Personal ideologies Nationalisms Propaganda Due (Italian pronunciation: [propaˈɡanda ˈduːe]; P2) was a Masonic lodge, founded in 1877, within the tradition of Continental Freemasonry and under the authority of Grand Orient of Italy.

[6] P2 was implicated in numerous Italian crimes and mysteries, including the collapse of the Holy See-affiliated Banco Ambrosiano, the contract killings of journalist Carmine Pecorelli and mobbed-up bank president Roberto Calvi, and political corruption cases within the nationwide Tangentopoli bribery scandal.

During its history, the lodge included important Italian figures, such as the poet Giosuè Carducci, politicians Francesco Crispi and Arturo Labriola and journalist Gabriele Galantara.

[18] In 1967, P2 initiated former SIFAR Brigadier-General Giovanni Allavena, who handed Gelli approximately 157,000 confidential files on many public persons, including intercepted telephone calls, photographs, correspondence, and private information.

[citation needed] In a 2018 book, conspiracy theorist Daniele Ganser claimed convicted Pennsylvania politician Frank Gigliotti was a Freemason who chose Gelli to form a parallel anti-communist government, in collaboration with the CIA in Rome,[19] and that in the fall of 1969, General Alexander Haig, supreme commander of NATO in Europe, and Henry Kissinger, security advisor to the Nixon presidency, authorized Gelli to recruit 400 Italian and NATO officers within P2.

Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani (whose chef de cabinet was a P2 member as well)[17] appointed a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry, headed by the independent DC Tina Anselmi.

In July 1982, new documents were found hidden in the false bottom of a suitcase belonging to Gelli's daughter at Fiumicino airport in Rome.

These had to be isolated and cooperation with the PCI, the second biggest party in Italy and one of the largest in Europe, which was proposed in the Historic Compromise by Aldo Moro, needed to be disrupted.

The availability of sums not exceeding 30 to 40 billion lire[25] would seem sufficient to allow carefully chosen men, acting in good faith, to conquer key positions necessary for overall control.

Some see P2 as a reactionary, shadow government ready to preempt a takeover of power in case of an electoral victory of the Italian Communist Party.

At the time, the paper had encountered financial trouble and was unable to raise bank loans because its then editor, Piero Ottone, was considered hostile to the ruling Christian Democrats.

Corriere's owners, the publishing house Rizzoli, struck a deal with Gelli, who provided the money with funds from the Vatican Bank directed by archbishop Paul Marcinkus.

[17][29] P2 members Gelli and the head of the secret service Pietro Musumeci were condemned for attempting to mislead the police investigation of the Bologna massacre on 2 August 1980, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 200.

The full extent of the payment became clear only twelve years later, in 1993, during the mani pulite (Italian for "clean hands") investigations into political corruption.

Allegations of surreptitious international relationships, mainly with Argentina (Gelli repeatedly suggested that he was a close friend of Juan Perón) and with some people suspected of affiliation with the US Central Intelligence Agency, were also partly confirmed.

It aimed to alter, often in decisive fashion, the correct functioning of the institutions of the country, according to a project which ... intended to undermine our democracy."

[17] Even though outlawed by Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in 1925, Masonic institutions have been tolerated in Italy since the end of World War II and have been quite open about their activities and membership.

Other laws introduced a prohibition on membership in allegedly secret organizations for some categories of state officials (especially military officers).

It decided to publish the list in its concluding report, Relazione della Commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta sulla Loggia massonica P2.

[17] The list included all of the heads of the secret services, 195 officers of the different armed forces (12 generals of the Carabinieri, 5 of the financial police Guardia di Finanza, 22 of the army, 4 of the air force and 8 admirals), as well as 44 members of parliament, 3 ministers and a secretary of a political party, leading magistrates, a few prefects and heads of police, bankers and businessmen, civil servants, journalists and broadcasters.