email me for URL to Part II. TRAGEDY + TIME = COMEDY. My first trip to Europe was less than a triumph of planning or execution. Fascists were blowing up trains when we arrived and we decided to ditch our Eurail passes hitch hike through Italy. The term "strategy of tension" recurred during the trials that followed in the 1970s and 1980s Years of Lead ( "anni di piombo"), during which terror attacks and assassinations were committed by apparently neofascist terrorists (with such names as Ordine Nuovo, Avanguardia Nazionale or Fronte Nazionale).
It was primarily members and international supporters of the Italian Communist Party who invented and popularized the term "strategy of tension". They meant to draw attention to the crimes of the Italian Right and Far-Right parties who were allegedly supported by the foreign belligerents.[citation needed]
Much attention[weasel words] has been on Operation Gladio, Italy's branch of the secret pre-positioned NATO "stay-behind" armies of Western Europe. These armies were set up to perform resistance, partisan, and guerrilla activities in the event of Soviet invasion; equivalent units were set up by other NATO members in their states. It is claimed that Gladio units were engaged in destabilization at the behest of the United States and other Western governments, intelligence agencies (e.g., the CIA), the P2 masonic lodge, the Order of the Solar Temple, various Church-related organizations, and domestic influences such as organized crime.[citation needed] The claims are backed by judicial proof which establish that European fascist dictatorships of the time (the Greek junta and the secret services of Francisco Franco) were heavily involved in supporting and arming Italian neo-fascist and neo-nazi groups such as Ordine Nuovo and Avanguardia Nazionale.[citation needed] For instance, Avanguardia Nazionale hitman Pierluigi Concutelli used an Ingram MAC-10 SMG to assassinate magistrate Vittorio Occorsio in the 70s. It has been proven that Avanguardia Nazionale secured the weapon from the CIA via Franchist Spain.[citation needed]
Carlo Digilio, an Italian neofascist codenamed "Uncle Otto" coordinated CIA activities in the Italian Regions of Veneto and Friuli from the 60s to the 70s, recruiting former fascists to serve the NATO and U.S. interests in Italy. He himself had been recruited in Verona by U.S. Navy captain David Carrett.
These groups began to pursue[citation needed] an ostensibly extreme right-wing anti-communist agenda using violent means, including false flag bombings that were then blamed on extra-parliamentary left-wing militant organizations, to discredit the political Left in general at a time in Italy when the Italian Communist Party was very close to entering government. It should be noted that the actions carried out by these extreme groups were meant primarily to agitate and control public opinion, creating fears about the Communist Party. At the time, they created massive public concern and widespread paranoia. According to the "strategia della tensione" theory, this was deliberate. Examples of such actions include the 1972 Peteano bombing, long thought to have been carried out by the Red Brigades, but for which the neofascist terrorist Vincenzo Vinciguerra has been imprisoned, the attempted assassination of former Interior Minister Mariano Rumor on 17 May 1973 or the Bologna railway station bombing known as the Bologna massacre.
Recorded live @ Passim @ StoryLab, March 19th,2007 www.norahdooley.com and norahdooley.blogspot.com
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Chapter 1. Amsterdam - Brussels - Firstclass Interrailby firstclassinterrail533 views
Norah Great job
thanks I am not Afraid
LearninVernon 4 years ago