Swiss historian Dr. Daniele Ganser wrote his doctoral thesis on the explosive topic of NATO's secret armies. These secret armies were set up during the Cold War by western secret service organizations in Europe in order to be prepared for a guerilla war during a potential Russian invasion of Western Europe. Since this invasion never happened the secret armies were seemingly used to stage terror attacks in Western Europe and then blame them on left-wing radical groups. Through the use of false flag terrorism the European population and politics where brought into alignment with US policy. The secret armies were exposed by Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in 1990 which lead to an Italian investigation committee researching the topic.
Historic development
Coordinated by two NATO committees for clandestine war strategies (ACC and CPC) the secret armies of NATO were set up after the end of World War 2. The secret services of American CIA and Britain MI6 provided the logistic during the setup process. The main mission of these secret armies was to fight communism in Europe and to be prepared for a potential invasion by Russia. In each European country the local military secret service was in charge of their anti-communist army always in close collaboration with CIA and MI6. The parliaments were not privy to any of these activities. Only the leading members of the executive branch (Prime ministers, presidents, secretary of the interior, defense secretary) were in the know.
Leading officers from the secret army network were trained by the Green Berets Special Forces in America and by SAS Special Forces in Great Britain. The recruited soldiers of the secret armies were moderate conservatives as well as rightist extremists - e.g. members of the German SS became part of the network.
Even though the feared Russian invasion never happened, the secret armies used the available weapons to start a secret war against left-wing political groups. Secondary sources lead to the conclusion that NATO's secret armies were involved in several terrorist operations as well as in violations of human rights which were then blaimed on left-wing extremist groups. The main goal was to weaken left-wing parties during elections and to keep the population in a state of fear. In order to achieve this public places were chosen for these "terrorist attacks". One of the best documented cases was the bombing of the train station of Bologna in Italy. On August 2nd 1980 this bombing killed 85 people and an additional 200 people were wounded. (This attack is also written about in an article of the German news magazine Spiegel from 2005 - Due to new German laws which require the payment of a fee, when linking to mainstream media sources the link to this article had to be removed, sorry)
Revealing
During the 70's and 80's several terrorist attacks shocked Italy. In 1984 Italian judge Felice Casson started investigations of a car bomb attack in 1972 in which several police officers were killed in the city of Peteano. Casson found out that there was no police investigation at the crime scene and that the report about the used explosives had been forged in order to blame the Red Brigades for the bombing. Casson discovered that C4 was used - an explosive commonly used by NATO. During his further research Casson unvealed that it was not left-wing extremists who were responsible for the bombing but right-wing extremists in collaboration with the Italian secret service were involved in it. Additionally he found out that the government and the secret service had taken severe measures to cover up the entire operation. Casson identified Vincenzo Vinciguerra as one of the persons responsible for the bombing in Peteano. Vinciguerra was arrested and admitted to have acted on behalf of a networks that assured him to be covered after the bombing. The ideological convictions behind this bombing were backed by the secretary of the interior, by customs authorities as well as the civilian and military secret service of Italy. Casson understood that he was confronted with government sponsored terrorism which was financed through tax payer money.
In order to verify the claims of Vincenzo Vinciguerra, Casson filed a request to get access to the archives of the Italian secret service SISMI in Rome. In the archives he discovered documents proving the existence of the secret NATO armies not just in Italy. He then contacted the parliamentary investigation committee which was responsible for domestic terrorism in Italy. On August 2nd 1990 the committee assigned a task to Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti : Within 60 days he had to inform the Italian parliament about the secret NATO armies in Italy. On August 3rd 1990 Andreotti appeared for a hearing of the commission during which he admitted publicly that the secret NATO armies are real. Andreotti assured to provide a written report within 60 days on the subject. On October 18th this report was handed over to the commission by courier. The head of the commission Senator Gualtieri receive the report but before he could read it Andreotti demanded the report to be returned to him, since it required an "update". Gualtiere made a copy of the report and return the original to Andreotti. After he receive the updated report he discovered that critical parts of the report had been removed and that it was only 10 pages long instead of 12 pages. The Italian press focused on this strange maneuver of Andreotti and the focus of the public was drawn to the removed sections. The revelations about secret NATO armies in Italy, about 139 arsenals with explosives, hand grenades and fire arms shocked the Italian public.
Premier minister Andreotti was not willing to take the whole blame for these unveilings. The same day he handed in the report Andreotti gave a public speech in which he said that all European heads of government where in the know about the secret NATO armies. In another public speech on November 9th 1990 Andreotti emphasized that NATO, the United States and several other European Countries - including Germany, Greece, Denmark and Belgium were part of the conspiracy of secret NATO armies. In order to prove his claims, several secret documents were leaked to the press and Italian political magazine Panorama published the entire report Andreotti had produced for the commission.
When France tried to deny its participation in secret NATO armies, Andreotti stated mercilessly that France was present at the last ACC committee meeting on October 23rd/24th 1990 in Brussles, thus France was embarrassed and had to admit its participation.
The parliamentary committee presented its final report in 2000. Its conclusion : "These massacres, these bombings, these military missions were organized or supported by men working for Italian government agencies along with people from the secret services of America."
All information in this article is based on the doctoral thesis of Dr. Daniele Ganser which was published as a book under the title "NATO's Secret Armies - Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe".
Additional information :
Dr. Daniele Ganser did a public English lecture at Basel University in 2011 on the topic "Ten years after 9/11". His lecture is available in the Resource section.
