Operation Gladio

Operation Gladio was a terrorist network throughout Western Europe established by the CIA in 1949. Although the CIA maintains it was intended to resist the Warsaw Pact in the event of an invasion, Gladio's true purpose is far-reaching and difficult to ascertain. Some activities connected to Gladio include financial corruption, political assassination, murder, and false-flag attacks. The operation seems to have behaved as a tool for Italian elites to circumvent the democratic state and exert direct control over society. The name Gladio strictly refers to the Italian branch of the operation, and this remains the best-known and perhaps most extensive branch; however, according to William Blum, it originally included British, American, and Belgian nationals and went on to include almost every capitalist state in Europe.

The existence of Operation Gladio in Italy became revealed in the 1980s and 1990s in a series of political scandals and government investigations, uncovering a corrupt network of influential bankers, the Catholic Church, the Mafia, Italian Fascists, and Argentine anti-communists centered around a masonic lodge known as Propaganda 2 (P2). The group included media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, whose wealth suddenly multiplied upon joining the lodge.

The Italian branch appears to have been established by S.I.F.O.R. in 1958, and had 139 secret weapons depots in the Italian Republic. It originally drew its recruits from mercenaries who fought in the Spanish Civil War and the Fascists who had worked for the Italian Social Republic. In the Italian Republic it caused over 300 deaths from the 1970s to the early 1980s.

Gladio would attain over 15,000 members and access to 151 secret arms dumps. Its presence was a secret until Giulio Andreotti admitted to its existence in a report to the Stragi commission in 1990.