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In the 1980s, the Italian government launched an investigation into a series of devastating terrorist attacks, these bombings, shootings and kidnappings had ravaged Italy for decades as officials reopened old cases, they found a surprising pattern.

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With several of these bombings, evidence was misplaced or destroyed. Important leads weren't followed, and oftentimes the perpetrators were never found. Even stranger, the terrorists weren't using poorly made improvised bombs. The U.S. for a military grade explosive, which was strictly controlled by the American government. In 1990, Italy's prime minister Giulio Andreotti was called to testify before parliament. They wanted to know how terrorists had acquired this dangerous technology.

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Prime Minister Andreadis Answer shocked the world. He said that the stolen C4 was from a military program that had hidden thousands of weapons throughout Italy.

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This secret operation had buried explosives, rifles, machine guns and grenades under civilian buildings. Churches, parks and government offices unknowingly became armouries. But that was only the beginning.

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The prime minister revealed these caches were supplies for a clandestine army, one that had been operating in the shadows for nearly 40 years.

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Thousands of these agents were hiding throughout Europe. Their identities closely guarded state secrets funded by the CIA and MI6.

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This paramilitary force was preparing for World War Three. Its code name was Operation Gladio. Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a podcast original every Monday and Wednesday, we dig into the complicated stories behind the world's most controversial events and search for the truth. I'm Carter Roy. And I'm Ali Brandenberg. And neither of us are conspiracy theorists, but we are open minded, skeptical and curious.

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Don't get us wrong. Sometimes the official version is the truth, but sometimes it's not.

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You can find episodes of conspiracy theories and all other originals from Park Cast for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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This is our first episode on Operation Gladio Secret Cold War military program. The initiative helped Europe prepare for a Soviet invasion by burying thousands of weapons all over the continent. Gladio operatives were trained to use explosives, assassinate important targets and sabotage infrastructures. This week, we'll explore the history of this hidden organization who created it and why. We'll also learn how a terrorism investigation revealed the program's existence to the world.

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Next week, we'll consider the theory that Operation Gladio was put to use against civilians. We'll cover Swiss historian Daniel Cancer's beliefs that it was utilized by the CIA to counter the rise of communism in Europe. More damning will investigative operation Gladio fought communism by funding fanatical right wing terrorists and thus altering the course of history. We have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. In the latter half of the 20th century, Europe was caught in the middle of the Cold War on one side where liberal democracies like the United States, Britain, France and much of Western Europe on the other were communist nations like the Soviet Union, East Germany and Poland.

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Each side wanted to impose their political ideology on the world.

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The communists of the Soviet Union believed a global worker revolution was imminent. They wanted to seize all wealth and property held by individuals and put it in the hands of an autocratic one party government.

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Then it would be redistributed equally amongst the people of America and the West promoted democracy and capitalism.

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They advocated for private ownership of wealth with limited government regulation. No one believed that these two ideologies could coexist peacefully. One belief system would have to fight in order to eradicate and replace the other.

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The Cold War wasn't fought on a battlefield. It took place in the minds of people all over the world. The troops weren't soldiers. They were spies. The United States Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, sent operatives all over the world to influence events and gather information. The Soviet Union's Committee for State Security, or KGB, did the same.

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Both used propaganda, disinformation and secret plots to advance their country's interest. The result was a complex web of shifting alliances as both sides jockeyed for global influence.

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This conflict never developed into open war, but it was destructive.

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Between 1950 and 1990, it inspired a rash of terrorist attacks that plagued Europe.

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There were numerous bombings, kidnappings and assassinations committed by far left and far right groups.

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The far left communists sought to undermine state governments and inspire a violent revolution. The far right fascists wanted to terrorize the civilian populace. They believed the public would embrace an authoritarian government if they felt unsafe.

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These groups each shared a common ideology, but they usually didn't coordinate their attacks.

