Moro case and Ergenekon affaire: Cold war heritage and sovereignty

Only in December 2017 did the Italian parliamentary commission on Aldo Moro’s kidnapping and killing outline what really happened 40 years ago: the cold war framework, the complex Italian political situation, the relations among terrorism, deep state, international and national intelligence agencies, Atlantic and Communist orthodoxy sectors, realpolitik and limited sovereignty of Italy. It was March 16, 1978 when the Italian parliament had to launch the first government with the external support of the PCI (Italian Communist Party). It was the first step before reaching the so-called “compromesso storico” (historical deal, in Italian) a way that Aldo Moro, a prominent Italian statesman of the Christian Democratic Party (DC), and Enrico Berlinguer, general secretary of PCI, found to achieve national interest in the middle of ideological confrontation between Washington and Moscow. Italy was a NATO member, but in its parliament there was the strongest Communist party in the West, actually an “enemy.” Italian military ranks were constantly under scrutiny about loyalty: to NATO or to the Italian parliament with the presence of “enemies.” The Paris peace treaty (1947) downgraded Italy’s role to a “defeated nation.” Article 16 of the treaty stated that Rome could not have an independent Economic, Foreign and Security policy. The U.S., U.K. and France, the victorious nations of World War II, had direction about these issues.

Italy’s history of the last 60 years has been a continuous endeavor to avoid sovereignty restrictions and gain room for national interest, where Washington, London and Paris played different roles, not only because of their different political weight, but because their different perceptions of “danger” and “benefit” about the Italian policy, especially in the Mediterranean basin. It wasn’t simply a difficult situation to deal with, it was a minefield to cross, almost blind.

Nowadays, after half a century, hundreds of files from the U.S. Department of State and from Kew Gardens (British Foreign Office) have been unveiled thanks to the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) and fading secret labels, so the truth is starting to emerge. The plan to control the “defeated” Italy was played over different fields, according to the interests of the winning nations (then allied) of World War II . And it could be a lesson to all countries complaining about foreign intervention in their domestic affairs. Nobody gets democracy and independence for free. Nor is there an instant coffee receipt if not to let people know the “truth.”

The U.S. was fully engaged in Cold War strategic aims. Washington wanted to be sure about NATO’s loyalty and to sell goods and services as per usual. Americans thought that Rome could play a stabilizing role in North Africa and the Middle East because Italy gave up any “colonialist” attitude, and could help to downsize the French and British colonialist approach still active up until the Suez crisis (1956). London and Paris had a different attitude -- they immediately perceived the Italian state’s energy company (ENI) activism in Iraq and Algeria, for instance, as endangering their interests. France got a weak “winner” status because of Vichy. Britain was a shade of the past Empire, but it didn’t give up the political arrogance and the will to defend its interests by any means. Italy was the fragile player in the field because the peace treaty of Paris (1947) prescribed that Rome had no right to have its own Economic, Foreign and Security policy.

In this way, a “deep state” was growing inside “democratic” institutions. On the one side there was the Atlantic treaty supporters, full anti-communists that looked suspiciously at any deal with PCI; on the other the Soviet Union’s friends [there was even a MP that was actually a soviet GRU (Foreign military intelligence) officer] that for different reasons saw any deal with the DC party as a betrayal of the “socialist revolution” that had just been suspended in Italy, because the Yalta agreement put Italy inside the Western hemisphere.

The Turkish Ergenekon case, which someone called the Turkish “Gladio” matching with Italian affaire (“Stay Behind” NATO assets), seems to have been put in the same basket. Mutatis mutandi the origin was similar: Cold War sociopolitical environment, strong ideological clash, limits of national sovereignty. The deep state was borne; security institutions misunderstood the loyalty priorities; those who were involved believed, right or wrong, to be on the right side, which was to be a “patriot” or a good “tovarich.” They resorted to the use of unrest, turmoil and terrorism as a tool for political purposes. In Italy, it was named “Strategia della tensione” (Strategy of tension) in the 60s and “Anni di piombo” (Years of lead) from the 70s, until the Moro case and beyond. The will of external interests that the FOIA files discovered by names, played a main role. A few years after the war, Winston Churchill, talking with high ranking Vatican clergymen, said: “Italy will have only weak politicians and unstable governments.” At the beginning the reason was to avoid Fascism returning, then it was a weird “political” tool to bend Italy to British interests; the Mediterranean basin means a lot to the U.K.

During the 60s, London was very close to support a military putsch in Italy, to avoid communism gaining power, involving in the project of France, Germany and the U.S. Great Britain’s role was to push the U.S. administrations to switch on a green light to the use of force or “other means of subversion.”

In 1969, the French minister of defense, Michel Debré, went to Washington to underline the communist danger in Italy. Of course it was a bit of an excuse to undermine Italy’s interests, because he was the PM during Algeria’s independence, something that the Italian ENI helped to achieve. The CIA, the British MI-6 and French SDECE of Alexandre de Marenches (external intelligence services) were very active in keeping Italy unstable. But the U.S. Department of State was often ready to defuse any “extreme initiative.”

Fortunately even if the Nixon-Kissinger couple was very close to giving a “go” order – Nixon/Brezhnev deal gave free hands in their own field - the “Watergate” scandals (1973) ended Richard Nixon’s career, and Henry Kissinger was put under the control of the U.S. Department of State, always against the use of illegal means to manage the “Italian problem.” Even if only U.S. President Jimmy Carter put the order not to use “illegal operations” in Italy on paper and to openly state the U.S. “opposition” to the PCI entry in government. It was 1977, one year before the Moro kidnapping by the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades), the Italian communist-oriented terrorist organization: a terrorist group that was heavily infiltrated, from the beginning, by Western and Soviet intelligence.

The secret network, built on blackmail, shared responsibilities and dirty deals of the Cold War era, survived long after the Berlin Mauer Fall (1989) in Italy and in other countries. Because the U.S. needed someone to finish the political job to downgrade system rigidity that had been built in Europe under the influence of socialist ideology for 40 years. They gave a political framework called “Third way” (Anthony Giddens) a soft power means, and proposed a deal to former Western European communist leaders. At least it likely happened in Italy. What was the deal? Probably to forget the evidence of their links with the Soviet apparatus and the flow of money from Moscow. Washington promised to put these files under the carpet in exchange for a gentle “de-communist-ization.”