Chapter Four: THE SECRET WAR IN GREAT BRITAIN -Nato's Secret Armies by Daniele Ganser

 

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THE SECRET WAR IN GREAT BRIT AIN

The final and definite account of the Cold War will never be written, as history evolves together with the societies that produce and consume history. But a consensus has emerged among scientists in numerous countries that the most prominent feature of the Cold War, as seen from the West, was the fight against Communism on a global scale. In this struggle that characterised the history of the twentieth century like few other features the former superpower of the world, Great Britain, lost its leading position to the United States. The latter used its struggle against Communism to increase its power decade after decade. And after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of the Cold War, the Empire of the United States dominated the world like no other Empire before in history.

The conservative establishment in Great Britain was greatly worried when for the first time in the history of mankind in 1917 a Communist system was installed in a remote but large agricultural country. After the revolution in Russia the Communists seized entire factories and explained that from now on the means of production belonged to the people. The investors, in many cases, lost everything. In his 'Origins of the Cold War', historian Denna Frank Fleming observed that many of the social changes brought about by the Russian revolution, including the radical abolition of both the Church and the landed nobility, 'might have been accepted by the world's conservatives in time, but the nationalisation of industry, business and the land - never'. The example of the Russian revolution was not to be repeated anywhere ever. 'J. B. Priestly once said that the minds of England's conservatives snapped shut at the height of the Russian Revolution and 1 had never opened again.'

Largely unknown in the West, the secret war against Communism hence started right after the Russian revolution when Great Britain and the United States sent secret armies against the newly founded Soviet Union toddler nation. Between 1918 and 1920, London and Washington sided with the Russian right and financed ten military interventions against the USSR on Soviet soil, all of which failed to overthrow the new rulers but created considerable suspicion among the Communist 2 elite and dictator Stalin concerning the motives of the capitalist West. In subsequent years the Soviet Union strengthened its security apparatus and eventually

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became a totalitarian state and routinely arrested foreigners on its soil blaming them to be secret agents of the West. As the difficulties of overthrowing Communism in Russia became apparent, Great Britain and its allies concentrated on a strategy of preventing Communism from spreading to other countries.

In July 1936 fascist dictator Franco staged a coup d'etat against the Spanish left-wing government and in subsequent c i v i l war defeated the opposition and the Spanish Communists while enjoying the silent support of the governments in London, Washington and Paris. Among the reasons why Adolf Hitler was not stopped very early ranged this one he essentially had the right enemy: Soviet Communism. During the Spanish Civil War Hitler and Mussolini were allowed to bomb the Spanish opposition. After having started the Second World War, Hitler launched three massive offensives against Russia in 1941, 1942 and 1943, which almost dealt a death blow to Russian Communism. With more victims than any other country during the Second World War the Soviet Union lost over 15 million 3 civilians and 7 million soldiers, while another 14 million were injured. Russian historians have later argued that despite Moscow's urgent request the United States, which lost 300,000 soldiers during the Second World War, when liberating Europe and Asia, had together with Great Britain deliberately refrained from establishing a second front against Hitler in the West, which naturally would have diverted Nazi troops and thus eased the onslaught on the USSR. Only after Stalingrad the tides turned and the Red Army defeated the Germans and marched west, so Russian historians argued the Allies, who feared losing ground, quickly established a 4 second front and after the 1944 Normandy invasion met the Soviet army in Berlin. British historians confirmed the history of intrigues that had both shaped their country and others. 'England in modern times has always been a centre of subversion - known as such to others, but not to itself, British historian Mackenzie observed after the Second World War. 'Hence the strange two-sided picture: England to the outer world was the model of intrigue, subtlety and perfect secrecy, to itself it 5 seemed above all bluff, simple and well-meaning.' Mackenzie argues that the legendary secret warfare of the British goes back 'into the history of the "small 6 wars" which made the British Empire' . As the Second World War was about to begin, the British strategists in the Defence Department concluded that their covert action 'must be based on the experience which we have had in India, Iraq, Ireland and 7 Russia, i.e. the development of a combination of guerrilla with IRA tactics'.

