THE HISTORY OF THE CIA: Italy 1948 - How to Steal an Election [pt. 5.1]

although the Second World War was over in 1945 the American, British and European elites continued to fight a covert war to keep Western Europe under capitalist control and to secure allies in the growing Cold War this effort was consolidated under the joint NATO and CIA operation titled Gladio originally established as a stay behind network of ardent right wing fighters to repel a Soviet invasion Gladio quickly morphed into an underground army of vanguard warriors intent on crushing any left wing activity in the western sphere this ominous operation named after the Roman short sword of the same

name has continued to baffle researchers and skeptics for the past three decades since its declassification in the early nineties although we still remain in the dark about many aspects of Gladio we do know that the story largely begins in post war Italy in 1948 by rigging Italy's first democratic elections since their fall to fascism in the twenties folks, today we begin in earnest to untangle the decades long Operation Gladio by looking at his origins in Italy it's ties to the Vatican and the establishment of confidential pan European forums to administer this shadowy and dangerous web

most importantly we will be tracking the fingerprints of the US intelligence apparatus the CIA who is all over this tangled and intricate web today I plan on breaking from my usual format slightly this will be part 1 of the new three part mini series within the history of the CIA exploring the origins of Gladio the transatlantic organized crime networks that permeated this operation the spooks and deep state weirdos that helped organize the whole gambit and the significance of these post war operations to our larger narrative if you are joining us for the first time welcome

aboard as I do in all my videos I cite all my sources in the description of each part when a number shows up at the top of the screen like this, you can find a matching bibliographic citation in the description which will point you to where I found that info I encourage you to check it out as we are covering some very sensitive and often debated topics today well without further ado let's get into the origins of Operation Gladio and how the CIA stole the first post war elections in Italy let's begin I will do

my level best to stand up for freedom and democracy around the world by keeping the United States of America strong and by keeping our eyes wide open as we welcome change in the world by keeping our eyes wide open before we begin to get into the early establishment of Gladio operations throughout Europe in earnest I want to lay out a few disclaimers about this whole concept to this day we still do not have the full story of Operation Gladio we have access to some primary sources that have been declassified and we have been exposed to

some leaks and inquiries across Europe about this program otherwise however, as researchers, historians and students we are largely left with disparate pieces of a puzzle that I'm afraid we might never be able to fully solve we know for a fact that yes, Gladio existed NATO and the CIA operated secret anti communist armies in Europe for the better part of the Cold War and that major attacks in the west were likely orchestrated by these agencies in August of 1990 as the Cold War was coming to a close Italian Prime Minister Julio Andriotti a harrowing figure of

Cold War Italy and the Christian Democratic Party having served as prime minister in seven governments and 21 times as a minister stood before the Italian parliament and admitted bluntly that there had been secret armies across Europe and Italy and that a report would be presented to the public detailing these networks for a time in the early 90s it appeared that this would be a bombshell story other countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark had similar reckonings and organized committees to investigate these matters well long story short Andreotti's report was delivered late and was heavily

redacted by the Italian security apparatus the investigations in the other European countries into their own NATO programs largely went nowhere and most importantly the United States and NATO themselves remain suspiciously quiet as these stories tend to go the whole Gladio scandal fell into the background especially as in December 1991 the Soviet Union dissolved and the west declared the end of history Gladio fell to the wayside we cannot forget however that despite the time that has passed in the silence of our security agencies on this topic that this secret that was so heavily theorized throughout the

Cold War has been confirmed to be real and it was everywhere as we delve deep into the Gladio web I want you all to remember that much of the evidence we will cover is circumstantial evidence we have very little in terms of smoking guns such as agendas or list of names of operatives or the operations that Gladio forces were directly involved in throughout these three next parts I will be laying out events people across the world, links and motives that are all rooted in fact I will leave it up to you to evaluate this information

and come away with your own conclusions with all that being said let's talk about post war European politics and the complex state of Cold War Italy an often overlooked and important fact for our story is that socialism was also a competing and at times dominant ideology in post war Europe during the war, the axis occupiers had to contend with resistance groups of partisans and gorilla fighters across their newly acquired European territory most of these partisans who bravely fought against the fascist forces across the continent were not moderate liberals or conservatives they were mostly socialist and

communist inherent in fascism is a fervent and violent anti communism that put leftists at risk of imprisonment or extermination alongside other European minority groups this existential fact led to the formation of prominent leftist guerrilla armies across western and southern Europe in Italy, the Communist Party known as the Partito Communista Italiano otherwise known as PCI doubled in size between 1943 and 1944 in Greece, out of a population of 7 million at war's end, 2 million were members of the communist Greek People's Liberation Armies political wing and 50,000 were armed resistance fighters under the red flag the