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Terrorist cells consisted of only a few dozen members and worked independently of each other. Their operatives planted bombs in civil spaces or assassinated public figures. No target was off limits, not even the pope.

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In 1981, Pope John Paul the second supported an anti-communist movement in Poland. The Soviet Union controlled the country, but feared this could erode their influence. The Kremlin allegedly offered support to a terrorist who tried but failed to assassinate the pope.

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Has this information came to light? Civilians started to believe that if the Soviet Union was funding terrorist, then a variety of national governments must also be playing a role in terrorist plots. Swiss historian Daniel Ganzer largely agreed with this theory. He posited that these decades of terrorism were carefully orchestrated. Someone was trying to control public opinion on a global scale, though it seemed that these far left and far right groups were on opposite sides.

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Ganzer believed they were part of the same organization, a secret multinational military operation that trains civilians to use machine guns and explosives.

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According to Gansler, the group buried weapons stockpiles in churches, parks and government buildings. It was called Operation Gladio.

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Operation Gladio was a stay behind military plan. This required nations to train secret agents and plant them in their own territory. They'd remain undercover unless the country was conquered by an enemy force.

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Then the operatives would activate and form a resistance movement. They'd gather intelligence on enemy forces and sabotage important infrastructures like bridges and railways.

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This would make it difficult for enemy forces to move through conquered territory. If necessary, they'd be instructed to attack enemy troops using guerrilla tactics.

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The inspiration for Operation Gladio came from the civilian resistance movements of World War Two. Though the French government surrendered to Hitler in 1940, small grassroots organizations continue to fight against the German occupation. The partisans were not soldiers.

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They were civilians who stole printing presses, distributed illegal newspapers and seized arms from military garrisons. They fought Nazi occupation in secret with acts of sabotage. One of the largest organizations was known as the Frank Terror, a partisan. Their recruits were often use with little training. Thomas Elich was one such youth, and he was only 16 when he joined frunk terror in 1941.

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Armed with only a wrench and like disabled numerous railways used by German armies, he and other members of Frank Tyrer also launched grenade attacks on the occupying troops.

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They set fire to Nazi libraries and in 1943 blew up a convoy, killing 600 enemy officers and soldiers.

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Resistance organizations received support from American and British intelligence agencies during World War Two. Hundreds of secret agents parachuted into France to aid these groups.

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One of these agents was an American woman named Virginia Hall. She was sent into France in 1941 and became one of the resistance's most important assets.

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Many Germans didn't believe a woman was capable of being a spy, which allowed her to be invisible.

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Hall organized resistance fighters relayed information and hit allies from Nazi investigators at its peak halls network had fifteen hundred members.

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The Germans called her the enemy's most dangerous spy hole, and others, like her, turned small, disconnected cells of partisans into a cohesive fighting force despite their lack of training and limited resources. These units became a key element of allied battle plans.

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Their value was especially clear during D-Day in preparation for that storied invasion of Normandy in June of 1944, resistance agents committed over 1000 acts of sabotage. They cut telegraph wires, damaged roadways and published disinformation about where the attacks would occur. This support was essential for British and American troops as they landed on French beaches.

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This type of guerrilla resistance warfare wasn't just used in France, the Netherlands, Poland, Yugoslavia and Soviet Union all had similar movements. Their efforts drained Nazi resources, manpower and morale.

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Recognizing how effective this strategy was. Germany, you stay behind tactics themselves.

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At the end of World War Two, German high command planted the seeds of a resistance movement as they retreated from Italy. The Nazis hoped it would distract the allies and buy them time to regroup.

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This was one of the first government run stay behind operations. Loyal SS operatives were given weapons and fake identities. They were tasked with disrupting allied supply lines and causing chaos.

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However, Federico Umberto D'Amato, a young Italian policeman, uncovered a list of German stay behind agents. As the allies marched towards Rome, D'Amato and his accomplices rounded up the German operatives and handed them over to military leaders. Thanks to this effort, Domoto later became a leading member of Italy's secret intelligence agency.

