Conspiracies & the Unknown: Operation Gladio

0:00Hi everyone, it's Vanessa Richardson. Before today's episode, I want to tell you about another Crime House show, Murder True Crime Stories. Join Carter Roy every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday as he explores history's most notorious murders like you've never heard before. Follow Murder True Crime Stories, available wherever you listen to podcasts. This is Crime House. The Cold War ended decades ago, but the secret armies it created may never have stood down. In the 1950s, the CIA quietly planted elite paramilitary units across Western Europe. Soldiers trained to fight from the shadows. The invasion they were built for never came. What happened next is where the conspiracy begins. Welcome to Crime House 24-7.

1:00I'm Vanessa Richardson. Twice a day every day we bring you the best, most timely and gripping cases from across the entire Crime House network, all in one place, right here. And every Wednesday is conspiracies and the unknown, where we dig into the conspiracies, cover-ups, and unexplained mysteries that defy easy answers. Today we're uncovering Operation Gladio, the Cold War's secret stay behind armies. The first of two cases we've got for you today, and this story isn't staying varied. Newly declassified NATO and Italian government documents have reignited debate over Operation Gladio's true scope, with historians and investigators pressing for a full accounting of attacks that were never officially solved. The question of who gave the orders and whether anyone will ever answer for it is still very much open. This community exists because of listeners like you. Want even more? Join Crime House Plus for every episode of Crime House 24-7, Add Free.

2:04Not only that, but you'll get complete access to an exclusive limited series every month, and early Add Free access to all Crime House shows and bonus episodes. Go to CrimeHousePlus.com. Or on Apple Podcasts, tap Try Free at the top of the Crime House 24-7 page. Now I take you deep into the paper trail of Operation Gladio, from Churchill's wartime shadow networks to the bombings that changed Europe forever. In early 1940, World War II couldn't have been going worse for the Allied forces. The US was still more than a year out from officially getting involved, and the Soviet Union hadn't announced its stance on Germany. That meant it was just the United Kingdom, Belgium, and France going up against the Nazi Army, and it was a losing fight. On May 10, 1940, the Germans invaded parts of France and quickly outmaneuvered the Allied

3:06forces. Within six weeks, they tore through Belgium and the Netherlands. Then they drove the British armies to the sea at Duncurk where they were forced to evacuate. The remaining French troops struggled to hold their own against the Nazis' superior planes and tanks. Victory seemed nearly impossible. And then things got even worse when Italy joined the Germans. France was suddenly fighting a war on two fronts, and on June 22, 1940, just a month and a half after the invasion began, the French government surrendered to the Axis powers. The British were now alone in the fight. Months earlier, the UK's Prime Minister Winston Churchill had vowed that his country would stand strong. He said, quote, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall never surrender. But to do that, the British needed a secret weapon, something the Nazis wouldn't anticipate.

4:12In the summer of 1940, Churchill created the Special Operations Executive, or SOE, the Organization bankrolled resistance and espionage operations across occupied Europe. But that wasn't the SOE's only mission. They were all so tasked with creating a network of trained soldiers to stay in the United Kingdom and fight back against a Nazi invasion. The project was headed by Colonel Colin McVeane Gubbins, a lifelong soldier who'd survived both mustard gas and a bullet to the neck in World War I. During that time, Gubbins had become an expert in guerrilla warfare, where a smaller fighting force uses hit and run tactics and sabotage against a larger army. Gubbins used those insights to create the SOE's auxiliary units, the secret forces that would stay behind to fight the Nazis. Most of the recruits were men who'd been exempt from military service, farmers, factory workers, and teenagers who were too young to be drafted.

5:13They trained in the art of guerrilla warfare, learning how to construct roadside bombs and attack the enemy with minimum risk of contact. Dozens of women also joined the auxiliary units, operating radios to link the guerrilla network. By early 1941, the units were fully operational. Now the only thing to do was wait until the Nazis stormed the UK. Months passed, and the Germans stayed put. By the end of 1941, the Soviet Union and the United States had joined the fight against the Nazis. Suddenly, Hitler's army was fighting a war on multiple fronts, and couldn't commit to invading the UK. The British auxiliary units were never deployed, but the idea stuck, and as the Cold War began, it would grow into something far more dangerous. So fast forward three years, its 1944, and Germany is on the brink of surrender.