first post war government of Prime Minister Charles de Gaulle, in France included two Communist cabinet members the municipal elections of 1945 saw the communists finish first with 30% of the vote with the second and third spots taken by other leftist parties socialism was not just merely an aberration in post war Europe it did not appear out of nowhere the working classes of Europe had gained a deep respect for leftist ideologies throughout the war in witnessing the brave resistance that socialists and communists had mounted against the fascist invaders the political shift across the liberated Europe was

quickly noticed by the western power elite as they quickly began to mount a secret and violent war against the rise of leftist ideologies across the continent this war often involved arming and empowering the fascists that they had just defeated in the World War when the threat of communism or even nationalism arose in the developing world the western security apparatus often responded with strong armed intervention either regime change or all at war as we covered in the previous episode the same blatant strategy was not employed in Europe although blood was still shed due to Europe's historic

position as a western capitalist continent with deep ties to the global financial system Washington and London opted for a less overt strategy of resistance to the rise of socialism across Europe instead of fighting an over war against the left as they would do in such places as Vietnam, Indonesia and Cuba the US and British governments fought the war for the hearts and minds of Europe with a 13.7 billion dollar carrot in the case of the Marshal Plan and a hidden and deadly stick in the case of the CIA and NATO's Operation Gladio the Marshal Plan

presented the war torn European countries with a conditional offer receive much needed financial aid and in return, organize your society under capitalist lines and establish moderate capitalist ruling parties importantly for this series the Marshall Plan was also a key source of funds for the burgeoning CIA in Europe as has been recently disclosed over 5% or $685 million in Marshall Plan funds were skimmed by the Central Intelligence Agency to fund their illegal operations across the continent during the early Cold War this massive money laundering scheme was recently disclosed yet we have little visibility into the actual

application of those funds despite this fact we can't imagine the impact of $685 million of unaccountable cash in post war Europe and as we will see in this episode money was running rampant through the Mafia circles church institutions and underground far right networks in the former axis occupied states this cash had to come from somewhere and as we know, much of it came directly from the Marshall Plan the first country to feel the impact of the new CIA was Italy in the late 1940s as the country teetered towards communism following the retreat of Nazi forces

Italy will feature prominently throughout this series as it was a main staging ground for CIA activity and one of the essential secret ideological battlegrounds of the Cold War the first numbered CIA memo ever created titled "the position of the United States in respect to Italy" or NSC Document 1 1 which was issued on November 14th, 1947 stated the following from George Keenan director of the State Department's policy planning staff quote: as far as Europe is concerned Italy is obviously the key point if communists were to win elections there our whole position in the Mediterranean and

possibly Western Europe as well would probably be undermined, end quote the entire United States government under Truman and the CIA viewed the battle for Italy as one of if not the single most important battleground of the emerging Cold War and looking through a Cold Warrior's lens they were not wrong to view it this way at the end of the war, Italy had the largest and most organized Communist party outside of the Iron Curtain, the PCI as we mentioned earlier by war's end the Italian partisan network comprised over 150,000 armed communist sympathizers mostly in the north

of the country Italy was a divided country not by race or by culture but by ideology the northern part of the country where much of the partisan fighting took place and where the Nazis had entered after Mussolini's fall in 1943 was dominated by communists and socialists the south of the country and most importantly the southern island of Sicily was dominated by right wing Catholic forces and a nascent Mafia underground this tension between the socialist north and the Catholic south was noticed by the CIA who sought allies for the new post war Italy on the island

of Sicily in episode 3 of this series we discussed Operation Underworld which was a US naval intelligence operation during World War 2 that led to collaboration between the US intelligence agencies and the Mafia to further the war effort the US government alleged that this was a necessary alliance in their time of need but as I outlined in that previous video a major outcome of this collaboration was the reestablishment of the global opium trade which would lead to the rise of American addicts and would in turn help secure laundered funds for the future Operation Gladio in

