Operation Gladio

Flag of Europe — The flag of the EEC\EU.

US Army M60 tank in German village — An American M60 Patton moves through a village in West Germany as part of the 1982 Reforger exercise.

Belgian F-16B and South Dakota ANG A-7D 1988 — A Belgian F-16B and a USAF LTV A-7 Corsair II take part in a mission during exercise "Cold Fire", one of the series of Reforger '88.

Overview[]

Operation Gladio was named after the Roman Gadius Sword. It part of a series of nation wide European operations first coordinated by the Clandestine Committee of the Western Union (CCWU), founded in 1948. After the creation of NATO in 1949, the CCWU was integrated into the Clandestine Planning Committee (CPC), founded in 1951 and overseen by Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). It was to set up 'stay behind' resistance armys in the region after the Soviets had conquered it if the Cold War had ever gon 'hot' and become a actual 'shooting' war.

Operational units[]

Belgium[]

A illegal and covert right-wing death-squad connected with the far-right Belgian group Westland New Post.

Denmark[]

A resistance army made up of the former stay behind part of the WW2 Danish resistance, the former members of the 56,000 strong WW2 Danish Military Brigade in Exile (it had been banished to Sweden along with a similar 50,000 man Norwegian resistance army), released prisoners of Vestre Fængsel, Frøslevlejren, Neuengamme who wanted early parole after the war and also the Danish Brigade in Shleizwig-Holstein and a minor Danish based unit of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR).

France[]

People who hated General DeGall, Algerian independence, fascists, the predecessor to Order of the Solar Temple and the members of the Organisation armée secrète (OAS).

Germany[]

A unit formed by former Nazi SS members- Staff Sgt. Heinrich Hoffman and Lt. Col. Hans Rues for and one by the unreconstructed Nazi Lt. Col. Walter Kopp.

Greece[]

Illegal armed militias supping the military coup d'état on April 21, and thus Regime of the Colonels of 1967 to 1974.

Italy[]

It supported fascist groups like Ordine Nuovo and National Vanguard against communist armed groups like the Red Brigades in the bloody de-facto civil war that was Italy's Years of Lead and the various strikes of the 1960s and 1970s.

Prime minister Aldo Romeo Luigi Moro was an Italian statesman and politician, and a prominent member of the Christian Democracy party. He served as 38th Prime Minister of Italy, from 1963 to 1968, and then from 1974 to 1976. He was kidnaped and killed by the Red Brigades (in Italy) to Italy's disgust. It is reported by some journalists back then and modern historians the CIA had either put agents in the organisation, corrupted it's ideals and\or told them he had betrayed the communist cause in order to get him killed. The USA was known to hate him for being too left wing. Knowing America's warped mentality, it could easily come out of the sick heads and they would roll on the floor laughing at it!

Members and a leader of Movimento Politico Ordine Nuovo participated in several terrorist attacks. These include the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, the 1970 Rome-Messina train attack, a grenade attack at a 1974 anti-fascist rally, and the 1974 Italicus Express bombing.

Avanguardia Nazionale (Italia) organized the assassination of Italian magistrate Vittorio Occorsio, employing arms supplied by the CIA via its contacts in Francoist Spain. For the killing Pierluigi Concutelli is currently serving a life sentence in Italy. Avanguardia Nazionale member Mario Ricci participated to the 1978 assassination of Argala, the etarra who had taken part, five years before, in the assassination of Francisco Franco's prime minister, Luis Carrero Blanco.

Netherlands[]

A large cover arms cache near the Dutch village of Velp and in a park near Scheveningen. They were for use by agents run by a Dutch government in exile.

Norway[]

A bunch of disorganised crooks and a bunch of rural shaks by what I can gather.

Portugal[]

A covert occupation terrorist organisation trained stuff including bombings, silent assassinations, subversion techniques, clandestine communication and infiltration and colonial warfare.

Turkey[]

The political enemies of the then Turkish prime minister Bülent Ecevit. He was the target of several assassination plots. Rumours persist it still holds out there.

United Kingdom[]

Re-create the Auxiliary Units were attached to GHQ Home Forces, and concealed within the Home Guard. At first this was covert with a few hundred people, but if war was near would be overtly increased by formal conscription and/or new volunteer forces.