In March 1938, shortly after Hitler's annexation of Austria, a new department was created in MI6, labelled Section D, with the task to develop subversive operations in Europe. Section D began to establish 'stay-behind' sabotage 8 parties in countries threatened by German invasion. When in 1940 the German invasion of southern England seemed imminent 'Section D set about getting up a store of arms and recruiting agents all over Britain, without informing anyone else. The British domestic secret service MI5 became quite alarmed when it started receiving reports of Section D's activities and several of their agents 9 were arrested as spies before the truth was discovered.' The recruitment and organisation of stay-behind agents by members of Section D looked highly

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secretive to any observer: "The appearance of these strangers [Section D agents]

in their city clothes, sinister black limousines and general air of mystery caused

alarm among the local inhabitants', former SOE operative Peter Wilkinson remembers. The secret agents also 'infuriated subordinate military commanders since they refused to explain their presence or discuss their business except to 10 say that it was "most secret'". Half a century later the 'Secret Wars' exhibition of the Imperial War Museum in London revealed to the public how 'MI6 Section D, following the stay-behind doctrine, also set up resistance armies in England called "The Auxiliary Units" equipped with guns and explosives'. These first British Gladio units 'received special training and were instructed to "stay-behind" enemy lines in case of a German invasion of the island. Operating from secret hideouts and arms caches, they would be able to carry out sabotage and guerrilla 11 warfare against the German invaders.' Whether the plan would have worked out in practice was never known in the absence of the German invasion. But by August 1940 'a rather ramshackle organization' covering the most vulnerable invasion beaches had been established along the North Sea coasts of England 12 and Scotland.

Section D of MI6 was secret warfare restricted to Great Britain. This changed when in July 1940 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the creation of a secret army under the label SOE to 'set Europe ablaze by assisting resistance movements and carrying out subversive operations in enemy held 13 territory'. The Prime Minister's War Cabinet Memorandum of July 19, 1940 records that 'The Prime Minister has further decided, after consultation with the Ministers concerned, that a new organisation shall be established forthwith to co-ordinate all action, by way of subversion and sabotage, against the enemy overseas.' SOE was placed under the command of the Labour Ministry of Economic Warfare under Hugh Dalton. After German forces had occupied France and seemed unstoppable, Minister Dalton insisted that a secret war had to be fought against the German forces in occupied territories: 'We have to organise movements in enemy-occupied territory comparable to the Sinn Fein movement in Ireland, to the Chinese Guerrillas now operating against Japan, to the Spanish Irregulars who played a notable part in Wellington's campaign or - one might as well admit it - to the organisations which the Nazis themselves have developed so remarkably in almost every country in the world.' It seemed logical that the weapon of secret warfare could not be neglected by the British, and Dalton stressed: 'This "democratic international" must use many different methods, including industrial and military sabotage, labour agitation and strikes, continuous propaganda, terrorist acts against traitors and German leaders, boycotts and riots.' In total secrecy a resistance network had thus to be installed by daredevils of the British military and intelligence establishment: 'What is needed is a new organisation to co-ordinate, inspire, control and assist the nationals of the oppressed countries who must themselves be the direct participants. We need absolute secrecy, a certain fanatical enthusiasm, willingness to work with people of different nationalities, complete 14 political reliability.'

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Under Minister Dalton operational command of SOE was given to Major General

Sir Colin Gubbins, a small, slight, wiry Highlander, with moustache who was 15 later to be influential in the build up of the British Gladio. 'The problem and the plan was to encourage and enable the peoples of the occupied countries to harass the German War effort at every possible point by sabotage, subversion, go- slow practices, coup de main raids etc.', Gubbins described the task of SOE, 'and at the same time to build up secret lorces therein, organised, armed and trained to take their part only when the final assault began'. SOE was a carbon copy of operation Gladio born in the midst of the Second World War. 'In its simplest terms, this plan involved the ultimate delivery to occupied territory of large numbers of personnel and quantities of arms and explosives', Gubbins summarised the 16 ambitious plan.

Special Operations Executive employed many of the staff of Section D and eventually became a major organisation in its own right with over 13,000 men and women in its ranks, operating on a global scale and in close cooperation with the MI6. Although SOE also carried out missions in Far East Asia, mounted from India and Australia, Western Europe was its main theatre of operation where it focused on establishing of national secret armies. SOE promoted sabotage and subversion in enemy-occupied territory and established nucleus of trained men who could assist resistance groups in the re-conquest of the countries concerned. 'SOE was for five years the main instrument of British action in the internal politics of Europe', the British Cabinet Office report noted, 'it was an extremely powerful instrument' for it could serve a multitude of tasks and thus 'While SOE was at work no European politician could be under the illusion that 17 the British were uninterested or dead.'