6:15The Americans and British are sweeping across the western front, and the Soviets are close to taking Berlin. The Allied powers were united against Germany, but the Americans and British knew their association with the USSR would only last as long as the war did. With them, the Soviets' communist ideology had the potential to be an even bigger threat than the Nazis. Even before the end of World War II, the battle between capitalism and communism had already begun. During the war, Nazi occupied Greece had two major resistance organizations. One supported the exiled Greek king, and the other wanted a new communist government. By 1944, the two resistance groups were fighting against each other, as much as they were against the Nazis. But when the British army arrived in the country in October of that year, they wanted to reinstate the king. That didn't sit right with the communist fighters who had helped liberate the country, so on December 3, 200,000 people protested in front of Athens' Royal Palace.

7:21After the direction of the British army, the Greek police opened fire on the crowd, killing 28 protesters and wounding hundreds, according to a life photographer, quote, the police fired without provocation. This massacre would be the first spark in the Greek Civil War, and the first front in the brewing Cold War. After the Allied forces officially defeated the Nazis on May 8, 1945, the US and the Soviet Union began carving up Europe, deciding who would influence which countries. The Americans got the Western nations like France, Italy, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Meanwhile, Germany was split in half, creating two countries. The Soviets gained influence over the Eastern European countries, including East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania. At that point, neither the US nor the Soviet Union was willing to risk another global war,

8:23but they were still fighting under the radar. It quickly became clear that this new conflict would be defined by proxy wars like the one in Greece, and the only way to win would be through espionage and covert operations. That's why President Harry Truman ordered the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947. The CIA's Office of Policy Coordination led the charge in installing new spy agencies across Europe to aid in the fight against the Soviets. While the Americans built up their military and covert power, the Soviet Union was doing the same thing. Neither nation knew who would strike first, but the Americans weren't willing to take any chances. That's when they decided to take a page out of the UK's playbook. Using the same techniques as Britain's auxiliary units, the CIA started installing stay behind guerrilla forces all across Western Europe.

9:24In 1947, the CIA helped organize the Western Union clandestine committee, or the WCC. It was made up of the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. The goal was to coordinate the training and implementation of guerrilla warfare. Then in 1949, the US spearheaded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, to create a military alliance against the Soviet Union. Twelve countries signed the treaty, including the US, Canada, Iceland, Italy, Denmark, Portugal, and Norway. The WCC was folded into NATO's network of collective security. If one country were attacked, the rest would come to defend it. This was meant to discourage the Soviets from expanding westward, but the NATO states knew they could only hold off the USSR for so long. In August 1949, just a few months after the formation of NATO, the Soviet Union had its

10:27first successful test of an atomic bomb. Suddenly, the United States had lost its edge. As the threat of nuclear war loomed, the NATO countries ramped up their stay behind guerrilla armies, and by the mid-1950s, they each had their own units, which worked in tandem with local intelligence agencies. In Italy, this project was called Operation Gladio, after the short sword used by Roman soldiers. This name would come to encompass the entirety of the stay behind operation across Europe. The men in Operation Gladio were elite soldiers, and many had fought in World War II either on the frontlines or in resistance efforts against the Nazis. They had experience in the art of sabotage and were highly skilled with all kinds of weaponry, but most importantly, they were extremely anti-communist, and they weren't the only ones. In 1958, the US helped form the Allied Klandestin Committee.

11:29This officially brought the European covert operations under one umbrella. It also unleashed a whole new wave of violence. Four universities, four deaths, and four times the truth got buried under the institution that was supposed to protect it. I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is Campus Crimes, a four-part bonus series on Crime House 24-7. It starts in 1905 when Stanford's own co-founder is fatally poisoned, and the school quietly recast it as natural causes. A biology professor denied tenure opens fire in a faculty meeting. A graduate student stabbed to death in a crowded library and a killer who simply vanishes. And a college basketball player murdered by his own teammate, while his coach schemes to smear the victim to save himself.

