KGB and the Red Brigades: the Political Left, the Communist Party.” the Right, with Memorandum, There Was Nothing More to Say
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RUSSIA . 3 According to the KGB, Italian terrorism was born in the the PCI presses for entry into the government.” late 1960s, a time that saw a “significant strengthening of From the KGB’s vantage point, at least based on this KGB and the Red Brigades: the political left, the Communist Party.” The right, with memorandum, there was nothing more to say. the aim of “imposing an authoritarian regime to lead the country,” and with Washington’s support, the memo says, et again documentation from the archives of for- No Ties that Bind turned to the military and the police “pull the country Y mer Communist states fail to support the specu- backward, as it was under fascism.” lative literature of the period that repeatedly tied For decades, Italian media has been convinced that Moscow and Prague, or both, were For this reason, the Italian Communist Party was Italian terrorism to a sophisticated and well-planned So- forced to be more vigilant and make itself ready “to return viet conspiracy. Such thinking would soon become the behind the Italian terrorist violence of the 1970s. So far, declassified Cold War-era to underground warfare.” Instead, Italian Communist “failed to devel- documents debunk such notions, bad news for a country that likes entertaining conspiracies op a constructive program for the further development of democratic and conspiracy theorists. Most dossiers suggest that Moscow had only a primitive rights” and “abandoned armed struggle.” This “ingredient of op- understanding of Italian domestic affairs in n November 29 in Sofia, Bulgaria an official body portunism within the ranks of the with an endless name declassified a series of Communist Party strongly influ- the so called “Years of Lead,” despite the OOarchival documents relating to international ter- enced the ideology and political po- rorism. The body, known formally as the Commission for sitions of those who had been ready strength of the Italian Communist Party. the Dissemination of Documents and the Announcement to give their lives for the socialist fu- of the Affiliation of Bulgarian Citizens in Relation to he ture of Italy, co-opting them politi- by Fernando Orlandi State Security and Intelligence Services of the Bulgarian cally and thus pushing them to- National Army, made public a vast array of papers previ- ward terrorism.” ously unknown to scholars and historians. It was some- In the mid-seventies, terrorism thing of tease release, since 3,000 more pages will be re- took on a “mass character,” which leased in March. in turn served the “interests of cer- What’s interesting about the papers, at least from the I- tain political forces that used terror- talian perspective, is a KGB memo written about the ac- ism to serve their interests, direct- tivities of the Red Brigades terrorist group, a Marxist ur- ing it against the Communist Par- ban guerrilla organization whose shootings and kidnap- ty.” Secret services selectively pings dominated European headlines in the late 1970s quashed some groups while giving and 1980s. wide berth to others with the ex- The 10-page memo was written in 1980 and copied to press intent of discrediting the the security services all Warsaw Pact nations. It repre- Communists. sents the first official KGB document made public on the According to the KGB, the use of matter of Italian terrorism. terrorism was linked to changes in But the memo is an intellectual disappointment. It ev- the Italian political scene. In fact, idences oversimplification and ingeniousness, not to the memo continued, “it’s worth mention peddling array of ideological stereotypes, most- noting a spike in terrorist activity at ly at the expense of facts. Judged at face value, it suggests precisely those moments in which that the KGB, once implicated as being behind Italian ter- ror movement, was out of the loop when it came to grasp- KGB information culled ing the complexity of the Italian social and political scene from Bulgarian archives suggests s i in 1979 and 1980. only a primitive understanding b r o C of Italian political affaire / a s n A The arrest of Red Brigades leader Renato Curcio. and terrorism. 24 . east . europe and asia strategies number 34 . february 2011 . 