NATO's Secret Armies, Operation Gladio and JFK

[James DiEugenio]

btw, steve, where is that article by Shaw and Fensterwald.

I hope you noted that Rob has some interesting stuff about Aginter Press, which I think they first noted.

[Steve Thomas]

4 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

btw, steve, where is that article by Shaw and Fensterwald.

Jim,

 

I'm not sure what article you are referring to, but there is this:

"Summary of Paris Trip"

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/S%20Disk/Souetre%20Jean%20with%20aka's/Item%2011.pdf

Or are you thinking of this?

"A Possible French Connection"

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/S Disk/Souetre et al, Published/Item 02.pdf

Steve Thomas

[Anthony Thorne]

Cottrell's book is something of a mess, sadly. It's not particularly well footnoted and with a lot of stuff in it you wonder how he came to the assertion.

Phillip Willan's semi-sequel to PUPPETMASTERS  - THE VATICAN AT WAR: FROM BLACKFRIARS BRIDGE TO BUENOS AIRES - is here, and at 83% off the listed Kindle price the ebook is currently about four bucks on Amazon. I'm buying it right now.

https://www.amazon.com/Vatican-War-Blackfriars-Bridge-Buenos-ebook/dp/B079J4PNN6/ref=pd_sim_351_1/144-7891312-6341605?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B079J4PNN6&pd_rd_r=308c4168-91c8-4a6e-b551-539dd7bb46cf&pd_rd_w=eWMU6&pd_rd_wg=IUVaH&pf_rd_p=90485860-83e9-4fd9-b838-b28a9b7fda30&pf_rd_r=3H504JJPR1M0RSESKN4Y&psc=1&refRID=3H504JJPR1M0RSESKN4Y

Chapter titles in THE VATICAN AT WAR include 'The Bologna Bombing' and 'Meeting Licio' (obviously Licio Gelli) so I'll be curious to see how heavily Gladio reappears in the volume, but Willan has stated it's a continuation of the research he did with PUPPETMASTERS.

Edited July 21, 2019 by Anthony Thorne

[James DiEugenio]

Anthony: about the Cottrell book, that is the same conclusion that Rob came to also.

Lots of interesting information but not rigorously footnoted.  So he decided to build his work on the other two authors, plus Metta.

[Paul Brancato]

14 hours ago, Rob Couteau said:

Cottrell follows with this passage on François Grossouvre:

"The death - or murder - within the precincts of the presidential palace set off a political earthquake around the tottering regime of Francois Mitterrand, the renowned escapologist of French politics. François Grossouvre, 76-year-old aristocrat found slumped at his desk on 7th April 1994, with two bullet holes drilled in his temple, was a fading old retainer in the Gothic Court of France's nominally socialist president." (In France, Mitterrand and his party were widely referred to as Caviar Socialists.) "He was long celebrated as the man in the shadows for his links to the French military-espionage complex, and guardian of uncomfortable truths concerning Mitterrand's much air-brushed past as collaborator and sympathizer with the extremist pre-war Far-Right. He was also the man who knew too much about the sitting president's role in serial attempts to kill General de Gaulle."

Now, speaking about the suspicious "suicide" of  François Grossouvre:

"The small difficulty was that slugs fired by the pistol which sent him to eternity appeared not to perfectly match the revolver, a .357 Magnum which he was still gripping in one hand. Another curiosity was exactly how he managed to score two shots to his own head.... [When François Grossouvre died] he carried off many useful secrets. The man of the shadows was former commandant in chief of the French stay-behind army, who began his secret military career as officer-in-charge of Arc en Ciel - the Rainbow - based in Lyon. He was privy to Mitterrand's personal decision to sink the Greenpeace yacht Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour, New Zealand, on 10th July 1985. And he knew exactly why Mitterrand sanctified Yves Guerin-Serac, the most fanatical terrorist in contemporary French history. In the course of a long life as a wealthy businessman, media magnate, counselor of state, agent for French external intelligence SDECE and the CIA, the lean-framed, bearded aristocrat managed to find time to father six children. But he was really married to his lifelong muse en chef, Francois Mitterrand."

(I only wish this book was better footnoted and sourced.)

Agree about his sourcing, but he is a very entertaining writer.

[Paul Brancato]

21 hours ago, Rob Couteau said:

And these two interviews with Dr Ganser are really good:

1. Dr. Daniele Ganser Interview : "NATO's Secret Armies - Operation GLADIO"

 

 

Really appreciate this interview. Ganser speaks well and with authority. Some of the speculations near the end about 9/11 and about Islamic terrorism are very interesting. 