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However, a new conflicts started brewing as World War Two came to an end. America, Britain, France and the rest of Western Europe grew wary of their Soviet allies.

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As the Soviet Red Army march towards Berlin, Britain's Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, worried that they'd sweep through the rest of Europe.

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The Soviets infantry outnumbered the allies three to one. They had many more tanks and aircraft. Military leaders came to the sobering conclusion that the Soviets could conquer the entire continent if they chose.

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This meant that allied leaders needed a contingency plan, something that would buy them time to prepare a counterattack. So they look to the resistance movements in France for inspiration. It became clear that, though effective, the stay behind strategy had flaws. The biggest was the lack of training and weapons.

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European governments decided that these movements had to be a full branch of a nation's military, like the Navy or the Air Force.

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Officers would be trained in the most effective types of sabotage clandestine networks could be. Planted years in advance, if World War Three broke out, Europe would be ready, but if the enemy discovered the existence of the program, all that preparation would be for nothing. This meant that every aspect had to be top secret, hidden from the public, government officials and sometimes the military itself. Coming up, intelligence operatives said Operation Gladio, InMotion. Listeners, do I have a mystifying new show for you, it's called Superstitions, and it explores the varying beliefs people around the world fear and follow.

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It's so eerie. I know you'll love it. Every Wednesday, step inside stories that illustrate the horror, weirdness and truth behind humanity's strangest codes of conduct. Why shouldn't you say Macbeth in a theater? What evil gets triggered when you walk under an open ladder? And how come certain films seem cursed and others don't? Each new episode of Superstitions presents a story that unlocks the mysteries of unorthodox traditions and surreal phenomena.

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They may seem cryptic or illogical or completely insane, but then again, do they follow the Spotify original from perkiest superstitions free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts?

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Now back to the story. Following World War Two, many European nations, as well as the United States felt threatened by the Soviet Union, outnumbered in soldiers and weapons, they feared the Soviets would use their power to conquer allied territory. The nations needed a contingency plan.

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In 1949, a military alliance was officially formed between the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Greece and other Western European countries. Together, they created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, to counter Soviet aggression.

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NATO was a mutual defense pact. If one of these nations was invaded, the rest of the countries promised to leap to their defense. It prevented the Soviet Union from conquering one country at a time like Germany had in World War Two.

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But there was another clause in the agreement. Each country would develop their own stay behind forces.

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Officially, each nation set up its own independent program. France developed a network of experienced veteran resistance fighters under the code name Rose Duvalle in Sweden.

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The operation was led by Ted upon the head of Swedish Secret Intelligence.

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In a discussion with another official, he claimed the network was fully operational and capable of gathering intelligence, committing sabotage and engaging in psychological warfare.

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But the most famous stay behind operation was in Italy. It was known as Operation Gladio. This program was so secret that even today, few specifics can be verified, the earliest official record of this program dates back to 1951. That was when the head of Italy's secret intelligence agency, General Umberto Broccoli, sent a note to the minister of defense.

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In his memo, General Broccolis suggested that a clandestine force would be extremely valuable if a hostile power were to invade. He believed these resistance fighters could assist military units caught behind adversarial lines. They could also provide information on enemy troop movements.

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General Broccoli claimed that similar projects were already implemented in other NATO countries. He didn't want his country to be left behind.

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Broccoli asked the minister of Defense for permission to send seven officers to a special training course in England. These candidates would be schooled in covert operations and tactics. It also would help strengthen ties between Italy and Britain.

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It's unclear if those seven officers ever went to England. There's no official record of their visit. However, a plan to develop a clandestine military force did go forward. But instead of support from Great Britain, the Italian intelligence agency had a different benefactor America's CIA.

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Italy stayed behind.

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Network appears to be the only one that receives significant support from a foreign power. This was because Italy bordered communist Yugoslavia and had the largest recognized Communist Party in Western Europe with the ideological conflict between the east and West.