25 norm. So far, no data has surfaced to suggest Soviet ma- “elements of the Czechoslovak secret services has been Stampa” daily in Turin published a report saying that tween Communist Party Senate Paolo Bufflaini and then- nipulation of Italian terrorism, even through a proxy s- in contact with the various terrorist groups.” These con- Franceschini “was tracked down following several trips” Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, the latter had made ref- tate. That also holds true for relevant judicial documents tacts led to recruitment, with terrorists “starting actual which he “had taken to Eastern European countries.” erences to terrorists using Czechoslovakia for training. and trial information. That the Soviets were in some way paramilitary training in Czechoslovakia or in another At that point, rumors took on a life of their own, often involved with domestic terrorism was certainly a reason- country,” after which they’d “return to Italy” and under- filling in for missing facts. Sources began to give dubious A general’s role able hypothesis at the time. The Cold War had some ex- take lethal missions. “evidence,” including a leaked report for the Defense In- few years later the Czechoslovakia theory got a tremely “hot” moments on both sides, fought out with This focus on Czechoslovakia was so intense, particu- formation Service (CIS), the precursor to the Italian serv- A boost from Major General Jan Sejna, a Czech mil- holds barred. In some cases, the enemy of my enemy, no larly after the kidnapping, that Italy seriously weighed ice SISMI. One was dated Sept. 30, 1974 (20 days after itary insider linked to Antonin Novotny, the head matter how deplorable, became a friend. what on the surface seems inconceivable. Rome Police Pignero’s press conference). Another, from March 1975, of the Czech Communist Party before Prague Spring lad- Connections between the Soviet Union and Warsaw Commissioner Antonio Frattasi, speaking to the Italian was said to have been prepared either by Centro CS er Alexander Dubcek. Though Cejan was portrayed as a Pact and Italian terrorism seemed like a foregone conclu- Massacres Commission in 1998, said that Rome police (counterterrorist) or the D-Office in Bologna and stated defector, he’d fled from Czechoslovakia to the West to es- sions. The Czechs were supposedly involved. Cover-ups considered planning a military operation directed against that Franceschini been in Czechoslovakia from June 1973 cape arrest for criminal offenses. and collusion was mentioned. Some writers openly stat- the Czechoslovak Embassy, located in a secluded Rome to June 1974, at a terrorist training camp of Lidice , a town On February 25, 1968, he drove through Yugoslavia to ed that the Red Brigades were a KGB tool. villa. Police planned to storm the villa. Only delays located in central Bohemia, less than 30 kilometers from Trieste, moving on to Rome where he applied for asylum Italy’s history, and in particular the abduction and mur- stopped the assault. Prague. As early as May 1973, during an argument be- at the U.S. Embassy. By Feb. 28 he was already in the U- der of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978, has been The alleged Czechoslovakia connection emerged again nited States. “We thought we had escaped to Moscow,” the subject of all kinds of conspiracies theories. Their some years earlier. In September 1974, when Red A Red Brigades leaflet said a senior Czech officer who knew him, alluding to his bent depended on the source. The puppeteers included Brigades chiefs Renato Curcio and Alberto Franceschini circulated while Moro, anti-reformist political views. Italy’s own intelligence agencies, as well as those of were detained, Gustavo Pignero, a member of the anti-ter- the president of the Christian Democratic Party After living in suburban Maryland outside Washing- Moscow and Washington. Not to a bit part for Israel. Red rorism team head by General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, and a former prime minister, was being held. ton, D.C., Sejna told American conservative political an- Brigades terrorist Mario Moretti was once labeled “a falsely “revealed” during a press conference that alyst Michael A. Ledeen that he had information on a pawn of Soviet policy in Italy, increasingly under the s- “Franceschini had arrived a few days earlier from number of Italians who had been trained by the GRU, the trategic control of Prague.” Prague.” The lie was apparently intended to protect Sil- Soviet military’s secret service. He mentioned the name In short, the Moro affair was “Czechoslovak-Soviet” af- vano Girotto, who was working undercover. To “cover” Fabrizio Pelli. After informing then-Prime Minister of fair, with the terrorists likely trained overseas, if not for- for him, said journalist Vincent Tessandori, the anti-ter- Francesco Cossiga of Sejna’s confessions, Ledeen went eign national. These theories fascinated the public and rorism team sent “sent a false report to the judiciary ex- on to publish a series of articles published in the conser- led to a number of successful books. But commercial suc- plaining Franceschini’s movements in recent months.” vative Milan daily “Il Giornale.” According Sejna, terror- cess isn’t necessarily connected to any legitimate search As a result, immediately after Franceschini’s the “La ist Pelli had been trained at Doupov, Czech air force base, for truth. Many of the published theories lacked sufficient in 1966-67. Sejna comments were the subject of a SISMI credible evidence. Victor Zaslavsky’s view remains air The front page of the Milan daily report prepared in March 1982.