Da : Noam Chomsky

CAPIRE IL POTERE

Marco Tropea Editore

Capitolo 5

Impedire la democrazia in Italia

Domanda :

Noam, visto che ha parlato di come gli USA hanno osteggiato le democrazie popolari e sostenuto organizzazioni di tipo fascista in Spagna ed a Haiti, vorrei ricordare che è successo anche in Italia, Francia e Grecia e altri paesi occidentali nostri alleati dopo la guerra. Negli ultimi cinquant’anni c’è stata una lunga storia di sabotaggi americani alla democrazia e di aiuto agli elementi fascisti anche nelle ricche società europee.

Esatto, infatti è stato questo il primo grande impegno postbellico degli Stati Uniti : distruggere la resistenza antifascista in tutto il mondo per rimettere al potere organizzazioni più o meno fasciste, e anche molti collaboratori del fascismo. E’ successo dappertutto: da paesi europei come Italia Francia e Grecia fino a posti come la Corea e la Tailandia.

E’ il primo capitolo della storia del dopoguerra: come abbiamo frantumato i sindacati italiani, francesi e giapponesi e sventato la concretissima minaccia della democrazia popolare che stava crescendo in tutto il mondo alla fine della guerra.

For studies of the post-World War II U.S. campaign to destroy anti-fascist elements internationally and to return traditional ruling groups to power, see Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943-1945, New York: Pantheon, 1968 (updated edition 1990); Gabriel Kolko and Joyce Kolko, The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1954, New York: Harper & Row, 1972. These books were the first major scholarly efforts to document this history, and remain extremely valuable and unique in their scope and depth despite the flood of new scholarship since -- although, because they do not adhere to approved orthodoxies, it is considered a violation of scholarly ethics in the American academic community to refer to them. See also, David F. Schmitz, Thank God They're On Our Side: The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1921-1965, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999, especially ch. 4.

Il primo grosso intervento Americano fu in Italia nel 1948, quando interferimmo nelle elezioni, e si trattò di una operazione di rilievo. Vedete, gli strateghi statunitensi temevano che le elezioni democratiche sfociassero in una vittoria del movimento antifascista, e questa possibilità doveva essere scongiurata per la solita ragione: gli interessi degli Stati Uniti non vogliono al governo gente con il tipo sbagliato di priorità.

E nel caso dell’Italia fecero un enorme sforzo per impedire che le forze democratiche popolai che avevano condotto la resistenza antifascista vincessero le elezioni dopo la guerra.

. On U.S. fears about the 1948 Italian election and the U.S. operation to sway it, see for example, James E. Miller, "Taking Off the Gloves: The United States and the Italian Elections of 1948," Diplomatic History, Vol. 7, No. 1, Winter 1983, pp. 35-55 (on U.S. use of covert funding and military supplies, sponsorship of massive propaganda efforts, and employment of the threat of cutting off aid, in order to sway the 1948 Italian election); Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War, New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988, pp. 89-95 (on the C.I.A.'s use of former Nazi collaborators for postwar operations to help avert an Italian Communist electoral victory); John Lamberton Harper, America and the Reconstruction of Italy, 1945-1948, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1986, especially ch. 9; William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II, Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 1995, ch. 2.

L’opposizione americana alla democrazia italiana è giunta al punto di sponsorizzare un colpo di stato militare verso la fine degli anni 60 per tenere fuori i comunisti (cioè i partiti operai) dal governo.

. On U.S. efforts to keep the working-class parties out of power in Italy through the 1960s and the contemplation of a coup, see for example, Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead, The Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection, New York: Sheridan Square, 1986, ch. 4 (on the coup plan in the 1960s by the C.I.A.-dominated organization S.I.F.A.R., see pp. 78-81). An excerpt (pp. 73-74):

Enormous resources were poured into Italy to manipulate the postwar elections. A Marshall Plan subsidy of some $227 million was voted by Congress just prior to the Italian elections of April 18, 1948. . . . In the mid-1970s the Pike Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives estimated that $65 million had been invested in Italian elections in the period 1948-68. Ten million dollars was pumped into the election of 1972. Former C.I.A. officer Victor Marchetti estimated C.I.A. outlays were $20-30 million a year in the 1950s, dropping to a mere $10 million a year in the 1960s. These funds were also used to subsidize newspapers, anticommunist labor unions, Catholic groups, and favored political parties (mainly the Christian Democrats). . . .