Austria[]

It had been covertly set up by far-right winger Herr Soucek and Herr Rössner as a genuine attempt to fight any occupying forces.

Cyprus[]

Illegal Greek and Turkish death squads who wanted to annex it to their home nations by force.

Finland[]

By what I can gather it would have seen heavy bombing of Soviet units around Oulu and/or Turku prior to its invasion by the Sweden by both sea and air with the aim of setting up a safe zone for a pro-Western or strictly neutral Finnish rump state. Swedish backed resistance fighters, who were first organised in 1944, would operate in the south, south west and west of the country. The USA planned for CIA thugs to topple the Finnish government and use right wing resistance fighters to take on the Soviets.

Spain[]

Among the Gladio operative Stefano Delle Chiaie and several members of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (Triple A), thus demonstrating connections between Gladio and the South American "Dirty War". They killed Spanish at Carlists Montejurra Incident in the 1950. It was General Franco's de facto covert death quad. There may well have been covert American support for Guerrilleros de Cristo Rey as well. The Guerrilleros de Cristo Rey (Warriors of Christ the King) was possibly also connected with the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (AKA- The Triple A).

Sweden[]

Covert right wing thugs run by the CIA.

Switzerland[]

A extra-judicial covert fascist secret police force and paramilitaries were set up. By 1990, Swiss army intelligence which had built up files on nearly 8,000 "suspect persons" including "leftists", "bill stickers", "Jehovah's witnesses", people with "abnormal tendencies" and anti-nuclear demonstrators; all of whom had failed to meet the then Swiss national ideal- a bunch of isolationist, money worshiping, environmentally inclined racists.

Soviet insurgents in the Mediterranean, UK and West Germany[]

The GDR — East Germany (the GDR or DDR).

October 22 Group.
Red Army Faction. The RAF members did receive intermittent support and sanctuary in East Germany (GDR) during the 1980s.
Prima Linea.
Red Brigades (in Italy). The Red Brigades primary foreign support came from the Czechoslovak StB and the Palestine Liberation Organization
Revolutionary Organization 17 November. They were named after the day of the 1973 Athens Polytechnic uprising against the Greek military junta.
The British National Union of Mine Workers. Occasionally backed by the GDR, USSR, Bulgaria, Romania and Albania.
the British CND. It was hijacked at one point by the GDR.
and others....

Most of these groups, including those listed above, claimed to be communist, revolutionary, anti-corporate and pro-3rd World, but they were a fraud since they were relay hate filled, mobsters, terrorist and anti-Semitic in nature. All these E. German/Soviet/Polish/Czechoslovak pawns did was bring terror to the streets of several nations as bombed public places, stuck up banks, killed prominent people, commuted kidnappings, promoted Greece at Turkey's expense in Cyprus and hunt down Jews in the name of Arab\German fascism. Karl Marx would have throw up if he knew they were calling them selves 'communist'.

Whistle-blowers[]

They included-

Swiss historian Daniele Ganser.
Judge Liberato Mancuso.
Former Belgian secret agent André Moyen.
General Gerardo Serravalle, who commanded the Italian Gladio.
The Washington Post,
The Boston Globe,
Former Turkish prime minister Bülent Ecevit,
Swiss Major Hans von Dach.
Former Dutch prime Minister Ruud Lubbers
and others....

Also see[]

Germany's Fulda Gap
Finnish pseudo-neutrality
Swedish pseudo-neutrality
Seven days to the River Rhine (1979)
French nuclear plans and the Force de Dissuasion
The Swiss National Redoubt (1880-2010)
North German Plain
Operation Northern Norway
The southern Danube route
Soviet/NATO invasion of Finland
The week of war policy
Operation Square Leg (1980) and Exercise Hard Rock (1982)
Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie
Greece, Turkey and southern Italy
The anti-communist "Revolutions of 1989"
U.S. Army Field Manual 30-31B
British Army of the Rhine (BAOR)
River Elbe Line
"Poland is 'toast'!"
Exercise Teamwork '88
NATO command structures and HQs
NATO