Il Duce has just been routed by the British in Africa. World War II: The Apocalypse: Origins of the Holocaust aka Apocalypse – The Second World War e3: Shock, France 2 2009
The Allies have landed in Italy which is occupied by the Germans. World War II: The Apocalypse e6: Retreat and Surrender aka Apocalypse: The Second World War: Inferno
As Hitler marched triumphantly across western Europe in the early summer of 1940, his fellow dictator in Italy, Benito Mussolini, dreamt of a similar campaign further south. World War II in Colour e6: The Mediterranean and North Africa, Channel 5 2008
The Italian army was in poor fighting shape. ibid.
Italy could no longer be depended on to maintain control of the Mediterranean. ibid.
Benito Mussolini had been the first fascist dictator. His success an inspiration to Hitler and the Nazis. But now the Italians had had enough of him. The Nazis: A Warning From History: Fighting to the End, BBC 1997
Il Duce disappeared in captivity … Much of Italy was in chaos. Nazi Underworld: Deadly Missions of World War II, National Geographic 2013
Gladio as it is defined nowadays forms part of what I have always referred to as ‘parallel structures’. This 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 has always called the Fifth Column of the USSR: the Communist Party and the extreme left. Vincenzo Vinciguerra, former member neo-fascist group Ordine Nuovo, televised interview
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. ibid.
You were supposed to attack civilians, women, children, innocent people outside the political arena. For one simple reason: to force the Italian public to turn to the State, turn to the regime and ask for greater security. That was precisely the role of the Right in Italy. It placed itself at the service of the State which created a strategy aptly called the Strategy of Tension. In so far as they had to get people to accept that at any moment over a period of thirty years, from 1960 to the mid-eighties, a State of Emergency could be declared. ibid.
They remain unpunished because a State cannot condemn itself. ibid.
The massacre at Bologna came at a time of maximum concern on the part of the Italian, American and Allied Secret Services because of the electoral success of the Italian Communist Party. The massacre at Bologna responds, as do all the other massacres, to the logic of a State who no longer knowing how to confront a political enemy resorts to extreme measures of violence, attributable to extremists on the Left. ibid.
Ordine Nuovo never had its own ideology. They called themselves National Socialists. ibid.
For forty years secret terrorist organisations, many trained by Western intelligence agencies, have manipulated the political control of European sovereign states by a campaign of terror and murder. Originally part of a secret network, these groups changed from being defenders of state security into attackers of the established political order. Until two years ago that secret network was generally known by the single word: Gladio. Timewatch: Operation Gladio: The Ring Masters, BBC 1992
As the Germans withdrew they left behind secret agents in the countries they’d occupied. The secret services called such groups ‘stay-behinds’. For the retreating Germans they were the staunchest believers. They were selected from the SS and fascist black legions. They would become the foot soldiers of the next war about to begin – the Cold War. ibid.
Secret Service documents from several member countries reveal Gladio to be a European-wide organisation including Denmark, Norway, Holland, Spain, Turkey and Greece. All Gladio’s secret information is coordinated in Brussels through the CPC – Clandestine Planning Committee – which meets periodically, with the chairmanship being handed from one country’s secret service to the next. The entire organisation is handled outside NATO. ibid.
In 1980 a bomb exploded at Bologna Railway Station which killed eighty-six people. Six years later an official report revealed the existence of an invisible government in Italy run by the state secret services and groups of political terrorists. It also identified a military and civilian organisation under which neo-fascist groups were allowed to commit atrocities against civilians for political motives. Timewatch: Operation Gladio: The Puppeteers
On December 7th 1970 Prince Valerio Borghese organised neo-fascists in an attempt to overthrow the Italian government. The Italian ministry of the interior was to be captured. But after units had moved into position, a telephone call cancelled the entire operation. In the aftermath of the aborted coup, the existence of the parallel structures of Gladio was uncovered. ibid.
