Operation Gladio Read online

  ALSO BY PAUL L. WILLIAMS

  The Vatican Exposed

  Crescent Moon Rising

  The Day of Islam

  The Al Qaeda Connection

  Osama's Revenge

  Published 2015 by Prometheus Books

  Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia. Copyright © 2015 by Paul L. Williams. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruits you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruits you will recognize them.

  Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!”

  Matthew 7: 15–23

  Apologia

  Acknowledgments

  Leading Rogues

  Chronology

  List of Abbreviations

  Chapter One: The Stay–Behind Units

  Chapter Two: The Lucky Break: Negroes and Narcotics

  Chapter Three: The Vatican Alliance

  Chapter Four: The Drug Network

  Chapter Five: The Secret Society

  Chapter Six: The Rise of Michele Sindona

  Chapter Seven: False Flag Terrorism

  Chapter Eight: Gladio: South of the Border

  Chapter Nine: Il Crack Sindona

  Chapter Ten: High Times, New Crimes

  Chapter Eleven: A Papal Problem

  Chapter Twelve: The New Network

  Chapter Thirteen: The Shell Game

  Chapter Fourteen: The Desperate Don

  Chapter Fifteen: The Pope Must Die

  Chapter Sixteen: The Shooting in St. Peter's Square

  Chapter Seventeen: A Raid and Redirection

  Chapter Eighteen: Blackfriars Bridge

  Chapter Nineteen: Killings and Kidnapping

  Chapter Twenty: Works of God

  Chapter Twenty-One: Death and Resurrection

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Gladio Triumphant

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Semper Eadem

  Notes

  Index

  I know what you're thinking.

  The author of this book must be a Baptist.

  It's a common assumption.

  Most Welsh people are Baptists and Williams is a Welsh name.

  But names are deceptive.

  I was born and raised a Roman Catholic. My parish was St. John the Baptist Church in West Scranton, where I learned by rote the Baltimore Catechism and sang “Panis Angelicus” with the choir. I wrote “JMJ” (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph) on the right hand corner of my composition papers, went to confession every Saturday afternoon, and received Holy Communion at Sunday Mass. I participated in all the rites and rituals—the Forty Hour Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, the recitation of the litanies to the saints, and the yearly novenas at St. Ann's Basilica.

  In those Tridentine days, the liturgy was in Latin, which gave the Mass a sense of timelessness and the assurance that the teachings of Holy Mother Church were semper eadem—“always the same”—binding the generations in one system of belief.

  I had my throat blessed on the feast of St. Blaise and my forehead anointed with ashes on the first day of Lent. I wore a St. Christopher's medal and a scapular. I fasted and abstained on the days appointed and received all the sacraments, save Holy Orders and Extreme Unction.

  As a graduate student at Drew University, my mentor was Fr. Gabriel Coless, an Augustinian monk, who provided rigorous instruction in the Patristics and Medieval Latin. After receiving my doctorate, I taught religion and the humanities at the University of Scranton, a Jesuit institution, and served as the editor of the annual proceedings of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. I also penned a number of articles on Vatican II and the effects of aggiornamento for National Review, where I met William Buckley, the celebrated CIA spook.

  I encountered the wrath of Rome while writing Everything You Always Wanted to Know about the Catholic Church for Doubleday. Doubleday, at that time, was a publishing outlet for the Catholic Church through its imprint, Image Books, and an imprimatur was considered a prerequisite for publication. My clerical overseers found no fault with my handling of the evolution of doctrine and the matter of the pontiffs who later were decried as heretics. The problem arose with the subject of the Church's “temporalities.” I was told to expunge all references to the Vatican Bank, including the donation of Mussolini, the Ambrosiano affair, and the P2 scandal. These topics had garnered headlines throughout the world and to exclude them from a book with a tell-all title would be an act of obsequiousness that bordered on cowardice. I refused to make the suggested cuts and was supported in my decision by Patricia Kossman, my intrepid editor. In 1990, the work was published by Doubleday without a nihil obstat—the declaration that nothing about the work is contrary to the faith—despite the fact that it contained no canonical errata.

  In subsequent years, I probed deeper into the affairs of Vatican, Inc., during my tenure as the editor and publisher of the Metro, and as a consultant (CI-9) for the FBI. My findings, including the ties between the Vatican and Gambino crime family, constituted the core of The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder and the Mafia, which was published by Prometheus in 2001.

  For the past fourteen years, I have been engaged in combing all available government records regarding the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia. The task has been grueling, since most of the files—even the files of Pope Paul VI, Michele Sindona, Roberto Calvi, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus and other individuals long dead—remain classified; any disclosure of their contents would represent a threat to “national security.” Fortunately, enough information has come to light in recent years that readers can obtain a complete account of the unholy alliance of Gladio.

  Am I still a Catholic?

  Suffice it to say, anyone who attempts to come to terms with the facts presented in these pages will have his faith in Holy Mother Church compromised, if not shattered.