12:32Every case asks the same question, what happens when an institution has more to protect than the truth? Listen every Sunday in August on the Crime House 24-7 feed, or join Crime House Plus to get all four episodes right now, add free. Join on Apple Podcasts or at CrimeHousePlus.com. From the start of the Cold War, the United States and its partners in NATO promised that capitalism was the way forward. They spent the decade after World War II trying to spread freedom, democracy, and economic prosperity around the globe. But by the early 1960s, that message rang hollow for some Americans. Part of the shift in attitude had to do with the red scare and McCarthyism. That was when alleged American communists were brought before Congress and blacklisted from business and society. At the same time, the injustices against black people in the South were making international headlines.

13:36The Soviet Union saw this and latched on. The USSR promised that its society was free from racism. Of course, that wasn't entirely true, but it had the intended effect. Suddenly, lots of left-leaning citizens in the US and Europe started to wonder if maybe the Soviet Union wasn't all that bad. This only led to more tension, and soon extremist groups on both sides of the political spectrum were going head-to-head. Civil rights and labor leaders were assassinated worldwide. Domestic terror attacks suppressed public protests. On its face, it seemed like those right-wing groups were led by local militias, everyday people who were fed up with Soviet propaganda. But in the decade since, these attacks have actually been linked to the covert armies that were established in the early days of the Cold War. And it's not just conspiracy theorists who have sounded the alarm. The soldiers themselves have come forward to share the truth.

14:41Born in 1914, Andre Muayah was one of Belgium's most important spies during the German occupation. But there was one thing he hated even more than the Nazis, communism. After World War II came to an end, Muayah was recruited by the Belgian intelligence services. He went on to become one of their most successful operatives. Using his connections to the country's police, Muayah formed an organization called the Belgian Anti-Communist Block, which terrorized suspected communists. The organization had a lot of crossover with Muayah's other work, running the Belgian wing of Operation Gladio. Like with the Anti-Communist Block, Muayah ran the stay behind units like his own personal army, especially during a major period of upheaval in Belgium. In 1950, Belgium was in the midst of a deep political crisis. Most citizens felt like King Leopold II had abandoned his country during the war.

15:41And in the aftermath, Belgians were split on whether they should let him keep the throne. The Belgian Communist Party, led by Chairman Julien Lao, was dead set on abolishing the monarchy. And they'd gained a lot of ground in the last few years. Lao, in particular, represented a threat to the status quo. And according to historians, Andre Muayah was the one who decided that Lao needed to go. On August 18, 1950, Lao was shot by two unknown assassins in his own home. The murderers were never officially caught, but decades later, they were revealed to be members of the stay behind network, organized by Muayah. In a document sent to a former Interior Minister, Muayah said Lao's execution was necessary since he was an agent of the USSR. Lao's assassination was the first time a stay behind network was used for anti-left-wing political violence. But it wouldn't be the last.

16:44South of Belgium, Italy's post-war position was unique. It had been an enemy of the Allies during World War II, but became one of the first NATO states in 1949. Within the country, political allegiances were split. Some citizens clung to Benito Mussolini's fascism, others cited with the new American-led capitalism and a good number-supported communism and democratic socialism. This mix of ideologies made the country an important battleground in the eyes of the CIA, and Operation Gladio was key to their strategy. Italy's stay behind forces were implemented in the early 1950s under the Minister of Defense Paolo Emilio Taviani. Unlike other stay behind units, Operation Gladio coordinated intensely with the CIA, and the American agency gave the units an explicit mission. They were to control the population in the event of a, quote, emergency situation created by, quote, domestic upheaval.