Following the victory of the Right in the elections of April 1948, a new, secret antisubversive police force was established under the Ministry of Interior, with U.S. advisers. This was filled largely from the old fascist secret police of Mussolini. At the same time, the fascist party Italian Social Movement (M.S.I.) began a massive expansion program, with the assistance of U.S. intelligence officials. M.S.I. had significant backing from business interests in both Italy and the United States, and probably received financial support from the U.S. government. The honorary chairman of M.S.I. was Prince Junio Valerio Borghese, the long-time fascist leader, who had been protected by the United States at the end of the war. General Vito Miceli, another M.S.I. leader, received an $800,000 U.S. subsidy through U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin in 1972. M.S.I. official Luigi Turchi was a guest of honor at the Nixon White House in 1972.

"The C.I.A. in Italy: An Interview with Victor Marchetti," in Philip Agee and Louis Wolf, eds., Dirty Work: the C.I.A. in Western Europe, Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, 1978, pp. 168-173; John Ranelagh, The Agency: the Rise and Decline of the C.I.A., New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986, especially pp. 115f; William Colby with Peter Forbath, Honorable Men: My Life in the C.I.A., New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978, ch. 4; Sallie Pisani, The C.I.A. and the Marshall Plan, Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991, pp. 106-107.

On this topic, Herman and Brodhead also cite: Giuseppe De Lutiis, Storia dei servizi segreti in Italia, Rome: Editori Reuniti, 1985; Gianni Flamini, Il partido del golpe: Le strategie della tensione e del terrore dal primo centrosinistra organico al sequestro Moro, Vol. I, Ferrara: Italo Bovolenta, 1981; Roberto Faenza and Marco Fini, Gli Americani in Italia, Milan: Feltrinello, 1976.

Ed è probabile che quando tutti i documenti interni americani saranno rivelati al pubblico scopriremo che l’Italia è stata il bersaglio principale delle operazioni della CIA per anni. A quanto pare lo è stata fino al ’75 circa, cioè fin dove arrivano i documenti declassificati.

. On U.S. intervention in Italy in the 1970s, see for example, William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and C.I.A. Interventions Since World War II, Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 1995, ch. 18. An excerpt (p. 120):

It is not known when, if ever, the C.I.A. ended its practice of funding anti-Communist groups in Italy. Internal Agency documents of 1972 reveal contributions of some $10 million to political parties, affiliated organizations, and 21 individual candidates in the parliamentary elections of that year. At least $6 million was passed to political leaders for the June 1976 elections. And in the 1980s, C.I.A. Director William Casey arranged for Saudi Arabia to pay $2 million to prevent the Communists from achieving electoral gains in Italy. Moreover, the largest oil company in the United States, Exxon Corp., admitted that between 1963 and 1972 it had made political contributions to the Christian Democrats and several other Italian political parties totaling $46 million to $49 million. Mobil Oil Corp. also contributed to the Italian electoral process to the tune of an average $500,000 a year from 1970 to 1973. There is no report that these corporate payments derived from persuasion by the C.I.A. or the State Department, but it seems rather unlikely that the firms would engage so extravagantly in this unusual sideline with complete spontaneity. . . .

[An] Italian newspaper, the Daily American of Rome, for decades the country's leading English-language paper, was for a long period in the 1950s to the '70s partly owned and/or managed by the C.I.A. "We 'had' at least one newspaper in every foreign capital at any given time," the C.I.A. admitted in 1977, referring to papers owned outright or heavily subsidized, or infiltrated sufficiently to have stories printed which were useful to the Agency or suppress those it found detrimental.

