White Coup

[1] The main architect of the coup plan was Edgardo Sogno, who stated: ... in the '70s there were people ready to shoot anyone who decided to govern with the communists... Today the DC is careful not to say these things because they are afraid.

He made friends with Randolfo Pacciardi, a former partisan and republican politician, supporter of the presidential republic, and became affiliated with the Freemasonry of the Grand Orient of Italy, associating himself with the P2 Masonic lodge.

[3] After serving as ambassador in several states, Sogno returned to Italy in 1971 and set up the Committees of Democratic Resistance, a series of political centers born with an anti-communist function, to which numerous "white" and "blue" former partisans joined, such as Enrico Martini (commander "Mauri").

On 12 February, the SID sent a few redacted pages, stating that "...the missing parts could not be transmitted, because they referred to matters connected to a specific counter-espionage activity...".

On 4/6/1975, the Prime Minister Aldo Moro stated that "...the undelivered documents dealt with matters connected to specific counterespionage activities in relation to formal subject data (names of foreign personalities and informants, acronyms of counterintelligence operations.

[11][8] In 1997, Sogno revealed the list of names of those whom the coup intended to install as a government, and of the generals who supported the plan, including Giuseppe Santovito then (head of the "Folgore" mechanized division, later of SISMI); right-wing journalist Giano Accame, socialists hostile to the Communist Party, Christian Democrat elements, and even disillusioned communists who had left the party.

The adjective "white" itself mainly indicated the fact that - in Sogno's intentions - it would be a peaceful and bloodless breakthrough, and the army would get involved only for defensive purposes.

[15] In his 1998 memoirs, Sogno revealed how he had visited the CIA station chief in Rome in July 1974 to inform him of his plans for an anti-communist coup.

The coup plotters counted on the sympathy of the United States, which, according to Sogno, would have remained on the sidelines, limiting itself to merely declaring support for "any initiative aimed at keeping the Communists at bay or at a distance from the government" (p.