17:50That situation would come to pass a few decades later, and it would completely reshape Italy as a country. By the late 1960s, Italy's political situation had exploded. Literally, student protests in 1968 sparked a period of social unrest in the country. Things escalated a year later when right-wing terrorists bombed a bank at the Piazza Fontana in Milan, killing 17 people. The terrorists tried framing left-wing activists for the attack. Even though this was proven false, the bombing spread fear among the population and kicked off two decades of political violence in Italy, known as the years of lead. Eventually, the people of Italy learned this violence was actually encouraged by the United States. The goal was to undermine and discredit left-wing activists. Decades later, General Gerardo Saravale, who headed Operation Gladio from 1971 to 1974 during the years of lead,

18:56testified in Rome. He said the CIA helped coordinate training for Operation Gladio soldiers. They were even sent to the UK to train on a base built by the United States. General Gianna Delio Maletti, a former head of Italian military counterintelligence, also testified in court. He alleged that the CIA had actually supplied the explosive used in the Piazza Fontana bombing, and that they had used the Operation Gladio network to do it. Paolo Emilio Taviani, the co-founder of Italy's Operation Gladio, corroborated this account. He admitted their intelligence service was aware of the bombing before it happened, and tried to shift the blame onto left-wing anarchists. The Piazza Fontana bombing and the assassination of Giuliani Lao in Belgium were just two acts of terrorism with proven ties to Operation Gladio, but similar attacks were committed across Europe,

19:57and they're not all as clear-cut. Stay behind armies were set up in as many as 15 European countries during the Cold War, even those that were supposed to be neutral like Switzerland. The stay behind army in Greece was given the nickname Operation Sheepskin, but there they were known as the Hellenic Rating Forces, or with Greek abbreviation the LOK. The group was established after the Greek Civil War, where US forces helped defeat communist rebels. Afterwards, the LOK maintained close ties with the CIA and became active in intelligence operations around the country, and they sensed trouble brewing. Throughout the 1960s, the conservative Greek government repeatedly failed to build a coalition, and liberal reformers began to make progress. Before there could be a transition of power, the Greek military attacked. On April 21, 1967, they overthrew the government and instituted a military dictatorship. The stay behind units of

21:02the LOK participated in the coup, forcibly taking command of the Greek Defense Ministry. There's no evidence that the CIA knew about the coup before it happened, or assisted the LOK in anyway, but afterward, the US government formally supported the military government. With or without their help, the stay behind army had helped squash left wing opposition, and Greece wasn't the only country where that happened. Spain officially joined NATO in 1982, but had close ties with the United States long before that. While they never set up their own stay behind army, gladiooperatives worked within the country for years. After the fall of Francisco Franco's fascist government in 1976, a separatist movement known as Carlisum gained momentum. On May 9, 1976, a massive Carlisth rally in Montailloura was interrupted when a group of far-right terrorists opened fire

22:04on the crowd. Two people were killed, and three others wounded. In the aftermath, it came out that one of the gunmen was Italian terrorist Stefano Deliqueier, allegedly he had ties to Operation Gladio. Just one year later, five communist labor activists were murdered in Madrid. One of their killers was a man named Carlo Cicutini. Later, it was revealed that Cicutini was also an Italian gladiooperative. Again, there's no evidence these attacks were coordinated as part of Operation Gladio, but Andre Muayah, the leader of the Belgian anti-communist bloc, testified that gladio was operational in Spain after the fall of Franco's regime. Regardless of where these attacks originated, the use of stay behind armies became less important as the decades passed, especially because by the late 1980s, the Cold War was beginning to thaw. At that point, the Soviet Union was on the path

23:05to falling, and the capitalism forward policies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had moved the world even further right. In Italy, the years of lead ended in 1988 with stronger anti-terrorism laws and the arrests of key extremist leaders. Meanwhile, Belgium's right-leaning Christian Democrat Party held power for decades. Still, the leftist movement did make some progress. After the end of the military coup, Greece became a socialist republic focused on reform, and as Spain transitioned into a constitutional monarchy, the socialist party was elected in a landslide in 1982. With the changing tides, Operation Gladio was quickly becoming antiquated, especially as the world grew increasingly digital. By 1990, espionage efforts were less on the ground and more online. It seemed clear that the remaining stay behind units were on their way out, but that