Europe this drug cash scheme was only one half of Operation Underworld however the emphasized wartime goal of this dirty alliance between organized crime in the US security state was to obtain a Mafia intelligence to help with the Allied invasion of Sicily otherwise known as Operation Husky in 1943, the office of Strategic Services the wartime predecessor to the CIA was charged with implementing the psychological warfare plan drafted by the Joint Chiefs of staff and the Oni to bring Italy's southern island of Sicily under Allied control the plan had been dropped in enclosed consultation with Lucky Luciano

the Sicilian mob boss and head capo in the National Crime Syndicate the Jewish Italian super mob that combined Luciano and Meyer Lansky's organizations for nearly 40 years from his cell in upstate New York Lucky shared the location and identities of key Mafia figures that could help administer Sicily for the allies once Mussolini's forces were expelled and this would largely be undertaken by the OSS during Mussolini's reign as Il Duche the Sicilian mob had been forced to largely disband organized crime represented a serious threat to the fascist dictators total control of the Italian economy and civil

society imposed a potential risk of resistance in times of political instability despite all his flaws Mussolini was unsurprisingly very effective at rooting out the Mafia's deep grasp of Sicilian and southern Italian society although the Mafia was largely halted by the fascists they remained dormant in Sicily ready to reactivate at war's end this is exactly what OSS Director Wild Bill Donovan and his agents did in Italy one of his subordinates, Earl Brennan, the OSS director in Italy took an additional step to finding adequate administrators for post war Italy he reached out to the Vatican The Catholic

Church was one of the most prominent institutions in southern Italy before the fascist took control in the 1920s the Catholic Church had a few unique traits that made it an ideal deep political partner in this global anti communist crusade firstly firstly, they were inherently reactionary leftist ideology is generally atheistic which clearly puts the Vatican's power in jeopardy and places them as stark anti communists secondly, the Vatican had already established a global network of advocacy and outreach through the Catholic Church which was present in much of Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America these forums would

present useful hideouts for foreign spies and militias and in Italy, would form useful hiding places for weapons caches used in Gladio finally, the Vatican was and still is a sovereign state this status as a nation state allows for a level of secrecy and legality that is even stronger than organized crime or the American security state even the CIA and other intelligence community members do on occasion have to report and be accountable to the elected US government this last element of state sovereignty of the Vatican will be especially relevant in the next few parts as we

explore the secret banking network they established within the confines of their tiny state and how the Vatican bank acted as a shadow financial instrument for Gladio operations working alongside the Vatican on future Gladio operations would become a mainstay of CIA operations in Italy and later France as well as other operations in Latin America and even Vietnam following orders from Wild Bill, Italian OSS Director Earl Brennan liaized with Monsignor Giovanni Montini the vaticans under secretary of state and the future Pope Paul the 6th on potential allies in the future anti communist struggle in Italy Montini allegedly

suggested the OSS ally themselves with Calo Guero Don Carlo Vizini the boss of all bosses of the Vizini Agostino crime family this sentiment was also shared by Lucky Luciano who had grown up in a house 15 minutes away from Don Carlo's estate Brennan relayed the message to wild Bill and he ordered the airdrop of a communique to Don Carlos estate asking for his assistance in the invasion of Sicily Don Carlos men would guide the American tanks through Sicily leading to an astounding military victory on the island in return, Mafia boss Don Carlo was appointed mayor

of Villa Alba and he immediately murdered the police chief of the town alongside Don Carlo were a series of other Mafia appointments throughout Sicily after the American invasion most notably New York's former lieutenant governor Charles Poletti who according to Lucky Luciano was quote "one of our good friends" would become the military governor of Italy under the Allied military government and essentially allowed the free flow of dope through Italy's ports by giving Vito Geneviese's dock workers union complete control of Italy's harbors Charles Puletti's appointment in postwar Italy is indicative of a larger trail of corruption between

the New York City political establishment and Italian Gladio that we will explore in further detail in the second part of this mini series so in turn, through Operation Underworld the OSS had essentially reformed the Sicilian mob a key vector in future transnational narcotics trading and major allies in the underground war in Cold War Italy the impacts of this mob revival were immediately felt on the island according to Claire Sterling in her book octopus the Sicilian mob committed on average three murders a week between the years of 1944 and 1960 the age of terror in Italy

had begun in the final section of this episode we will look at arguably the first Gladio operation the CIA's interference in the 1948 Italian elections as we mentioned in the previous part of this series the CIA was created in 1947 in the same year that the Truman administration formally declared the United States as an overt enemy of global communism in response to the Greek Civil War and enacted his self titled Truman Doctrine with the creation of the CIA came a new organizational structure Admiral Roscoe HillEnkoetter was made the first director of Central Intelligence although his

tenure would be mostly overshadowed by his successors the CIA was subsequently organized into different arms each with a specific intelligence purpose that could be largely divided into two functions the first side of the CIA which will be largely overlooking in this series is the intelligence gathering side of the agency this side can be essentially seen as a news agency for the president and is largely uncontroversial every country in the world has some form of intelligence gathering service and for the most part it falls within the ethical boundaries of international relations the more dangerous and controversial