A.P., "Italian Asks Probe Of Story On C.I.A.," Boston Globe, July 23, 1990, p. 10. An excerpt:

President Francesco Cossiga [of Italy] has called for an investigation into a report that the C.I.A. encouraged terrorism in Italy in the 1970s, his office said yesterday. The report on state-owned R.A.I. television alleged that the C.I.A. paid Licio Gelli, grandmaster of the secret Propaganda Due Masonic lodge, to foment terrorist activities. The P-2 has been accused of seeking to install a right-wing dictatorship in Italy during the 1970s with the help of secret service officials. . . . The R.A.I. report was based mainly on interviews with two men who claimed to have worked for the C.I.A.

Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead, The Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection, New York: Sheridan Square, 1986, pp. 81-87 (discussing a 1984 report of the Italian Parliament on the clandestine right-wing organization P-2 and other neo-fascist groups in Italy who, working closely with elements of the Italian military and secret services, were preparing a virtual coup in the 1970s to impose an ultra-right regime and to block the rising forces of the left).

For some insight into U.S. planners' reasons for intervening in Italian politics, see for example, Raymond L. Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan, Washington: Brookings Institution, 1985. An excerpt (pp. 487-488, 490):

The "major problem" in the Western alliance, [U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger] continued, one that was overtaking U.S.-Western European differences, was "the domestic evolution in many European countries . . ." [in the mid-1970s towards] the development of Euro-communism. . . . In April [1976] Kissinger publicly warned against the possibility of the P.C.I. [Italian Communist Party] participating in a coalition government in Italy. . . . [He stated:] "The extent to which such a party follows the Moscow line is unimportant. Even if Portugal had followed the Italian model, we would still have been opposed. . . . [T]he impact of an Italian Communist Party that seemed to be governing effectively would be devastating -- on France, and on N.A.T.O., too. . . ."

Eurocommunism was the term coined in 1975-76 to denote the new current of Western European communism that stressed independence of action for each party and embodied varying degrees of democratic and pluralistic tendencies. . . . [T]he United States perceived Eurocommunism as threatening its interests in Western Europe . . . [and] the Soviet Union also came to see Eurocommunism as threatening its interests in Eastern Europe.

[…]

L’Italia era un problema particolarmente spinoso perché li la resistenza antifascista era fortissima, estremamente popolare e rispettata. La Francia aveva un sistema do propaganda molto migliore dell’Italia, perciò sappiamo molto di più della resistenza francese rispetto a quella italiana, ma in realtà la resistenza italiana fu di gran lunga più significativa di quella francese. La gente che si impegnò nella resistenza francese era coraggiosissima e lodevolissima, ma costituiva un settore limitato della società: durante l’occupazione nazista la Francia nel suo complesso era stata per lo più collaborazionista.

Invece l’Italia era un caso diverso: la resistenza italiana era talmente forte che in pratica aveva liberato da sola l’Italia del Nord e teneva bloccate sei o sette divisioni tedesche; il movimento operaio era molto organizzato, con un forte appoggio della popolazione.

Quando gli eserciti americano e britannico arrivarono al Nord, furono costretti a rovesciare il governo che era già stato insediato dalla resistenza in quelle regioni e a sabotare numerosi progressi fatti verso il controllo operaio delle industrie. E rimisero al posto di comando i vecchi padroni, dal momento che la rimozione di questi collaboratori del fascismo era stata una “destituzione arbitraria” dei legittimi proprietari: usarono proprio questa espressione.