[Rob Couteau]

 

On 7/21/2019 at 11:52 AM, Paul Brancato said:

Agree about his sourcing, but he is a very entertaining writer.

Yes, he is, and thanks again for steering me to his book. He has a wonderfully snarky and witty British sense of humor. The 2015 edition that I have does have a section of end notes, which I think may not have been included in earlier editions. But still, there should be more. 

On 7/21/2019 at 7:16 AM, Anthony Thorne said:

Cottrell's book is something of a mess, sadly. It's not particularly well footnoted

A big "thank you" to Anthony, who initially provided me with a great list of things to explore regarding Gladio. And because of his proviso about approaching the Cottrell book with caution, I did exactly that. 

Edited July 21, 2019 by Rob Couteau

[Rob Couteau]

On 7/21/2019 at 2:34 AM, Steve Thomas said:

I don't know exactly why Cottrell would say that.

In July, 1968, Charles DeGaulle issued a general amnesty for all those involved in the "Algerian affair".  If my memory serves me right, some 13,000 OAS members had been arrested at that point.

Steve, Good point and I don't recall if Cottrell mentions this in his book. However I think the key note he is focusing on is why Mitterrand went out of his way to increase Yves Guerin-Serac's pension. He's convinced it was some sort of payback for a favor, possibly related to attempts on De Gaulle's life. Also, after rereading this chapter (entitled "One Last French Kiss"), I believe that Cottrell is using the word pardon in more of a moral than legal sense; hence he also says that Mitterrand's action "sanctified" Guerin-Serac and his dubious behavior. Interesting word to use, because that leads us to what  you said here:

 

On 7/21/2019 at 2:34 AM, Steve Thomas said:

It's hard for me to understand how an ultra orthodox Catholic could countenance the murder of a Catholic President.

Astonishing and completely illogical, yet it does not surprise me in the least. As the survivor of eight years of Catholic elementary school in the Sixties, I know quite well how Roman Catholic indoctrination paints the world into a pair of Manichean opposites. So if you are not with us, you are against us (sort of like the Dulles's condemnation of non-aligned nations!), and therefore you deserve to roast in hell. And any means are justified in overthrowing you, including assassination, because after all we are making the world a better place for God-fearing Christians. It was also for this reason that in the late 1940s or early 1950s J Edgar Hoover sent a memo to all Special Agents in Charge (SACS) instructing them to hire Irish Catholic clerks and secretaries. Hoover believed that Roman Catholics were well trained to obey authority (the Church) and would thus make excellent FBI clones. (There's even good book on why Protestant Hoover forged an alliance with the Catholic Church: "The FBI and the Catholic Church, 1935-1962" by Steve Rosswurm). As you know, rightwing Catholicism has a long history. I'll bet Jim D and Joseph McBride have some good anecdotes about surviving Catholic school as well.

[Rob Couteau]

On 7/20/2019 at 10:57 PM, James DiEugenio said:

How did Gladio stay secret as long as it did?  Amazing

Jim, Your remark has got me thinking about other ops that must be occurring today that will lead future historians to ask the same question. But more to our topic, they may well ask: "How did Gladio B stay as secret as long as it did?" once Gladio A was shuttered in 1990. Recall that as soon as the first secret army was exposed in France, it was shut down ... and then secretly reformed. Same old patterns. As Carl Jung would say, "Old wine in new bottles," an expression that goes back to the parables of Christ.

[Michael Clark]

I haven’t seen @Paz Marverde in a while. I would think that she would appreciate this topic.

[W. Niederhut]

My favorite Daniel Ganser quote... (Not sure if he coined it.)

"All theories about 9/11 are conspiracy theories."

[James DiEugenio]

That is funny is it not?

 

Mike, I alerted Paz to this article via e mail.

[Rob Couteau]

On 7/21/2019 at 2:52 PM, W. Niederhut said:

"All theories about 9/11 are conspiracy theories."

That is a gem!

 

[James DiEugenio]

Steve:

Thanks, it was the Shaw/ Fensterwald article.

I was impressed by that when I first read it.  I wanted to include it as an appendix in my first book, but my editor did not since it was not a primary document.

What Rob has done is to expand the canvas for that essay.

[James DiEugenio]

BTW, has anyone asked this question:  what was so important about Italy?

The elections of 1948, GLADIO, Permindex, Red Brigades, murder of Aldo Moro, Propaganda Due?

And unbeleivably, Gelli gets a front seat at Reagan's inauguration?