Officially the SOE was disbanded after the war in January 1946 and SOE commander Gubbins resigned. Yet Sir Steward Menzies, who headed the MI6 from 1939 until 1952, was not going to throw away such a valuable instrument as the secret army, and as Director of MI6's Special Operations branch made sure that British covert action continued in the Cold War. The formerly secret Cabinet report on SOE concluded 'it is quite certain that in some form SOE must be 18 created again in any future war'. Long-term objectives approved provisionally by the British Chiefs of Staff on October 4, 1945 for SOE and its successor, the Special Operations branch of MI6, therefore directed first the creation of a skeleton network capable of rapid expansion in case of war and, second, the servicing of the clandestine operational requirements of the British government abroad. 'Priority was given in carrying out these tasks to countries likely to be overrun in the earliest stages of any conflict with the Soviet Union, but not as yet under 19 Soviet domination.' Western Europe hence remained a central theatre for British secret warfare also after the end of the Second World War.

After SOE was closed down on June 30, 1946 a new section 'Special Operations' (SO) was erected within MI6 and placed under the command of Major General Colin Gubbins. According to Dutch secret services scholar Frans Kluiters, MI6 actively promoted the setting up of secret anti-Communist armies as 'Special 41

Operations started to erect networks in West Germany, Italy and Austria. These

networks ( s t a y - behind organisations) could have been activated in case of a potential Soviet invasion, in order to colleet intelligence and carry out offensive 20 sabotage activities.' Gubbins saw to it that even after 1945, SOE personnel remained in countries including Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece and Turkey; for SOE and its successors had 'political concerns beyond that of simply defeating Germany'. The explicit directive of 1945 'made it clear that SOE's main enemy was Communism and the Soviet Union', for British interests in Europe were seen 21 to be 'threatened by the Soviet Union and European Communism'. later, in an attempt to gain parliamentary support for the ongoing clandestine operations, British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin in front of the British parliament on January 22, 1948 urged for the creation of specialised armed units to be used against Soviet subversion and Soviet 'fifth columns'. Selected parliamentarians at the time knew that the suggestion was already being implemented. A few years

As Washington shared this enemy of Great Britain, military and secret service cooperation between the two countries was very close. On the orders of the White House in Washington, Frank Wisner, Director of the CIA covert action department Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), was setting up stay-behind secret armies across Western Europe and in his operations collaborated closely with the Special Operations branch of MI6 of Colonel Gubbins. The CIA and MI6 in a first step were to 'neutralise the surviving secret units of the Axis powers in Germany, Austria and northern Italy' and thereafter recruited some of the defeated fascists into the new anti-Communist secret armies as French secret services scholars Roger Faligot and Remi Kauffer observed. 'And indeed, through the OPC of the CIA and the SOB of the SIS, the secret services of the democratic countries, which have just won the war, have thereafter tried to "return" some of these commandos 22 against their former Soviet ally.'

Next to MI6 and CIA and their respective covert action departments SOB and OPC, the British and American military Special Forces also cooperated closely. The SAS and the American Green Berets, trained to carry out special missions clandestinely in enemy-held territory, were at numerous instances during the Cold War brothers in arms, and among other operations also trained the secret stay-behind armies. Former Royal Marine officers Giles and Preston who had set up the Austrian Gladio confirmed that Gladio recruits were sent to the old Napoleonic Fort Monckton on the waterfront near Portsmouth in England where the MI6 trained its agents together with the British SAS. They themselves had taken part in these Gladio trainings and were given instruction in secret codes, the use of a 23 pistol and covert operations. Among those trained by the British SAS was Decimo Garau, an instructor at the Italian Gladio base Centro Addestramento Guastatori (CAG) on Capo Marargiu in Sardinia. 'I was in England for a week at Poole, invited by the Special Forces. I was there for a week and I did some training with them', Instructor Garau confirmed after the exposure of Gladio in 1990. 'I did a parachute jump over the Channel. I did some training with them and I got on well with 24 them. Then I was at Hereford to plan and c a r r y out an exercise with the SAS.'

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The British at the time were the most experienced in the field of covert action

and unorthodox warfare. Their SAS Special Forces had been formed in the midst of the Second World War in Northern Africa in 1942 with the task to strike deep behind enemy lines. Arguably the most dangerous enemy of the British Special

Forces SAS during the war were the German Special Forces SS headed by Heinrich

Himmler and founded already before the beginning of the Second World War. Like all Special Forces also the German SS was an elite combat troop with special insignia - sleek black uniforms, decorated with death's head and silver dagger - who felt superior to the regular forces and gained a reputation as 'fanatical killers'. After the defeat of Nazi Germany the SS Special Forces were declared a criminal organisation and dissolved by the Allied Tribunal in Nurnberg in 1946.