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The CIA knew Italy was an important battlefield. Its government was one of the most left leaning, and if the Soviet Union invaded, Italy would be their first target, creating a stay behind force. And this location was essential.

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So Italy got to work. Developing Operation Gladio and its six branches. Intelligence stayed behind fighters, communications, cipher propaganda and exfiltration.

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The intelligence sector consisted of spies who would gather information on enemy positions and plans, stay behind units fought with guerrilla style tactics.

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Their job was to attack adversarial troops and destroy their supplies. Communication operatives were given advanced stealth radio equipment.

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They'd maintain contact with their superiors deep in enemy territory. The cipher branch devise codes to keep messages secure. Propaganda agents were trained to turn the local population against the invaders.

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Finally, exfiltration operatives were experts in evasion and escape. They were tasked with smuggling enemy dissidents out of the country. They would also help allied spies when their cover was blown.

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With these branches in place, an enemy army would have a very hard time controlling Italy. In 1951, each branch consisted of only one officer. It was their job to recruit more agents. The goal was for the program to be fully operational and have hundreds of members within two years. In 1953, the program built its first secret military base, the Italian government bought a large plot of land on Sardinia, an island west of the Italian peninsula. It became a training camp for these operatives if there was an invasion.

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The Italian military made plans to defend Sardinia at all costs.

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Meanwhile, the Italians received considerable CIA assistance. They contributed 485 million lire to help build the camp in Sardinia. That would be about nine million U.S. dollars today. It also covered things like radio equipment and aircraft.

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By late 1956, this clandestine stay behind network was fully trained and operational. The organization received its code name, Operation Gladio. It stemmed from the word Gladius, the short sword used by soldiers of ancient Rome.

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The program had somewhere between 600 and 1500 members. They were referred to as gladiators and were stationed throughout Italy. Throughout the 1950s. Operation Gladio was overseen by a committee of 11 military and intelligence officers. Eight of the members were from the Italian government and three were from the CIA. These 11 unelected people determine the future of the operation and when it would be activated.

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There are no records of Gladio missions taking place during this time period. However, agents did go through training drills. They just never went on the offensive. Their orders were to maintain cover and wait for the Cold War to turn hot.

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But in 1959, things changed. The committee decided that training these operatives wasn't enough. They needed supplies.

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So Gladio operatives were given their first orders to hide secret weapon caches throughout Italy.

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Under the cover of darkness, agents snuck into churches, parks and government buildings. They buried crates of rifles, explosives, hand grenades and rocket launchers. Most of these weapons were supplied by the CIA. By 1970, Gladio agents had hidden 139 weapons caches throughout Italy. When Italian citizens brought their children to the park or went to Sunday Mass, they unknowingly walked over Operation Gladius Private Armory. By this point, the cost of Operation Gladio was enormous. The Italian government and CIA spent around three billion lire on the program, over 32 million U.S. dollars today.

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This is a lot considering. After 20 years, the organization still hadn't engaged in military operations. It solely existed as a plan of last resort, hopefully one that would never be needed.

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But internal records suggest there may have been disagreements over Operation Gladius purpose because in 1963, the CIA asked for a return on their investment.

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Notes from a Gladio committee meeting showed that CIA agents asked Italian officials to activate the program.

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They wanted Italy to use their state behind resources for American operations in Europe and Africa during this time.

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American President John F. Kennedy wasn't as concerned about the Soviet Union invading Italy. He was more worried about the communist insurgency in the Middle East, Africa and other parts of Europe now.

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It wasn't just foreign powers spreading the gospel of communism. Independent local groups had since picked up the message and were promoting it through grassroot efforts.

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Kennedy believed this was just as if not more dangerous, especially because they were staging terrorist attacks to incite their much longed for revolution.

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To combat this internal threat, the Kennedy administration advocated for training counterinsurgency forces instead of sending in American operatives to fight, they teach local battalions to do it.