side of this new organization was the operating portion of the agency largely consolidated under the innocuously named office of Policy Coordination the OPC essentially acted as the CIA's covert operating arm the OPC would lead many of the CIA's global operations and insurrections throughout the Cold War in the name of anti communism for the beginning of its history the OPC was headed by Frank Wisner the wealthy son of a southern plantation owner and an agent in the wartime office of Strategic Services the predecessor to the CIA Frank Wisner would oversee the foundation of Gladio throughout Europe,

in the early years of the Cold War and would continue to be a recurring character throughout this period the CIA and the OPC's first operation abroad was in Italy in 1948 where the Communist Socialist Coalition Party was threatening to win a super majority in the first post war national elections let's dive in as the war came to a close the OSS was disbanded but the former OSS agents continued to work on their future plan for Operation Gladio the main priority during this period was money specifically the sticky issue of payment to less than desirable elements

of the Gladio network although the CIA would have the authority to act covertly abroad there were certain limits to this legal authority especially when considering that much of the Italian Gladio operating budget would come from organized crime and the global narcotics trade coincidentally, the Vatican was also looking for beneficiaries at the time given the popularity of the PCI and communism in Italy they were seeking financial aid for their political mission against communism and for the furtherance of Catholic conservatism at this intersection a deal was struck it turns out that the papacy had a perfect vehicle

to launder the dirty Mafia cash and to distribute clean holy dollars to the Gladio combatants this was the Istituto per le Opere di Religione or the IOR otherwise known as the Vatican Bank The Vatican Bank to this day is completely obscured from the public despite the Vatican publishing its yearly financial records publicly the People Bank records remain completely private the bank is only accountable to the Pope and three boards of directors a board consisting of high ranking cardinals a second of international bankers and a third of Vatican financial officers the Vatican bank was and still

is the perfect vehicle for mass money laundering according to Money Ball which is the money laundering authority of the council of Europe the Vatican bank remains one of the world's most prominent money laundering instruments in the world, even today under Pope Francis so in 1945, Wild Bill Donovan and Pope Pius the 12th met in the Vatican just as the war was coming to a close the details of the meeting are not clear but what we do know is that Wild Bill was decorated as a quote "crusader against communism" and was granted the Grand Cross of

the order of Saint Sylvester which according to Paul Williams is the oldest and most prestigious people knighthood with Wild Bill becoming a Knight of the Vatican and the pieces set in motion for future money laundering the Truman administration began funnelling legal cash to the Vatican 350 million US taxpayer dollars were sent to the Catholic Church to establish the Christian Democratic Party or the CDP, the only ruling party of Italy throughout the Cold War an additional $30 million were sent to create the Catholic Action Groups an anti communist propaganda network run by the church the United

States had created their party the Christian Democrats, and had obtained the papacy as an anti Communist ally election of 1948 would not be won this easily however money laundering, hush payments, propaganda and bloodshed would be required and that is where Glaudio began for the sake of fairness I wanna highlight that there were also allegations of Soviet interference in the 1948 Italian elections mostly surrounding Soviet funding for the PCI the major allegations come from a CIA agent named F Mark Wyatt who claimed in a 1998 CNN documentary that the PCI was funded directly by "black bags

of money" directly out of the Soviet compound in Rome Wyatt also went on to claim in that same interview that he helped deliver millions of dollars to the Christian Democrats who would eventually be victorious in the upcoming election these claims of Soviet meddling in the 1948 elections are dubious at best as noted by Italian historian Alessandro Brogi who notes that Soviet support for the PCI was made up of quote ad hoc last minute diplomatic and financial support in stark contrast to the $10 million a month figure laid out by Wyatt in the documentary from my

perspective Wyatt's claim does seem dubious given his conflict of interest as a CIA agent in Italy at the time and that Stalin was largely disengaged from supporting western communist parties such as in Greece and Yugoslavia where Stalin refused to send military or financial support for the revolutions just know that these allegations of campaign interference by the Soviets exist and you make your own judgment to their veracity I just thought I would lay that out the Truman administration in the American security state feared a communist victory in the upcoming 1948 Italian general elections and as previously

mentioned this was not unfounded future CIA director under the Nixon administration William Colby wrote later in his life that had the Mafia not intervened in the 1948 Italian elections the communists would have gained 60% of the vote so it was up to the anti communist coalition of the Mafia, the Vatican and the CIA to bring Italy into the western fold and as these things tend to go the pieces of the puzzle appear to magically fall into place to begin with, enter George White a New York City based federal bureau narcotics agent which was the precursor

of the DEA and a senior member of the OSSS X2 program the counterintelligence branch of the agency under one James Jesus Angleton at the CIA, Anglenton happened to be in charge of the Italy desk and was specifically in charge of Sicily during the 1948 elections well in 1946 George White the FBN agent, reached a deal with Lucky Luciano to release him on Parole on the island of Sicily Angleton allegedly also ensured that Luciano was deported alongside Detroit mob boss Frank Kapola according to some sources Kapola and Sicilian mobster Salvatore Giuliano had been behind the 1947