. On the American and British operation to dismantle the anti-fascist resistance in Northern Italy and to restore the traditional industrial order, see for example, Federico Romero, The United States and the European Trade Union Movement, 1944-1951, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989 (translation 1992), especially chs. 2 and 5. Note that this is an approving account of the British and American actions. An excerpt (pp. 52-59):

A few days after the liberation [of the industrial north of Italy, British Labour Party attaché W.H.] Braine left for a rapid turn through the northern cities. In Bologna, Milan, Turin, and Genoa he ran into an unexpected situation. The industrial plants were in good condition and working order. Activist optimism was to be seen everywhere. There were many serious problems, but the social fabric did not seem as torn apart as it was in the south. The first decrees of the Committee of National Liberation in Northern Italy (C.L.N.A.I.) and its rudimentary but effective administrative framework unequivocally demonstrated the existence of a new government. It was thin but widespread, and the Allies had to reckon with it. . . . Braine requested immediate decisions on three important issues. He asked for suspension of the C.L.N.A.I. decrees blocking all dismissals [of workers], paying a "liberation bonus" to the workers, and establishing worker-management councils (C.D.G.) in industrial plants. The Allies and the Italian government must prevent the "arbitrary replacement" of business leaders with commissioners appointed by the workers or by the C.L.N. The Italian government must promptly prepare regulations, under the guidance of the A.C.C. [Allied Control Commission], to govern bargaining over wages and layoffs. . . .

The resistance, useful though it was from a military point of view, had always inspired mistrust among the Allies, since it was a free political and social movement that was hard to control. It was coming out at this moment as a source of independent power and as such had to be changed. . . . The Allies took drastic steps to prevent the worker and partisan mobilization in the enthusiasm following the liberation from leading to durable power structures, from imposing radical changes in property ownership and hierarchy in industry, and from setting up an uncontrolled anti-Fascist purge inspired by class-based criteria. . . . The A.M.G.'s attention was drawn in particular to the worker-management councils, whose legitimacy was contested, in accord with the views of the industrialists and the moderate political forces, and which, it was feared, could evolve into instruments for socializing industry. The intention was to restore all power and responsibility for the operation of industrial plants to the hands of management, leaving a purely consultative role for the worker-management councils. . . . A.M.G. power had been able to keep the working-class drive for political power in check, to rein in the most radical impulses of victorious antifascism, and to place the structure of industrial power under control, thus saving the prerogatives of the entrepreneurs. Sufficient bounds had been placed on labor mobilization to channel it into less damaging courses, laying a basis for institutionalizing and regulating the bargaining process.

Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943-1945, New York: Pantheon, 1968 (updated edition 1990), ch. 3, especially pp. 61-63, 436-439 (on the successes of the Italian resistance during the war and its destruction by the Allied powers); Basil Davidson, Scenes From The Anti-Nazi War, New York: Monthly Review, 1980, especially pp. 251-278 (memoir of a later-eminent historian of Africa who participated in the anti-Nazi underground in Italy and Yugoslavia during World War II; recounting the heroism and radical-democratic aspirations of the Italian resistance and the American and British policy to suppress the popular forces as the Nazis were defeated). See also, Gianfranco Pasquino, "The Demise of the First Fascist Regime and Italy's Transition to Democracy: 1943-1948," in Guillermo O'Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1986, pp. 45-70 (brief overview of Italian politics after the war). And see footnotes 66, 67, 75, 76, 77 and 79 of this chapter.

On the U.S. operations in post-World War II France, see for example, Gabriel Kolko, The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943-1945, New York: Pantheon, 1968 (updated edition 1990), ch. 4 and pp. 439-445; Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics Of Heroin: C.I.A. Complicity In The Global Drug Trade, Brooklyn: Lawrence Hill, 1991, chs. 1 and 2.

On the enthusiastic involvement of the mainstream U.S. labor leadership in the operations to restore the old industrial order to power in Northern Italy -- in part by reorienting the new Italian unions from their radical-democratic structure to American-style, leadership-dominated "business unionism" -- see for example, Federico Romero, The United States and the European Trade Union Movement, 1944-1951, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989 (translation 1992), especially pp. 16-41, 149.