On March 16th 1978 the Italian left-wing terrorists kidnapped the former Italian prime minister Mr Aldo Moro. On that day the Italian parliament was about to debate the inclusion of the Italian Communist Party in a government of national unity for the first time since 1948. Aldo Moro had long believed that this was the only solution for political stability in Italy. Timewatch: Operation Gladio: Foot Soldiers
I cannot accept the disgraceful and ungrateful decision taken by the Christian Democratic Party. I will not absolve nor will I exonerate anyone of their responsibility. No political or moral reason impels me to do so. My own cry joins that of my family, themselves wounded to death. And I hope that their cry will be heard independently. I don’t believe the Christian Democratic Party has solved their problems by liquidating Moro. Because of this clear incompatibility, I request that at my funeral there be no-one present representing the Italian state and no-one from the political party. I ask to be accompanied by the few people who really wished me well. Those therefore that are worthy of accompanying me with their prayers and with their love. Kind regards, Aldo Moro. Aldo Moro letter
Go back to 1969 ... Suddenly a lot of bombs go off. And they kill people all over the place. And everybody’s scared. And you have this effect of terror; the first effect of terror is fear ... In 2001/2 you have the trial in Italy and you find out it was not the communists, it was right-wing people, it was people from the Catholic’s camp – it was a false flag operation. Daniele Ganser
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 ranks of the fascist Repubblica di Salo. People who could handle arms. They were in squads of nine people with two leaders. Licio Gelli, former head of P2 Lodge
Rome May 9th 1978: in the city centre police discover a Renault 4. Inside is the body of Aldo Moro, the president of Italy’s Christian Democrat Party. An infamous crime had been committed against a high-profile politician. A man who wanted to overcome a barrier in Italian society and share power with the Communist Party. The murder of Aldo Moro bore the signature of the extreme Left, the Red Brigades. But many wondered if the extreme right had not guided the murder weapon so as to block a political initiative which had begun inauspiciously six weeks earlier. Political Assassinations: Death in Rome: The Case of Aldo Moro
The head of the Lodge [P2] Licio Gelli was a militant anti-communist with long-standing links to the CIA. He was also one of Aldo Moro’s bitterest enemies. Moro wanted to fight this terror campaign by means of a broad alliance which would also bring the communists into the fold ... The shots were fired ... Gelli, head of the P2 lodge and working for the secret service, is reported to have said just afterwards, The hardest part has been done. ibid.
The next morning at 8:30 a radio station broadcast the news that Aldo Moro had been kidnapped half an hour before it actually happened. And the secret services also knew something. ibid.
Moro knew there would be strong opposition to his policy. But he could see no alternative to closer relations with the communists. The Communist Party had become the second most powerful political force in the country. It was demanding indispensable social reforms, and to do so was looking for closer links with the Christian Democrats under Aldo Moro. But those opposed to this strategy did not remain inactive. ibid.
They didn’t even respect the murdered man’s last wishes. In a pompous state ceremony they displayed their grief for the man they did not wish to save. ibid.
It was a purposeful destabilisation of Italy’s largest bank by a group called the P2. Dr Jonathan Levy, interview Alex Jones 22nd May 2009
Two members of a neo-fascist group were convicted of the [Bologna] bombing. Also convicted for diverting the investigation were two Italian intelligence agents who were members of the P2 Masonic lodge. 7/7 The Big Picture
It became clear that P2 was not just a Masonic Order but a CIA-funded parallel government. The list of members of the lodge was found in a raid on Licio Gelli’s house in 1981. Among the 962 names were the heads of all three Intelligence Services, forty-eight MPs, industrialists, bankers, media moguls, journalists, civil servants, judges, military officials, and Sylvio Berlusconi. ibid.
Italy and J P Morgan entered into a currency swap. Frontline: Money, Power and Wall Street IV, PBS 2012
Welcome to Italy. Shakespeare’s Italy. Francesco da Mosto, Shakespeare in Italy I: Land of Love, BBC 2012
In Shakespeare’s time the heart of the Renaissance. ibid.
And of course politics and power. ibid.
He set more than a third of them here. ibid.
He painted a picture of Italy as the land of love. ibid.
Did he come here? ... In 1585 at the age of twenty-one Shakespeare just vanished from history for seven long years. ibid.
Shakespeare seems to know everything there is to know about Venice. ibid.
Can anyone be trusted with power? ibid.