24:06process was accelerated when the media learned the truth about their efforts and ensured the world did too. Yamaha Resortant Casino at San Manuel is bringing hip-hop and R&B legends to the stage. Experience the Queen of Neo Soul, Erica Badu, September 28th. Catch Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Wu Tang Clan October 1st, and don't miss multi-grammy award-winning Nelly October 15th. Tickets on sale now at Yamaha theater.com, only at Yamaha, now celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. On October 23rd, 1990, the last meeting of the Allied Clandestine Committee was held in Belgium. By then, a number of ACC members had already shut down their stay behind units. Operation Gladio was

25:06becoming a thing of the past. Normally, it would take years for such a wide-ranging operation to be revealed. But the very next day, Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andriotti held a press conference admitting the existence of Operation Gladio. Andriotti didn't come forward because he wanted to, though. He came forward because Italian courts were close to uncovering the truth about Gladio. During the briefing, Andriotti talked about a coordinated response between the NATO states in the event of a Soviet invasion. He even offered a list of 622 civilians who were trained as operatives. Andriotti's disclosures were ground breaking, but they were also somewhat misleading. He said the operation began in 1964 under the Allied Clandestine Committee, when it was really set up almost a decade earlier. Additionally, Andriotti's list of civilian operatives was later proven to be incomplete. Not only that, but he denied the government had

26:08anything to do with the bombings that took place during the years of lead. This was only technically true since the CIA's involvement was funneled through Gladio operatives. Despite these discrepancies, Andriotti's announcement revealed just how widespread Operation Gladio was. And it sparked a reckoning that gripped Europe. Two weeks after Andriotti's press conference on November 5, 1990, a NATO spokesperson denied any involvement between the organization and Operation Gladio. But the media had already picked up the story, and over the next few weeks, each country that had stay behind armies was forced to come clean. The French government admitted they had a stay behind army as part of the Allied Clandestine Committee, which trained in guerrilla tactics in West German forests. But they told the media it had no connection to any terrorist networks and had recently been disbanded. Belgium, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Greece all

27:13confirmed their involvement in Operation Gladio, though Greece denied a connection between the operatives and the military coup. Meanwhile, the US and the UK refused to comment on the operation. When Admiral Stansfield Turner, then head of the CIA, had a TV interview in late November 1990, he wouldn't discuss it at all. When the reporter pressed him, Turner ripped off his microphone and walked off set. Clearly, he knew the existence of these secret armies was highly controversial. Most European citizens didn't like the idea of US-backed espionage groups embedded within their countries. But one of the most disturbing accounts of Operation Gladio came from the supposedly neutral country of Switzerland. A few months before Giulio and Riyadi held that press conference, the Swiss parliament uncovered a stay behind army in their country. It was known as Project 26, or P26. While P26 wasn't set

28:16up under NATO, it maintained close connections with British intelligence. Like in other countries, its operatives targeted left-wing activists in the 1960s. P26 collected files on almost 8,000, so-called suspect persons. These included leftists, anti-nuclear demonstrators, and Jehovah's witnesses. Decades later, when the government began to investigate Project 26, one former operative named Herbert Albaugh, wrote a letter to the defense minister. According to Colonel Albaugh, he could reveal the whole truth. A month and a half later, before he could do so, Albaugh was murdered in his own home. No suspect was ever arrested. Several months later, on November 14, 1990, right in the middle of the Operation Gladio scandal, the Swiss parliament shut down Project 26 for good. Three days later, they published a detailed report about the stay behind army,

29:17but there was still a lot more to the story. As people around the world came to terms with P26 and Operation Gladio, they started to wonder if those forces were connected to the terrorist attacks that ravaged Europe in the 1970s and 80s, and one man made it his mission to expose everything. In 2005, a Swiss conspiracy theorist named Danielle Ganser published NATO's secret armies, Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe. Ganser's book linked the CIA and stay behind armies with dozens of high-profile acts of terrorism across several decades. In total, Ganser claimed Operation Gladio was responsible for hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries. Some of the evidence he presented was thorough and compelling, while other connections were a little more controversial. Ganser pointed to a particular document to justify his claims.

