Nuti, Gli Stati Uniti e l’Apertura a Sinistra, 99-103. On Italy’s aspirations in the Mediterranean, see de Leonardis, Il Mediterraneo nella politica estera italiana.

45. ACS DIS 2113 C, f29 d6, attachment 4.

46. ACS DIS 2113 C, f18 d53, “Operazione “Gladio” – Forza numerica e materiali di scorta dell’organizzazione”.

47. ACS DIS 2113 C, f18 d4, attachment 10.

48. ‘Risposta ai quesiti del Servizio Americano riguardanti il Programma Comune S/B’, 26 March 1958. This document has been retrieved by Giuseppe De Lutiis and included in a report for the proceedings of the law court of the city of Brescia, titled ‘’GLADIO’ ed eventuali collegamenti con la destra extraparlamentare’ (henceforward, De Lutiis report). Section 2, attachment 11.

49. De Lutiis report, section 2, attachment 1, Documento Gladio/41, ‘L’operazione “Gladio” a due anni di distanza dall’accordo del 26 novembre 1956 fra i due servizi’, 3 December 1958.

50. De Lutiis report, section 2, attachment 11, ‘Operazione Gladio, Guerra non Ortodossa e direttive dello SMD e/o NATO’, 6 March 1972.

51. On Kennedy’s policy of ‘modernization’ and counter-insurgency see Lehman, ‘Protracted Insurgent Warfare’, and Matthews, ‘The Kennedy Administration, Counterinsurgency, and Iraq’s First Ba’Thist Regime’.

52. De Lutiis report, section 2, attachment 3, ‘Programmi di intensificazione dell’attività addestrativo–operativa della Sezione SAD e del CAG’, 30 October 1963.

53. See note 45 above.

54. ‘Memorandum d’intesa fra RIC e SID’, 15 December 1972, quoted in COPASIS Report, 8. The cryptonim ‘RIC’ indicates the CIA.

55. ACS DIS 2113 C, f18 d47.

56. COPASIS Report, 8, 4748.

57. The intentional overestimate of Soviet ground forces in the late 1940s and in the 1950s was pointed out by Matthew Evangelista in the early 1980s, and has since become commonly accepted. See Evangelista, ‘Stalin’s Postwar Army Reappraised’, and Evangelista, ‘Commentary. The “Soviet Threat”’.

58. The most popular of these works is without a doubt De Lutiis, Storia dei servizi segreti in Italia. Other examples are Tranfaglia, Un capitolo del “doppio Stato; Cucchiarelli and Giannuli, Lo Stato parallelo; De Lutiis, Il lato oscuro del potere; Galli, La regia occulta; and Cipriani and Cipriani, Sovranità limitata.

59. See Del Pero, L’alleato scomodo; and Nuti, Gli Stati Uniti e l’apertura a sinistra.

Additional information

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Francesco Cacciatore

Francesco A. Cacciatore is an historian who specialises in Cold War, covert operations and US foreign policy. He obtained his PhD from the University of Westminster. He is currently researching Italy's role in the early Cold War and the development of the 'Gladio' stay-behind network.