On the U.S. labor leadership's complicity in the overall U.S. and British post-war effort to destroy unions internationally, see also, for example, Roy Godson, American Labor and European Politics: The A.F.L. as a Transnational Force, New York: Crane, Russak, 1976, especially pp. 52-53, 75, 104, 117-137. This book, based on internal A.F.L. documents, explains in glowing terms and frames as a great humanitarian achievement in defense of democracy, liberty, and a free trade union movement, how the A.F.L. exploited postwar starvation in Europe to transfer power to its own associates by keeping food from their opponents (pp. 3, 104, 116); employed gangsters as strike breakers to split the labor movement (pp. 120-125); undermined efforts of French labor to block shipments to the French forces attempting to reconquer Indochina (p. 135); split the Confédération Générale du Travail, a major French union in the key industries of coal mining, communications, and transportation, in 1947 as part of its efforts to "restore the internal balance of political power and prevent a shift to the extreme left" (pp. 117-132); and so on. However, the book skirts the Mafia connection, which is detailed in footnote 79 of this chapter.

Other studies of this topic include: Ronald Radosh, American Labor and United States Foreign Policy, New York: Random House, 1969 (review of U.S. labor leaders' rigid Cold War positions on foreign policy matters, and their active participation in reining in left-wing labor movements internationally); Ronald Filippelli, American Labor and Postwar Italy, 1943-1953: A Study of Cold War Politics, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989; Sallie Pisani, The C.I.A. and the Marshall Plan, Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991, pp. 99-100 (on U.S. labor leaders' activities in postwar France); Howard B. Schonberger, Aftermath of War: Americans and the Remaking of Japan, 1945-1952, Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1989, ch. 4 (on U.S. labor leaders' activities in occupied Japan); Fred Hirsh and Richard Fletcher, The C.I.A. and The Labour Movement, Nottingham, U.K.: Spokesman, 1977. See also, Thomas Braden, "I'm glad the C.I.A. is 'immoral,'" Saturday Evening Post, May 20, 1967, p. 10 ("It was my idea to give the $15,000 to Irving Brown [of the A.F.L.]. He needed it to pay off his strong-arm squads in the Mediterranean port, so that American supplies could be unloaded against the opposition of the Communist dock workers").

Similar attitudes have persisted in the U.S. union leadership until the present. See for example, Aaron Bernstein, "Is Big Labor Playing Global Vigilante?: The A.F.L.-C.I.O. Spends Millions A Year To Fight Communism Overseas -- Fueling A Bitter Internal Battle," Business Week, November 4, 1985, pp. 92-96. An excerpt:

Through a group of little-known institutes, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. spends $43 million a year in 83 countries -- often for anticommunist projects that tend to merge with the [Reagan] Administration's foreign policy themes. . . . Their combined spending nearly matches the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s $45 million U.S. budget. Some $5 million of the foreign affairs money comes from dues of member unions. The other $38 million comes largely from two government sources. One is the Agency for International Development (A.I.D.) . . . The other is the National Endowment for Democracy (N.E.D.), a congressionally funded foundation started with the aid of conservative Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) to "sell the principles of democracy" abroad. . . .

[C]onservative foreign policies are nothing new for labor: The A.F.L.-C.I.O. has long been proud of the role International Affairs Dept. Director Irving J. Brown and his predecessor Jay Lovestone have played in fighting communism around the world since World War II.

Quindi sabotammo anche le procedure democratiche perché era evidente che le elezioni successive sarebbero state vinte dalla resistenza e non dagli screditati conservatori. In Italia c’era il pericolo che vincesse la democrazia – il governo statunitense la definiva tecnicamente “comunismo” – e come al solito bisognava impedirlo.

La stessa cosa successe in quegli anni anche altrove, e in alcuni paesi con maggiore uso della violenza. Perciò per distruggere la resistenza antinazista in Grecia e rimettere al potere i complici dei nazisti c’è voluta una guerra in cui sono morte 160.000 persone e 800.000 sono scappate dalle loro case, tanto che il paese non si è ancora ripreso da quel trauma.