Upon victory the SAS also was disbanded at the end of the war in October 1945. Yet as the need for top-secret dirty tricks and daredevil operation resurfaced as quickly as the global power of the British Empire was declining, SAS was reborn and in 1947 fought again behind enemy lines in Malaysia. From their headquarters 'the Nursery' in Hereford, England, numerous SAS operations on a very low noise followed, amongst which an operation in 1958 in the British client state Oman where SAS units in support of the dictatorial Sultan defeated left-wing guerrillas. The operation allegedly secured the regiment's future funding, for, as a SAS commander saw it, they had shown that 'they could be flown into a trouble spot rapidly and discreetly, and operate in a remote area without publicity, a 25 capability much valued by the Conservative Government of the day'. In its most public operation the SAS in 1980 stormed the Iranian embassy in London, and more secretly in 1982 operated in the Falkland War. In their biggest deployment since the Second World War SAS units served in the Gulf in 1991 and together with the US Green Berets secretly trained and equipped the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) forces before and during the 1999 NATO bombardments of Serb's province.

Conservative British parliamentarian Nigel West correctly emphasised that like the US Green Berets, 'Britain's SAS would have played a strategic role in Operation Gladio if the Soviets had invaded Western Europe', with an implicit claim that 26 operational planning extended to the European stay-behind armies. Both paramilitary units cooperated closely. As a sign of intimate cooperation the members of the American Special Forces unit wore the distinctive Green Beret unofficially ever since 1953 in order to imitate their SAS idols who had long used that insignia. The 'foreign' headdress caused much concern for many senior US Army officers. And it was only when President Kennedy, a great enthusiast of covert action and Special Forces, approved it during his visit to Fort Bragg, head- quarters of US Special Forces, in October 1961 that the insignia were officially established in the United States and ever since stuck as the label for the most prominent branch of the many US Special Forces. The US esteem for the older and more prestigious SAS endured for many years as SAS headquarters in Hereford were regarded as the 'mother house', and US Special Forces officers gained prestige at home from having graduated at the British secret warfare centre. Returning the respect, the British too cultivated the Special Forces alliance and in

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1962 made the commander of the US Green Berets, Army officer Major General

William Yatrborough, an honorary member of the SAS.

Already two years before the Gladio exposures in 1990 the BBC unveiled the clandestine cooperation between the British and the American Special Forces to the larger public and in a documentary entitled the 'The Unleashing of Evil' revealed how SAS British Special Forces and US Green Berets had used torture against prisoners over the past 30 years in every major campaign from Kenya to Northern Ireland, Oman, Vietnam, Yemen, Cyprus and other countries. Former Green Berets officer Luke Thomson explained in front of the camera to the public that US Special Forces at Fort Bragg share a reciprocal training programme with the SAS. Whereupon journalist Richard Norton Taylor, British producer of 'The Unleashing of Evil' and prominent reporter during the Gladio scandal two years later, concluded that torture is 'more pervasive and a little closer to ourselves 27 than we like to think'. In another top-secret operation US Green Berets trained genocide Khmer Rouge units in Cambodia after the contact had been established by Ray Cline, senior CIA agent and special adviser to US President Ronald Reagan. When the Iran Contra scandal got under way in 1983, President Reagan, fearing another unpleasant exposure, asked British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to take over, who sent the SAS to train Pol Pot forces. 'We first went to Thailand in 1984', senior officers of the SAS later testified, 'The Yanks and us work together; we're close, like brothers. They didn't like it any more than we did. We trained the Khmer Rouge in a lot of technical stuff', the officer remembers. 'At first they wanted to go into the villages and just chop people up. We told them to go easy.' The SAS felt uneasy with the operation and 'a lot of us would change sides given half the chance. That's how pissed off we are. We hate being mixed 28 up with Pol Pot. I tell you: we are soldiers, not child murderers.'