30:19Supplement B to the US Army's Field Manual 30-31. The document surfaced in Turkey in 1970, before being spread around Europe in subsequent years. It allegedly showed that faking domestic terrorism was American military policy. The document supposedly said, quote, there may be times when host country governments show passivity or indecision in the face of communist subversion. In such cases, US Army intelligence must have the means of launching special operations, which will convince the HC governments and public opinion of the reality of the insurgent danger and of the necessity of counteraction. Supposedly is the key word, because according to military scholars and the US government, Supplement B didn't exist. Some claimed it was a forgery put out by the Soviet Union to discredit American policy, and the US State Department said it had long been publicly identified as a phony document. In the years since, Ganser hasn't done himself any

31:27favors. Instead of gathering additional evidence, he linked the gladioconspiracy with 9-11 and the COVID-19 pandemic. According to him, armies modeled on gladiodeunets were used to perpetrate these events. His claims got him fired from his post at ETH Zurich Center for Security Studies, but even though Ganser may have been discredited, Operation Gladio hasn't, and today there's still many unanswered questions about Gladio and the upheaval of the late 20th century. In the tiny nation of Luxembourg, two police officials are on trial in connection with two bombings that took place in the 1980s. Many citizens believe these officials had ties to Operation Gladio. The truth is, we'll probably never know the full extent of Operation Gladio, but certain facts aren't up for debate. We know the US government was worried about a Soviet invasion and organized

32:29stay behind forces to fend them off in case of an attack. We know those units persisted through the Cold War, and we know there's a lot of compelling evidence to suggest that Operation Gladio was connected with terrorism. Some, like the assassination of Julien Lao, have been proven by historians. But when it comes to Ganser and his claims, there are some major leaps in logic. For over half a century, hundreds of government officials were involved in Operation Gladio. Ganser thinks each one contributed to the conspiracy wholeheartedly without telling anyone what they did. It's a lot to take in, and I'd love to get your thoughts. What do you think about Operation Gladio? Do you believe that the CIA was behind these terrorist attacks? And do you buy Danielle Ganser's conspiracy theories? Tell us in the comments we would love to hear.

33:32Operation Gladio started with pretty noble aims, protecting Western Europe against the very real threat of invasion. But the longer the Cold War dragged on, the more the enemy and the mission began to mutate. Conspiracy aside, the evidence shows the CIA and its fellow intelligence agencies were focused on suppressing left-wing groups. For all their propaganda about spreading democracy, they were committed to destroying the rights of people in their own countries. And that's something we all deserve to know the truth about. Thanks for listening to this episode of Crime House 247. Be sure to check out our second episode on the Sleep Walker murder of Scott Follater dropping later today. And to enhance your listening experience, join Crime House Plus and get every episode of Crime House 247 completely ad-free, along with early ad-free access to all Crime House shows plus monthly bonus episodes.

34:37To join go to Crime House Plus dot com or if you listen on Apple podcasts, tap try free at the top of the Crime House 247 page. Some mysteries have haunted us for centuries. Others are unfolding right now. How does a modern airliner with 239 people on board disappear from the sky without a trace? This is History's Greatest Mysteries, a History Channel original podcast brought to you by Rewind Studios. Adapted from the hit TV show, every episode dives into one of the world's greatest enigmas, the vanishings, the myths, the lost relics, and the unexplained. With contributions from top historians, authors, scientists, and researchers, we separate fact from folklore and evidence from rumor, from unsolved crimes to buried treasure, to the deaths and disappearances of famous

35:39figures. These are the stories we think we know, but dig beneath the legend and the truth gets far stranger. Follow History's greatest mysteries available now wherever you listen to podcasts. If you're looking for another show to check out, listen to Murder True Crime Stories, another show from Crime House I think you'll love. Join Carter Roy as he digs into history's most notorious murders like you've never heard before. Follow Murder True Crime Stories available wherever you listen to podcasts.