  The 1,100+ footnotes in this book attest to my reliance on the work of others, particularly such scholars as Alfred McCoy, Peter Dale Scott, Martin A. Lee, Dale Yallop, and Sibel Edmonds, who have uncovered material by unprecedented spade work that shou
ld be of interest to all seekers of the truth. I would be remiss if I did not mention the following researchers and journalists who met with untimely deaths by probing into the matter of Gladio: Gary Webb, Giorgio Ambrosoli, Carmine Pecorelli, Emilio Alessandrini, Antonio Varisco, Boris Giuliano, Giuseppe Della Cha, General Alberto Dalla Chiesa, and Uğur Mumcu. As always, I am indebted to Jonathan Kurtz, Steven Mitchell, and the staff at Prometheus, my very courageous publishing company. Finally, I must acknowledge my wife Patricia, who has been my staunchest supporter throughout our forty-three glorious years of marriage, and Judith Schmitt and Judith Forte, who continue to keep me in their prayers.

  (in order of appearance)

  Allen Dulles—Swiss director of the OSS who became the director of the CIA in 1953

  William “Wild Bill” Donovan—executive director of the OSS and chairman of the World Commerce Corporation

  Reinhard Gehlen—Nazi general who commanded the “werewolves,” the first Gladio unit

  James Jesus Angleton—commander of the secret counterintelligence unit of the OSS

  Junio Valerio Borghese—leader of Decima Mas and commander of the Gladio units in Italy

  Paul E. Helliwell—OSS official, director of Sea Supply, Inc., and the president of the Castle & Trust Bank

  Charles “Lucky” Luciano—American Mafioso, agent of the ONI, and kingpin of the international heroin trade

  Monsignor Giovanni Montini (Pope Paul VI)—Vatican undersecretary of state who introduced the OSS to the Sicilian Mafia

  Don Calogero Vizzini (“Don Calo”)—Sicilian capo who took part in Operation Husky and the creation of the heroin network

  Vito Genovese—Lucky Luciano's right-hand man in charge of heroin distribution throughout the United States

  Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII)—Roman pontiff who formed an alliance with the CIA

  Cardinal Francis Spellman—leader of the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta and CIA operative

  William Colby—Vatican insider, legal consul at Nugan Hand bank, and future director of the CIA

  Michele Sindona—nexus between the CIA, the mob, and the Vatican

  Licio Gelli—grand-master of P2 and director of the “strategy of tension”

  Alparslan Türkeş—leader of Turkey's National Action Party and its paramilitary youth group, the Grey Wolves.

  Giulio Andreotti—prominent P2 member and Italy's prime minister

  Giuseppe Santovito—head of SISMI

  David Kennedy—Sindona's partner, chairman of Continental Illinois, and secretary of the Treasury under Richard M. Nixon

  Monsignor Paul Marcinkus—cleric from Cicero, Illinois, who became the head of the IOR

  Theodore Shackley—CIA operative who set up the heroin trade in Southeast Asia and played a part in the attempted assassination of John Paul II

  Roberto Calvi—head of Banco Ambrosiano who set up the Vatican shell companies

  Henry Kissinger—former US secretary of state and a master geopolitical strategist

  Fr. Felix Morlion—former OSS official, founder of the Pro Deo intelligence agency in Rome

  Michael Ledeen—US intelligence official who worked closely with P2 and CSIS

  Zbigniew Brzezinski—former National Security Advisor and master geostrategist

  Juan Perón—thrice-elected president of Argentina with close ties to Licio Gelli and P2

  Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis)—Jesuit Provincial-General in Argentina, complicit in Operation Condor

  David Rockefeller—founder of the Trilateral Commission and CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank

  Cardinal John Cody—archbishop of Chicago and CIA operative

  Cardinal Karol Wojtyła (Pope John Paul II)—archbishop of Krakow, who came to preside over the greatest scandals within the Roman Church since the time of the Borgias

  Abdullah Çatlı—vice chairman of the Gray Wolves and assassin for the CIA

  Mehmet Ağca—assassin for the babas who made the attempted hit on Pope John Paul II

  Alexander de Marenches—leader of the Safari Club and director of the French secret service

  Francesco Pazienza—second in command at SISMI and a CIA operative

  Claire Sterling—CIA spinmaster/journalist

  Enrico De Pedis—leader of Banda della Magliana

  Salvatore Inzerillo—godfather of the Gambino-Inzerillo-Spatola crime family

  Gulbuddin Hekmatyar—Afghan warlord, CIA operative

  Fethullah Gülen—Muslim preacher dedicated to the formation of a New Islamic World Order

  June 1942—Pius XII creates the Vatican Bank; Lucky Luciano is recruited by ONI

  April 1943—Operation Husky

  Feb. 1945—Fort Hunt Conference (formation of Gladio)

  April 1945—Angleton and Borghese establish Italian stay-behind units

  Oct. 1946—Luciano hosts Havana conference

  Sept. 1947—CIA is established

  Nov. 1947—Heroin comes to Harlem; PCI makes monumental election gains

  Jan. 1948—Vatican receives $65 million in “black funds”

  Jan. 1951—CIA develops drug trade with KMT

  Fall 1953—Operation Mockingbird

  Jan. 1955—Establishment of Catholic Gladio

  Fall 1956—Gelli serves as CIA's liaison to Italian military intelligence

  Oct. 1957—Hotel des Palmes gathering; Sindona becomes mob financier; Apalachin Conference

  Nov. 1957—Creation of Fasco AG with CIA funds

  Sept. 1958—Vito Genovese goes to jail

  Jan. 1959—P2 lodges pop up on NATO bases

  Feb. 1960—Gladio mounts first coup in Turkey

  Jan. 1962—Helliwell forms Castle Bank and Trust

  Oct. 1962—“Strategy of tension” gets underway with the murder of Enrico Mattei

  May 1963—Vatican is bugged

  June 1963—Gelli knighted by Paul VI

  Fall 1963—Piano Solo

  Jan. 1964—Sindona joins P2

  April 1968—Medellin Conference; Msgr. Paul Marcinkus becomes IOR secretary

  Spring 1968—Shackley meets Trafficante in Saigon

  Jan. 1969—“Years of lead” begin

  May 1969—Sindona anointed “pope's banker”

  Fall 1969—Operation Condor

  Dec. 1969—Piazza Fontana bombing

  Jan. 1970—CIA establishes MIT in Turkey

  Dec. 1970—Golpe Borghese

  Jan. 1971—CIA funds Opus Dei; Vatican establishes first shell company

  May 1971—Peteano attack

  Fall 1972—BCCI set up in Karachi; Nixon approves Sicilian coup

  July 1973—David Rockefeller forms Trilateral Commission

  June 1974—Brescia bombing

  Aug. 1974—Attack on the Italicus; collapse of Franklin National Bank

  Sept. 1974—Collapse of BPF

  April 1975—Fall of Saigon

  May 1975—Church Committee

  Fall 1975—Banzer Plan

  March 1976—Dirty War begins in Argentina

  Sept. 1976—Henry Kissinger forms the Safari Club

  Oct. 1977—Conference at Hotel Vitosha

  Winter 1977—CIA funds Hekmatyar and other “holy warriors” to cultivate Afghan poppy fields

  Sept. 1978—Death of John Paul I

  March 1979—Assassination of Carmine Pecorelli

  July 1979—Assassinations of Giorgio Ambrosoli and Boris Giuliano

  Dec. 1979—Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

  Aug. 1980—Bologna bombing

  Sept. 1980—Coup in Turkey

  Fall 1980—Gelli and George H. W. Bush plan October Surprise; CIA forms partnership with Honduran drug lords

  March 1981—P2 exposed; Solidarity strike

  May 1981—Attempted assassination of John Paul II

  May 1981—Killing of Salvatore Inzerillo

  Sept. 1981—Vatican issues “letter of patronage”

  Fall 1981—Mena, Arkansas, becomes cocaine hub

  Dec. 1981—Ma
rtial law in Poland

  May 1982—General Alberto Dalla Chiesa is murdered

  June 1982—Collapse of Banco Ambrosiano; Calvi hangs from Blackfriars Bridge

  Nov. 1982—Raid on Stibam

  June 1983—Emanuela Orlandi kidnapping

  Nov. 1983—Henri Arsan dies in jail cell

  March 1986—Sindona is poisoned in prison

  Feb. 1987—Arrest warrant for Archbishop Marcinkus

  April 1989—Kerry Commission

  Nov. 1990—European Parliament condemns Gladio

  May 1996—William Colby's mysterious end

  Nov. 1996—Susurluk incident

  Sept. 1998—Gülen comes to Pennsylvania

  Aug. 2001—Creation of AKP in Turkey

  Oct. 2001—US-led invasion of Afghanistan

  Nov. 2002—Andreotti receives guilty verdict

  April 2012—IOR fails transparency test

  March 2013—Bergoglio becomes Francis I

  April 2014—Canonization of John Paul II

  AIUC—American International Underwriters Corp.—Insurance company owned by C. V. Starr, which later became the company AIG

  AKP—Adalet ve Kalkinma—Turkey's Justice and Development Party

  ANSA—Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata—Italy's leading news wire service

  ASALA—Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia

  AV—Avanguardia Nazionale—National Vanguard—Italian right-wing terror group

  BCCI—Bank of Credit and Commerce International

  BND—Bundesnachrichtendienst—Germany's overseas intelligence agency

  BNDD—Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs—precursor of the DEA

  BPF—Banca Privata Finanziaria—Bank of Private Finance—first bank owned by Sindona

  CAT—Civil Air Transport

  CDP—Christian Democratic Party

  CFR—Council on Foreign Relations

  CIA—Central Intelligence Agency

  CIC—Counter-Intelligence Corps—precursor to the CIA

  CIG—Central Intelligence Group—another precursor to the CIA

  CSIS—Center for Strategic and International Studies

  CSS—Committee for State Security—Bulgarian secret service

  DEA—US Drug Enforcement Agency