In Corea furono uccise 100.000 persone alla fine degli anni ’40 ancora prima che cominciasse la vera e propria guerra di Corea.

Invece in Italia fu sufficiente organizzare forme di sovversione, compito che gli Stati Uniti presero molto sul serio. Così abbiamo fondato logge massoniche di estrema destra e gruppi paramilitari terroristici, abbiamo riportato i crumiri e la polizia fascista, gli abbiamo tolto il cibo, abbiamo fatto in modo che la loro economia non funzionasse.

Il primo memorandum del Consiglio nazionale di sicurezza, NSC 1, parla dell’Italia e delle elezioni italiane e afferma che se i comunisti prendono il potere con le elezioni in maniera legittima e democratica gli Stati Unti devono dichiarare l’emergenza nazionale, la Sesta flotta nel mediterraneo dev’essere messa in stato d’allerta e si devono avviare attività sovversive in Itala allo scopo di rovesciare il governo e piani di contingenza in vista di un intervento militare diretto: ripeto, se la resistenza avesse vinto elezioni democratiche legali.

. For N.S.C. 1 and further discussion, see National Security Council Memorandum 1/3, "Position of the United States With Respect to Italy in the Light of the Possibility of Communist Participation in the Government by Legal Means," and State-Army-Navy-Air Force Coordinating Committee [S.A.N.A.C.C.] Memorandum 390/1, "Provision of U.S. Equipment to the Italian Armed Forces," March 8 and January 16, 1948, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, Vol. III ("Western Europe"), Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974, pp. 775-779, 757-762. N.S.C. 1, not all of which is declassified, provided (p. 779):

In the event the Communists obtain domination of the Italian government by legal means, the United States should:

(a.) Immediately take steps to accomplish a limited mobilization, including any necessary compulsory measures, and announce this action as a clear indication of United States determination to oppose Communist aggression and to protect our national security.

(b.) Further strengthen its military position in the Mediterranean.

(c.) Initiate combined military staff position in the Mediterranean.

(d.) Provide the anti-Communist Italian underground with financial and military assistance.

(e.) Oppose Italian membership in the United Nations.

E non era tanto per ridere, niente affatto, c’era gente ai massimi livelli del governo statunitense che assumeva posizioni anche più esrteme di questa. Per esempio, il già citato George Kennan, che viene reputato un grande spirito umanitario , riteneva che dovessimo invadere l’Italia ancora prima delle elezioni senza nemmeno permettere che succedesse una cosa del genere, ma poi fu trattenuto da altri che sostenevano che forse potevamo influenzare le elezioni minacciando di farli morire di fame e con ampio utilizzo di terrorismo e sovversione, una tattica che alla fine si è rivelata efficace.

. On Kennan's view that the U.S. should intervene militarily in Italy to prevent its election, see for example, George Kennan, "The Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Kennan) to the Secretary of State," March 15, 1948, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, Vol. III ("Western Europe"), Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974. An excerpt (p. 849):

I question whether it would not be preferable for Italian Government to outlaw Communist Party and take strong action against it before elections. Communists would presumably reply with civil war, which would give us grounds for reoccupation [of] Foggia fields or any other facilities we might wish. That would admittedly result in much violence and probably a military division of Italy; but we are getting close to the deadline and I think it might well be preferable to a bloodless election victory, unopposed by ourselves, which would give the Communists the entire peninsula at one coup and send waves of panic to all surrounding areas.

See also, James E. Miller, "Taking Off the Gloves: The United States and the Italian Elections of 1948," Diplomatic History, Vol. 7, No. 1, Winter 1983, pp. 35-55 at p. 51.

Una politica simile era seguita dagli Stati Uniti ancora negli anni ’70, quando si fermano I documenti che sono stati declassificati. La documentazione di cui disoniamo finora arriva fino al ’75, quando il rapporto della commissione Pike della camera fornì parecchie inforazioni sulle attività sovversive americane, ma chissà se tali attività non sono continuate anche dopo.