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This approach was deemed more palatable to the public. America wouldn't be directly interfering in the political struggle of various nations. They would be supporting groups whose cause aligned with theirs.

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These counterinsurgency operatives were trained in psychological warfare. They also learned how to develop propaganda of their own. However, these local agents had to be trained in secret because flying them all the way from Africa or Europe to American military bases would look suspicious. Instead, the Kennedy administration wanted the Italian government and Operation Gladio to help. The CIA had four requests. First, they wanted Gladio to organize a group of Italian counterinsurgency instructors. Second, Italy would fly these commanders to various foreign nations and teach their tactics to local operatives.

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Third, they asked to use Gladius Base in Sardinia for training. And finally, the CIA wanted to activate some Gladio propaganda operatives in Italy. They did not ask to activate any other branches of the organization, such as the resistance fighters or exfiltration units. So it seemed like a reasonable request.

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However, the Italian government felt this was a dramatic step for the Gladieux program. It was designed to fight an invading foreign army. Now the CIA was asking to turn it into an offensive operation to fight dissidents in other nations. There's no evidence that the Italian government gave in to the CIA's requests. However, there was one reference to counterinsurgency efforts in the official Gladio records.

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In 1966, Operation Gladio agents engaged in a counterinsurgency exercise. It took place in the northeastern city of Trieste, Italy, which bordered Yugoslavia operatives, simulated a communist takeover of the city.

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They were instructed to respond with all means at their disposal.

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The outcome of the exercise wasn't recorded, but one thing was evidential. The Italians did not bring in any local forces for the CIA to train during this exercise.

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After 1972, CIA contributions to Operation Gladio decreased. Most historians believe this is because Italy refused to comply with the CIA's requests. In retaliation, America stopped providing aid for Gladieux.

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This may have been a smart move for the American government because later that year, disaster struck one of gladius hidden weapons stockpiles was discovered by workers in northeastern Italy. While clearing a construction site, they uncovered a crate filled with explosives and weapons.

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Word of the discovery reached Italian secret intelligence.

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They used their influence to cover it up and claim the weapons belonged to a criminal enterprise.

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But it became apparent that having military grade weapons out in the open was far too risky.

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The Gladio committee called an emergency meeting. They decided to retrieve the weapon caches they'd buried only a few years prior. However, they could only find 137 out of the original 139 stockpiles. The last two were gone.

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The committee decided the retrieval crew must have received the wrong coordinates, yet a high profile investigation was out of the question. It would mean acknowledging the existence of Operation Gladio. What they really wanted was for the program to fade away, and it did.

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Throughout the 1980s, Operation Gladio went into decline as the Cold War neared its end, Soviet invasion seemed less and less likely. Recruitment and training slowed down. By 1990, only a quarter of the agents remained.

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These operatives quietly live normal lives, never discussing their secret profession. And they might have remained that way forever, preparing for a war that never came.

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But a chance parliamentary investigation changed everything. A judge reviewing a decade old terrorism case realized some evidence didn't add up, and a program that had spent decades in the shadows was dragged into the limelight. Coming up next, an act of terrorism reveals Operation Gladio to the world now back to the story.

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During the Cold War, countries like Italy, Denmark, Sweden, France and Norway built secret resistance networks to prevent the threat of an occupying force. The programs were to remain dormant until a nation was conquered. Then they'd wreak havoc behind enemy lines.

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But as the power of the Kremlin waned, maintaining these secret programs seemed less important.

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Admitting these stay behind operations existed would be a political embarrassment.

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Governments didn't want anyone to know that civilians had been secretly trained in assassination and sabotage. They would also have to reveal they'd hidden weapons in public facilities throughout the country towards the end of the Cold War.

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European governments wanted to shutter these programs, classify the records and pretend they never existed. But a terrorist car bombing would bring the whole house of cards tumbling down.

