Click here for Full Issue of EIR Volume 8, Number 39, October 6, 1981 �ITillSpecialReport Terrorism, drugs, , and subversion: the Craxi dossier by Umberto Pascali Bettino Craxi, head of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), is now preparing to visit Washington for meetings with President Ronald Reagan this fall. What can be the motive for an American President's granting an audience to a man described in Italy as the "new Mussolini"? Craxi has reached an agreement with the U.S. administration, says the Italian press. The upcoming visit will be the equivalent of an "investiture," in which the U.S. government will give its approval for Craxi to ascend to the "Presidency of the Council," i.e., become Italy's new prime minister. America's old allies, ,the conservative, pro-industrial layers of the Italian Christian Democratic Party, seem to have been tossed aside with little ceremony. This dossier will explain that, for Mr. Reagan, Craxi is a political miscalculation which risks the total destabilization of Italy. The nickname given Craxi, "new Mussolini," is no exaggeration. Politically, socially, and economically, Craxi represents precisely what Mussolini represented at the end of the First World War. Fascism then and now Mussolini also came from the ranks of the Socialist Party, indeed, from its far "left" section. After precipitating a civil war in Italy, after destabil­ izing the country's leading institutions with every weapon at his disposal, from corruption to terrorism, Mussolini and his supporters presented themselves as the men of stability, the men of "governability." Thus was Fascism imposed on Italy. To this must be added a noteworthy fact: Mussolini rose to power on the basis of the support, from the very beginning of his career, given to him by the British secret intelligence service and the Italian "black nobility." There was another element in the history of Fascism worth reflecting on today: Mussolini received ample support from the United States. The New York Times and other news media gave him explicit and unconditional backing, 18 Special Report EIR October 6, 1981 © 1981 EIR News Service Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. The New York Times today applauds Bettino Craxi of Qaddafi. Craxi and his supporters have always and lies to the American public, calling him "the best maintained relations, albeit secret ones, with the Libyan friend" of the United States. dictator. During the most recent elections, well-in­ How many lives did the same lie cost in the 1920s? formed sources in Rome discussed Qaddafi's funding of How many Americans paid with their blood during Socialist electoral campaigns quite openly. World War II for the earlier, successful campaign by The PSI leadership, including Craxi, have been the New York Times and those American financiers and heavily implicated in the Propaganda-2 (P-2) Freema­ politicians who sponsored Mussolini? sonic Lodge scandal. The P-2 lodge was a conspiratorial Today, Americans must know Craxi for what he is. organization exposed in late May. It is tied to the Bettino Craxi is currently presented as the only Trilateral Commission, Henry Kissinger and Alexander politician capable of replacing the Christian Democracy Haig, the former and current secretaries of state, and that has governed Italy for the last 30 years. The other prominent Americans. It was proven to be in­ Christian Democracy, it is said, is too corrupt; it cannot volved in drug running, arms smuggling, flight-capital defend Italy from the Communists; someone is needed operations, and sponsorship of both "left" and "right" who is not tainted by scandal, a credible politician-a terrorism. It tried many times to bring about coups man like Craxi. d'etat in Italy. It had corrupted and penetrated all parts In truth, no Italian has been implicated in more of the economy and the government. The aim of the P- scandals than Bettino Craxi. His career was built, piece 2 lodge was to destroy the institutions of the Italian by piece, on the back of the drug mafia and organized republic and restore the Savoy dynasty, in exile since crime. 1946 when a popular referendum decided against allow­ ing the royal family to remain in the country. The royal What is Craxi? family had consigned Italy to Fascism. In Italy, Craxi and his Socialist Party (PSI) are The PSI and Craxi are also the great supporters of synonymous with terrorism. From the outset of Italy's the Global 2000 genocide recommendations formulated terrorist epidemic in 1968-69, through the assassination by the Carter administration. The economic policy of of Christian Democratic president Aldo Moro by the the PSI is consistent with this "depopulation" and Red Brigades, the names of the PSI leaders have "deindustrialization" report. continually appeared in police and magistral investiga­ Recently, the Milan daily 1/ Givrnale Nuvvo pub­ tive reports. lished the fact of Craxi's career, known by all well­ Moreover, the PSI has become known as the party infor med persons in Italy for years, but which no one EIR October 6, 1981 Special Report 19 . has dared to publish before. II Giornale reported that and politically hegemonic in major cities, there began Craxi was the "guardian of Francis Turatello." Turatel- the campaign in favor of legalized drug use. 10, known as "Angel Face," was the Meyer Lansky of Italy, responsible for the expansion of trafficking and A national figure use of hard drugs "on an industrial scale." This was the decisive blow. And the champions of the "drug liberalization" propaganda campaig� were Craxi and the drug mafia the Socialist Party leaders, above all, Loris Fortuna, . Turatello's plan for a drug empire succeeded in vice-president of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. With turning Italy from merely a crossroads of the traffic the full support of the party, including Craxi, Fortuna from the Middle and Far East to Northern Europe and fought to change the drug laws, which were quite United States, into one of the world's biggest heroin­ restrictive in the 1960s. The Socialist mass media pro­ refining centers and drug marketplaces. No social class moted what would later be known as the "drug cul­ of Italian youth is now spared drug addiction. An entire ture." Decadent elements like LSD promotor Timothy generation is near to destruction. Leary came to Milan to publicize his "spiritual food," In addition, Italy has become the crucial center for and underground newspapers flourished, explaining to the drug trade in the Mediterranean area. The recent adolescents that drugs "expand consciousness." discovery of "heroin factories" in northern Italy and This was accompanied by the introduction of rock Sicily is indicative of Italy's role as a source of heroin music on a massive scale. The most important of the flowing into the United States-an "export industry" underground newspapers, Re Nudo, which pushed rock, built by Turatello under Craxi's protection. drugs and pornography, was sponsored by Socialist The young gangster Turatello began his rise in leaders like Ripa di Meana. And out of the spreading Milan during the 196Os, taking over clandestine gam­ degeneration of youth layers under the Socialists' "rock­ bling and prostitution. These areas served as the base drug counterculture" came the first Maoist and anarch­ for the drug market and the so-called kidnaping indus­ ist groupings that later became terrorists. This was the try. In a short time, Turatello was expanding in an foundation for the "1968 Movement," and its explosive unstoppable way, thanks to Craxi's political patronage. destabilization of the schools and factories of Italy. In Craxi personally frequented Turatello's clandestine terrorism, too, the Socialist Party and Bettino Craxi led gambling dens, where he was considered an habitue. the way. The city of Milan was, and is, controlled by the It was at this time that Bettino Craxi became a Socialist Party. Since the advent of Turatello, Milan, national political leader. capital of Lombardy, has had a Socialist mayor-first Following 1968, the drug market expanded massive­ Aldo Aniasi, and now, the recently elected Carlo Tog­ ly, from Milan into Rome. Here, it was dominated by noli. Loris Fortuna's intimate friend Pierluigi Torri. Torri, Under the Socialist administrations, what was once under threat of an arrest warrant, fled to London, known as the most modern industrialized city in the where, under very high-level protection, he set up a country has become the city of organized crime. It has network of "instant banks," financial institutions such taken over and controls the police in many areas, and as Universal Banking, Inc. These were designed to the city is now very similar to Marseilles, France-also recycle huge quantities of dirty money-from the kid­ dominated by the party of the Socialist International, napings, robberies and especially drug trafficking in and by drugs. The connections between the former Italy. One of Torri's chief clients was the noted terrorist mayor of Marseilles, Gaston Deferre, now the Socialist leader Pierluigi Concutelli, who funneled robbery and Interior Minister under Fran�ois Mitterrand, and the kidnaping proceeds into Torri's London banks on a "Marseilles Clan," are well known. Turatello collabo­ large scale. rated very closely with the Marseilles dtug mafia, from Torri was finally arrested in London alter years of the time of the first "French Connection" through the unheeded requests by Italy's Christian Democratic gov­ 1970s. ern�ent for his extradition. Miraculously, he escaped. Among the many people in Marseilles who worked He was arrested again in New York in 1979. Interviewed for Turatello ws the famous drug-trafficking boss, Joe by the magazine II Mondo from his prison cell, he said Adonis-who himself was very close to the Socialist that he was not worried, for he could count on the Party of France.