CIA activities in Italy

[2] The National Security Act of 1947, which made foreign covert operations possible, had been signed into law about six months earlier by the American President Harry S. Truman.

[3] In order to influence the election, the U.S. agencies undertook a campaign of writing ten thousand letters, made numerous short-wave radio broadcasts and funded the publishing of books and articles, all of which warned the Italians of what was believed to be the consequences of a communist victory.

[4] Time magazine backed the campaign, featuring the Christian Democracy leader and Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi on its cover and in its lead story on 19 April 1948.

[7] According to Wyatt: "The Communist Party of Italy was funded ... by black bags of money directly out of the Soviet compound in Rome; and the Italian services were aware of this.

That was partly because of Italians' traditional bent for conservatism and even more importantly the Cold War, with the U.S. closely watching Italy in their determination to maintain a vital NATO presence in the Mediterranean and retain the Yalta-agreed status quo of western Europe.

[12] Italian government officials agree that a stay-behind network called Operation Gladio had been formed against the contingency of a Warsaw Pact invasion of Italy, but not terminated until 1990.

[13] Venetian magistrate Felice Casson, while investigating a 1970s car bombing in Peteano, uncovered references to Gladio while searching through files at SISMI, the Italian intelligence service.

A parliamentary committee on intelligence, looking into the Gladio affair heard testimony from three former prime ministers: Amintore Fanfani, Ciriaco De Mita and Bettino Craxi.