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It began on the evening of May 31st, 1972. An anonymous caller phoned the police station near Paiano, a village in northeastern Italy.

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He said he'd found an abandoned car on the side of the road. It appeared to be involved in a shootout.

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Three officers were dispatched to investigate the scene. When they arrived, they found an empty white Fiat sedan. Two bullet holes had penetrated the windshield, but there was no sign of blood or a struggle. One of the officers approached the vehicle. He attempted to open the Fiat's hood when suddenly.

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The car exploded, all three officers at the scene were killed. It became clear that the anonymous caller had planted the bomb and lured the police there to die. The government was outraged and launched an investigation.

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And fortunately, events like these were common in Italy between 1960 and 1980. During this time, both right and left wing terrorist groups orchestrated violent terrorist attacks. It was known as the years of LED. The Patiño car bombing was quickly attributed to a communist group known as the Red Brigades. Investigators matched the chemical signature of the bomb to explosives the Red Brigades had used before.

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Following this discovery, there was a nationwide crackdown on left wing organizations. Over 200 communists were arrested and questioned, but the individuals responsible for the attack were never found.

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Sadly, the incident was overshadowed by new assaults in 1974.

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Ordinate Nero, a right wing group, bombed a train in Bologna, killing 12.

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In 1978, Red Brigade members kidnapped and assassinated former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro.

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Finally, the people and government of Italy had enough. In the mid 1980s, the Italian parliament launched a comprehensive campaign to fight political terrorism.

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They mobilized hundreds of officials to find out who'd orchestrated these attacks and how they were funded. One of the key players of this effort was a 31 year old magistrate named Felicia Carcassonne. His job was reviewing old case files to find clues that may have been missed during the initial investigation.

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When he reviewed the documents on the 1972 Pityana bombing, he discovered many irregularities. First of all, there was no record of police investigating the scene after the bombing or interrogating witnesses.

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But the most shocking discovery was that the forensic report about the bomb had been forged.

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It said the explosive was similar to dynamite, but the chemical profile didn't quite match. So Judge Carcassonne had the bomb fragments analyzed again.

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The lab confirmed that the patent on a bomb was actually made from a military grade plastic explosive called C4, and it was used exclusively by NATO affiliated armies.

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How it fell into terrorist hands was a mystery.

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Then Carcassonne stumbled upon another investigation from 1972. Police officers had found a puzzling cache of buried weapons, which included C4, but there was no record of any investigation.

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It seems to have just been ignored or even covered up. Casone kept digging.

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He believed that these two cases had to be connected. He reopened the inquiry into the Patiño bombing. Old witnesses were interviewed and suspects questioned. Soon they found the bomber.

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The terrorist responsible was named Vincenzo Vincey Guerra. But he wasn't a member of the Red Brigades. He was part of a right wing extremist group called The New Order.

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During his interrogation, Vincenzo revealed that New Order members had infiltrated Italy's police force. One associate had forged the explosives report in 1972. Others had altered evidence. But then he made a startling accusation.

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Vincenzo claimed the Italian military was aware of the new orders infiltrators.

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They'd even smuggled Vincenzo to Spain after the bombing to keep it quiet. In his testimony, Vincenzo said there was an organization, quote, composed of civilians and military men in an anti Soviet capacity to organize a resistance on Italian soil against a Russian army. But since there was no Soviet invasion, this organization fought against Italian citizens who supported communism.

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Instead, Vincenzo was describing Operation Gladio, but no one took his story seriously. Most officials believed he was lying. He was a convicted murderer and terrorist.

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He may have been trading fake information for a more lenient sentence, though Judge Carcassonne was skeptical of Vincenzo's testimony. It didn't seem entirely crazy. He thought of the buried weapons found by police in 1972.

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They had simply vanished into thin air, as if someone didn't want the police looking too closely over the next six years, Judge Carcassonne lobbied officials for more explanations.

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He needed to know if there was any truth to Vincenzo's testimony. Eventually, he found records of the 139 weapon caches that had been buried around Italy.

