Strategy of tension

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The strategy of tension (Italian: strategia della tensione) is a way to control and manipulate public opinion using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs, false flag terrorism actions and even terroristic actions.

The term was coined in Italy during the trials that followed the 1970s and 1980s terror attacks and murders committed by neofascist terrorists (such as Ordine Nuovo, Avanguardia Nazionale or Fronte Nazionale). The terrorists were backed by intelligence agencies, the P2 masonic lodge and Gladio, a NATO secret "stay-behind" army set up to perform guerilla and resistance activities should Italy be successfully invaded by the Soviet bloc (there were equivalent armies in most Western states). Largely unmonitored by civilian agencies, Gladio began to pursue its own right wing, anti-communist agenda using violent means, which included false flag terrorist attacks.

The suspected aim of these actions was to make the public believe that the bombings were committed by a communist insurgency, to promote the formation of an authoritarian government, and to prevent the growing Italian Communist Party (PCI) from joining the ruling Democrazia Cristiana (DC) in a government of national reconciliation ("historical compromise").

Piazza Fontana's bombing, in December 1969, marked the beginning of the "strategia della tensione", which ended around the time of the Bologna railway station bombing in 1980. In 2000, a Parliamentary report from the Olive Tree coalition concluded that the strategy of tension followed by Gladio had been supported by the United States to "stop the PCI, and to a certain degree also the PSI, from reaching executive power in the country".

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[edit] Piazza Fontana bombing

Main article: Piazza Fontana bombing

On December 12, 1969, a bomb exploded in the National Agrarian Bank in Piazza Fontana, in Milan's centre, killing almost twenty people.

Giuseppe Pinelli, a young anarchist, was first accused of the crime. After his suspicious death, which was claimed to be suicide by the authorities, investigator Luigi Calabresi — accused of being the murderer — came under violent criticism from the left; he would eventually be murdered a few years later. Nobel prize laureate Dario Fo wrote a piece on Pinelli's death, Accidental Death of an Anarchist.

After Pinelli, the police investigated another anarchist, Pietro Valpreda. He quickly became a hero to the left, who perceived him to be a victim of a plot to attribute a fascist bombing to the left. The leftist environment produced an investigative book, La strage di Stato ("The state massacre") [1], in which they claimed the state was attacking anarchists because they (by definition) could not have a political party to defend them, as communists would have had. As it would turn out through years of painstaking investigation, the bombing was indeed a work of the extreme right, even though the connection of the state to these acts is not yet clear.

Neo-fascist terrorist Stefano Delle Chiaie was then arrested in Caracas, Venezuela in 1989 and rendered to Italy to stand trial for his role. Delle Chiaie was however acquitted by the Assise Court in Catanzaro in 1989, along with fellow accused Massimiliano Fachini.

In 1998, David Carrett, officer of the U.S. Navy, was put under investigations on charge of political and military espionage and his participation in the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, among other events. Judge Guido Salvini also opened a case against Sergio Minetto, Italian official for the US-NATO intelligence network, and pentito Carlo Digilio. La Repubblica underlined that Carlo Rocchi, the CIA's man in Milan, was surprised in 1995 searching for information concerning Operation Gladio, thus demonstrating that all was not over [1].

A June 20, 2001 conviction of Italian Neo-fascists Doctor Carlo Maria Maggi, Delfo Zorzi and Giancarlo Rognoni was overturned in March 2004. Carlo Digilio, a suspected CIA informant, received immunity from prosecution by becoming a witness for the state (in agreement with the pentiti laws).

According to Avanguardia Nazionale member Vincenzo Vinciguerra: "The December 1969 explosion was supposed to be the detonator which would have convinced the political and military authorities to declare a state of emergency." [1]

[edit] Bombing of Italicus train, August 4, 1974

August 4th, 1974, 12 died and 105 were injured in the bombing of the train Italicus Roma-Brennero express at San Benedetto Val di Sambro.

[edit] Bologna railway bombing, August 2, 1980

Main article: Bologna massacre

Bologna railway bombing killed 85 persons and injured 200. A long, troubled and controversial court case and political issue ensued. The relatives of the victims formed an association (Associazione tra i famigliari delle vittime della strage alla stazione di Bologna del 2 agosto 1980) to raise and maintain civil awareness on the Bologna massacre. On 23 November 1995 the Italian Supreme Court (Corte di Cassazione) issued the final sentence:

  • confirmation of life imprisonment to the Neo-Fascist terrorists Valerio Fioravanti and Francesca Mambro — who have always pleaded innocent — as executors of the attack
  • sentence for investigation diversion to Licio Gelli (headmaster of Propaganda Due - aka P2), Francesco Pazienza and to SISMI officers Pietro Musumeci and Giuseppe Belmonte.
  • Stefano Delle Chiaie, friend of Licio Gelli and member of the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei (ARN), an off-shoot of Ordine Nuovo, also has been accused of having taken part in it.

[edit] Assassination of General Dalla Chiesa

General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa's murder, in 1982, by the mafia in Palermo is allegedly part of the strategy of tension. Alberto Dalla Chiesa had arrested Red Brigades founders Renato Curcio and Alberto Franceschini in September, 1974, and was later charged of investigation concerning Christian democrat leader Aldo Moro, assassinated in 1978.

[edit] Role of Italian Intelligence Services

In 1974, Vito Miceli, P2 member, chief of the SIOS (Servizio Informazioni), Army Intelligence's Service from 1969 and SID's head from 1970 to 1974, was arrested on charges of "conspiration against the state" concerning investigations about Rosa dei venti, a state-infiltrated group involved in terrorist acts. In 1977, the secret services were reorganized in a democratic attempt. With law #801 of 24/10/1977, SID was divided into SISMI (Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare), SISDE (Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Democratica) and CESIS (Comitato Esecutivo per i Servizi di Informazione e Sicurezza). The CESIS has a coordination role, led by the President of Council.

[edit] Others

Other examples include the Turkish branch of Gladio, Counter-Guerrilla, who followed a similar strategy in Turkey, leading to the 1980 military coup. Operation Condor in South America and events in Algeria during the 1990s. Stefano Delle Chiaie apparently had a hand in both what was happening in Italy and with Operation Condor, as he as met with Michael Townley (a US expatriate, DINA agent). It has been claimed that Delle Chiaie was involved in the murder of General Carlos Prats in Buenos Aires, Argentina on September 30th 1974. Delle Chiaie, along with fellow extremist Vincenzo Vinciguerra, also testified in Rome in December 1995 before judge María Romilda Servini de Cubría that Enrique Arancibia Clavel (a former Chilean secret police agent prosecuted for crimes against humanity in 2004 [2]) and Michael Townley were directly involved in this assassination.[3].

[edit] Books, cinema, theater

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b (Italian) "Strage di Piazza Fontana spunta un agente USA", La Repubblica, February 11, 1998. Retrieved on February 2, 2006. (With original documents, including juridical sentences and the report of the Italian Commission on Terrorism)

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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