. For the Pike Committee Report, see C.I.A.: The Pike Report, Nottingham, U.K.: Spokesman Books, 1977, especially pp. 193-195, 203-211; or Special Supplements, Village Voice, February 16 and 23, 1976 (reprinting leaked copies of the first two Parts of the Pike Committee Report, which had been suppressed by the U.S. House of Representatives on January 29, 1976). The Report notes that C.I.A. interference in Italian politics included a subsidy of more than $65 million given to approved political parties and affiliations, from 1948 through the early 1970s.

Quasi tutti gli studi al riguardo sono italiani, ma c’è anche qualcosa in inglese, per esempio Ed Herman e Frank Brodhead hanno scritto un eccellente libro sulla manovra di disinformazione relativa al cosiddetto “piano per assassinare il papa” con un’interessane analisi di alcuni materiali italiani più recenti, e ve ne sono anche altri.

Come dicevo, politiche del genere sono state messe in atto in Francia, Germania, Giappone e altrove.

Edward Herman's and Frank Brodhead's book -- mentioned in the text -- exposes the fraudulent "Bulgarian Connection" theory, supported by the Western media and instigated by the C.I.A., which held that the right-wing Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca, who attempted to assassinate the Pope in Italy in 1981, was a Bulgarian and K.G.B. agent. See Edward S. Herman and Frank Brodhead, The Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection, New York: Sheridan Square, 1986.

Gli Stati Uniti hanno anche resuscitato la mafia come parte dello sforzo per spaccare il movimento dei lavoratori europei dopo la Guerra. La mafia era stata praticamente eliminata dai fascisti, che in genere non accettano alcuna concorrenza e sono molto rigidi. Hitler e Mussolini avevano praticamente eliminato la mafia, ma quando l’esercito di liberazione americano attraversò la Sicilia e l’Italia del sud fino alla Francia la resuscitò come strumento per impedire gli scioperi.

Vedete, gli Stati Uniti avevano bisogno di gorilla per spezzare le ginocchia agli scioperanti: e dove la trovate gente del genere? La risposta fu: nella mafia. In Francia la CIA, in collaborazione tra l’altro con i capi del movimento sindacale americano, fece risorgere la mafia corsa. E i mafiosi non lo fanno solo per divertirsi, sapete: forse se la spassano anche, ma vogliono qualcosa in cambio. In cambio della repressione del movimento sindacale francese hanno ottenuto il permesso di far ripartire il traffico d eroina, che sotto i fascisti era stato ridotto praticamente a zero. Ecco l’origine della famosa “Franch connection”, la principale struttura del narcotraffico nel dopoguerra.

In quel periodo ci furono anche operazioni clandestine che coinvolgevano il vaticano, il Dipartimento di Stato americano e i Servizi segreti britannici e americani, operazioni tese a salvare e utilizzare molti dei peggiori criminali di guerra nazisti, impiegandoli esattamente nello stesso genere di attivià per cui li usavano i nazisti, contro la resistenza in Europa occidentale e poi all’est.

Per esempio il tipo che aveva inventato le camere a gas, Walter Rauff, fu fatto entrare in clandestinità perché organizzasse le attività antiinsurrezionali in Cile. Il capo dei servizi segreti nazisti sul fronte orientale, Reinhard Gehelen, si unì ai servizi americani per fare lo stesso lavoro nell’Europa dell’est. Il “macellaio di Lione”, Klaus Barbie, lavorò per gli americani spiando i francesi fino a quando non furono costretti ad evacuarlo attraverso la “rotta dei topi”, gestita dal Vaticano, verso l’America Latina, dove finì la sua carriera.

Anche questo faceva parte del complesso sforzo post-bellico degli Stati Uniti per distruggere ogni prospettiva di democrazia indipendente, ed è andata come speravano.