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At this time, Prime Minister Andreotti was one of the few people who knew Operation Gladio had, in fact, existed.

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He also knew that it was only a matter of time before the program became public knowledge. To prevent a scandal, he had to acknowledge the program's existence.

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That October, before a parliamentary commission, Andreotti revealed the full extent of Project Gladio.

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He unveiled the Joint Task Force with the CIA, the secret training camp on Sardinia and the buried weapons caches.

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But he was adamant that it was a structure of information and response, not a terrorist organization.

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Operation Gladio had not been involved with the bombings or assassinations during the years of lead.

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Still, the revelations sparked a political firestorm. Reporters all over Europe began looking for other programs like Gladio. Citizens wanted to know if there had been a secret army training in their own backyard.

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More importantly, they wanted to know how many arms and munitions had fallen into the hands of terrorists.

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The bad press forced Belgium, Sweden and other countries to reveal the existence of their own stay behind programs. However, like Italy, they all claim these programs had remained dormant. They were never activated for political reasons, nor did they commit acts of terrorism.

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These assurances didn't convince everyone, especially since they had kept their stay behind program secret for 40 years.

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In 2004, Swiss historian Daniel Ganzer published a comprehensive account of these programs, titled NATO's Secret Armies Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe. Ganzer claimed that the CIA had used Operation Gladio to fund terrorism all over Western Europe. His evidence was a controversial document called U.S. Army Field Manual 30 31, be it detailed how to stage violent attacks and blame left wing groups.

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It was called a strategy of tension, according to the manual. This coordinated violence would keep civilians in a state of terror, and that fear would be directed at communism.

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The authenticity of this document is still up for debate, though the United States was opposed to communism. It claims that Field Manual 331 B was a forgery. Disinformation created by the Soviet Union.

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Ganzer stands behind his claims. He also made more incendiary allegations. He believes that the operatives behind Operation Gladio weren't just patriotic military veterans. According to Ganster, they were actually far right wing operatives, in some cases former German veterans. If true, this means that after America defeated the Nazis, they hired some of them to fight their battles.

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Next week, we'll take a look at Daniel Ganzel theory that Operation Gladio funded terrorism attacks throughout Europe in our first conspiracy theory.

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We'll examine the origins of U.S. Army Field Manual 331.

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B, was it the CIA's Cold War playbook or a Soviet Union plot to discredit America in conspiracy theory?

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Number two. We'll investigate whether the ranks of Operation Gladio were really filled with right wing terrorists and former Nazis.

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Finally, in our last conspiracy theory, we'll discuss two of the most famous terrorist plots of the 20th century, the kidnapping and murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro and the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul, the second officially.

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These attacks were launched by radical actors. They weren't part of an overarching global strategy.

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But if Ganzer is right, it means that the most powerful terrorist organization in the world was America's. See, I am. Thanks for tuning in to conspiracy theories will be back Wednesday with part two of Operation Gladio. Of the many sources we used, we found NATO's Secret Armies by Daniel Ganzer and stay behind a clandestine Cold War phenomenon by Olav Resta. To be the most helpful in our research, you can find all episodes of conspiracy theories and all other originals from Park for free on Spotify.

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Until then, remember, the truth isn't always the best story and the official story isn't always the truth.

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Conspiracy Theories is a Spotify original from podcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, Sound Design by Anthony Vasic with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden and Bruce Kaktovik. This episode of Conspiracy Theories was written by Evan McGahey with writing assistance by Lori Gottlieb and Abigail Adams Ague Fact Checking by Annibale and research by Brad Klein and Brian Peatross. Conspiracy theory stars Molly Brandenberg and Carter Roy.

[00:44:34]

Bad omens, good fortune, pure luck. Take a closer look at what you believe in and follow the Spotify original from Past Superstitions, new episodes, Air Weekly every Wednesday. Listen free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast.