Operation Gladio: The Ring Masters (Part 1)

A 1992 Observer Film Company production for BBC Television, created by Allan Francovich, narrated by John Rowe.

A 3-part series revealing the crucial role the CIA has played in manipulating the political affairs of post-war Europe through the Gladio. The film features extensive interviews with Vincenzo Vinciguerra, from his jail cell in Italy, Libero Gualtieri, who headed up The Italian Parliamentary Inquiry into Operation Gladio, and around 40 other people involved with Operation Gladio.

Vinciguerra supports Federico Umberto D'Amato's claim that he founded the Club de Berne. D'Amato was an Italian secret agent, who led the Office for Reserved Affairs of the Ministry of Interior of Italy, from the 1950s till the 1970s, when the activity of the intelligence service was undercover and not publicly known. D'Amato was born in Marseille, and during World War II he worked for the US Office of Strategic Services. After the end of the conflict he was at the head of the North Atlantic Treaty Special Office, a link between NATO and the United States. In 1974, two days after the Piazza della Loggia bombing, he was removed from the position and assigned to the boundary police, although he kept a strong influence on the office until the 1980s. D'Amato was a member of Propaganda 2 (P2), a secret masonic lodge involved in numerous political and economical scandals in the 1970s.

The Club de Berne (CdB) is a deep state milieu described as "a preferred platform for exchange" between secret services, an operational structure that grew out of personal contacts, practically without democratic supervision. Members include the intelligence agencies of the 28 states of the European Union (EU), Norway, Switzerland and Israel, and the US intelligence agencies enjoy “observer status”. Other participating services include Australian ASIO and Canadian CSIS. The Counter Terrorism Group (CTG) is an offshoot of the Club and shares terrorism intelligence.

Operation Gladio is the codename for clandestine "stay-behind" operations of armed resistance that were organized by the Western Union (WU) also referred to as the Brussels Treaty Organisation (BTO), and subsequently by NATO and the CIA, in collaboration with several European intelligence agencies. The operation was designed for a potential Warsaw Pact invasion and conquest of Europe. 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 some neutral countries. During the Cold War, right-wing armed groups engaged in the harassment of left-wing parties, torture, terrorist attacks, and massacres in countries such as Italy. The role of the CIA and other intelligence organisations in Gladio—the extent of its activities during the Cold War era and any responsibility for terrorist attacks perpetrated in Italy during the "Years of Lead" (late 1960s–early 1980s)—is the subject of debate. In 1990, the European Parliament adopted a resolution alleging that military secret services in certain member states were involved in serious terrorism and crime, whether or not their superiors were aware. The resolution also urged investigations by the judiciaries of the countries in which those armies operated, so that their modus operandi and actual extension would be revealed. To date, only Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have had parliamentary inquiries into the matter.

The three inquiries reached differing conclusions as regarded different countries. Guido Salvini, a judge who worked in the Italian Massacres Commission, concluded that some right-wing terrorist organizations of the Years of Lead: La Fenice, National Vanguard and Ordine Nuovo were the trench troops of a secret army, remotely controlled by exponents of the Italian state apparatus and linked to the CIA. Salvini said that the CIA encouraged them to commit atrocities.

The Swiss inquiry found that British intelligence secretly cooperated with their army in an operation named P-26 and provided training in combat, communications, and sabotage. It also discovered that P-26 not only would organize resistance in case of a Soviet invasion, but would also become active should the left succeed in achieving a parliamentary majority.

The Belgian inquiry could find no conclusive information on their army. No links between them and terrorist attacks were found, and the inquiry noted that the Belgian secret services refused to provide the identity of agents, which could have eliminated all doubts.

A 2000 Italian parliamentary report from the left wing coalition Gruppo Democratici di Sinistra l'Ulivo reported that terrorist massacres and bombings had been organised or promoted or supported by men inside Italian state institutions who were linked to American intelligence. The report also said the United States was guilty of promoting the strategy of tension. Operation Gladio is also suspected to have been activated to counter existing left-wing parliamentary majorities in Europe.

The US State Department published a communiqué in January 2006 that stated claims the United States ordered, supported, or authorized terrorism by stay-behind units, and US-sponsored "false flag" operations are rehashed former Soviet disinformation based on documents that the Soviets forged.

Part 1: Reveals the origins of Operation Gladio in Italy. Teams of secret operatives have bombed and murdered innocent civilians to keep control of Europe for their political masters. Developed from "Stay-behind" - CIA, NATO and SIS clandestine networks at the end of World War 2 to resist the communist threat - this secret network changed from being defenders of state security into attackers of the established political order. It's only since the Gladio's existence was acknowledged in 1990 that the impact of its shadowy role in post-war Europe has emerged.