Mayday massacre where Mafia men opened fire on a crowd of rallying workers in Sicily where eight were killed and 33 were wounded allegedly, this attack had been funded directly by former OSS agent Wild Bill Donovan now a private citizen and owner of the mysterious World Commerce Corporation which he used to funnel funds to the mob associates according to Peter Dale Scott, another 498 people mostly members of the PCI or the Italian Socialist Party were murdered in 1948 alone the Mafia held up at their end of the bargain by reigning terror on leftists and labor activists

this period of tension is best summarized by CIA officer Miles Copeland who had been in Italy at the time, who stated years later had it not been for the Mafia the Communist would now be in control of Italy the Vatican worked on their end to ensure that the 1948 election swung in the US backed Christian Democrats favor the Vatican's tactics range from far reaching propaganda campaigns to targeted violence against leftists through Catholic underground armies the most indicative propaganda effort was that of Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York I believe that Francis Spellman's career throughout the

40s and to the 60s displays the true depth of this parapolitical network surrounding Gladio and the intelligence agencies throughout this part I've been hinting at the New York connection to Italian Gladio I won't get into it too much because that is the main feature of part 2 of this mini series but for the purposes of this video Cardinal Spellman of New York worked as an American propagandist against the PCI in the 1948 Italian election he distributed pamphlets across Catholic churches in the United States and even arranged to propagate radio messages from Frank Sinatra Bing Crosby

and Gary Cooper urging the Italian people to fight back against communism this may seem fairly minor comparatively to the Mafia violence but Spellman's active participation in alleged work with the CIA during the 1948 Italian elections shows the transatlantic quality to Gladio and the true breath of the Vatican's propaganda efforts accordingly the United States dumped an additional $65 million of dirty drug money into the Vatican bank in 1948 and this money was paid out through Vatican front groups such as Catholic Action, a Vatican aid organization that was perfect for doling out laundered cash to mob associates

and finally the Vatican allegedly organized their own terror squads in charge of smashing leftist installations terrorizing communists and working to push the CDP to victory if any of you watched episode 2 of this series it is speculated that Yunio Valerio Borgesi the Black Prince that was saved by James Jesus Angleton was a part of these networks and worked directly with the Vatican to push this agenda as all these forces coalesced finally election day came around Don Collo, the Sicilian mob boss that had helped the allies invade Sicily worked with his men to stuff ballot boxes

and bribed election officials Pope Pius sat in his chambers nervously awaiting the count well the final results left the Christian Democratic Party victorious with 48% of the vote and 307 seats in parliament the communist Socialist coalition had only reached 31% of the vote nearly 30% lower than their projected total and only reached 200 seats in parliament at the end of the day though, the election didn't really matter according to plans drafted by US States Department official George Keenan the department of state recommended a naval invasion of Italy if the communists succeeded nullifying any potential win

for that group democracy was not a possibility for post war Italy through coercion bribery and violence the CIA, the Mafia and the Vatican had successfully put their party in power the Christian Democrats who under Prime Minister Alice Doug Gasperi who from 1945 to 1953 ruled with eight different cabinets and never once purged any members of parliament to this day researchers speculate that former fascists ran rampant in the early Christian Democratic Party and, as for the future of Italy the Christian Democrats would remain in power for the entirety of the Cold War essentially establishing Italy as

a one party state for the rest of the period communism would not go out without a fight however Gladio would only intensify from here as the battle was won but the war had just begun well that's all I've got for today folks but in Part 2 of this mini series which will be coming out quite shortly we will zoom out a bit we will jump across the ocean to New York City and explore the linkages between American Catholic authorities the Federal Bureau of narcotics the FBI and the CIA and how these forces were essentially linked

by blackmail and corruption and how all of this tied into Italian Gladio I promise it will make more sense then I've hinted out it a little bit here but we really have a lot more depth to cover this is really just the surface so thank you all for watching today if you enjoyed this video a like goes a long way and I love hearing all your thoughts in the comments so please make sure to share any thoughts you have subscribe if you haven't already I try to upload quite regularly so uh um yeah I hope

that I won't let you down all that being said thank you so much for watching and remember to always keep your eyes wide open take care