'My experience of clandestine operations is that they seldom remain clandestine for long', Field Marshal Lord Carver, Chief of the British General Staff and later Chief of the British Defence Staff mused in what could have been a remark on Gladio. 'Once you take a step down that slippery slope, there is a danger that Special Forces may begin to take the law into their own hands, as the French did in Algeria, and may have done recently in the Greenpeace affair in New Zealand' in which the French secret service Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE) on July 10, 1985 sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow 29 Warrior protesting against the French nuclear tests in the Pacific. Slippery indeed was of course the sensitive deployment of SAS units to Northern Ireland where Irish republicans considered the SAS as nothing less than terrorists. 'A very strong case can be made', critics argued, 'that even from a British point of view, the SAS were part of the problem in Northern Ireland rather than part of 30 the solution'.

As the Gladio scandal erupted in 1990 the British press observed that 'it is now clear that the elite Special Air Service regiment (SAS) was up to its neck in the NATO scheme, and functioned, with MI6, as a training arm for guerrilla warfare and sabotage'. Specifically the British press confirmed that 'an Italian stay-behind

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unit trained in Britain. The evidence now suggests that it lasted well into the 1980s',

adding 'it has been proved that the SAS constructed the secret hides where arms

31 were stockpiled in the British sector of West Germany'. Some of the best data

on the secret British hand came from t h e Swiss parliamentary investigation into the secret Swiss stay-behind army P26. 'British secret services collaborated closely with an armed, undercover Swiss organisation [P26] through a series of covert agreements which formed part of a west European network of "resistance" groups', the press informed a stunned public in neutral Switzerland. Swiss judge Cornu was given the task to investigate the matter and in his report 'describes the group's [P26] collaboration with British secret services as "intense", with Britain providing valuable know-how. P26 cadres participated regularly in training exercises in Britain, the report says. British advisers - possibly from the SAS - visited secret training establishments in Switzerland.' Ironically the British knew more about the secret Swiss army than the Swiss government, for 'The activities of P26, its codes, and the name of the leader of the group, Efrem Cattelan, were known to British intelligence, but the Swiss government was kept in the dark, according to the report. It says that documents giving details about the secret 32 agreements between the British and P26 have never been found.'

Swiss Gladiators during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s trained in Great Britain under British Special Forces instructors. Training, according to Swiss military instructor and alleged Gladio member Alois Hurlimann, also included non- simulated real action operations against IRA activists, probably in Northern Ireland. This Hurlimann carelessly revealed in Switzerland during an English language course conversation hour when in poor English he reported that in May 1984 he had taken part in secret trainings in England which had also included a real, non-simulated assault on an IRA arms depot, in which Hurlimann, fully dressed in battle fatigues, had participated, and in which at least one IRA activist 33 had been killed.

Most interestingly, the Swiss 1991 Cornu investigation revealed that somewhere in England the Gladio command and communications centre equipped with the Gladio typical Harpoon hardware had been erected. In 1984 a 'Joint Working Agreement', complemented in 1987 with a 'Technical Support Memo', specifically 'spoke of training centres in Great Britain, of the installation of a Swiss transmission- centre in England, and of the co-operation of the two services in technical matters'. Unfortunately, as judge Cornu related, 'Both the "Joint Working Agreement", as well as the "Technical Support Memo" could not be found.' The responsible person of the Swiss military secret service UNA declared that 'in December 1989 he had handed them to the British secret services, for reasons 34 which remain unclear, without keeping a copy of the documents'. "The cadres of the Swiss organisation regarded the British as the best specialists in the field', 35 the Swiss government in its report concluded.

An unnamed former NATO intelligence official after the discoveries of the secret armies in late 1990 claimed that 'there was a division of labour between the British and the US, with Britain taking responsibility for operations in France,

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Belgium, Holland, Portugal and Norway and the Americans looking after

36 Sweden, Finland and the rest of Europe'. not come easily in every country as the case of Italy shows. General Umberto Broccoli, one of the first Directors of the Italian military secret service SIFAR, on October 8, 1951 wrote to the Italian Defence Minister Efisio Marras to discuss issues concerning the Italian stay-behind and the training of Gladiators. Broccoli explained that the British had already created such stay-behind networks in the Netherlands, Belgium 'and presumably also in Denmark and Norway'. Broccoli was happy to confirm that Great Britain 'has made its vast experience in the field available to us' and the Americans have 'offered to collaborate actively with our organisation by providing men, material (presumably free of charge or almost free of charge) and maybe funds'. Broccoli highlighted how useful it would be to send seven specially selected Italian officers for special training to England from November 1951 to February 1952, for these officers would upon return direct the training of Italian Gladiators. Chief of the military secret service Broccoli asked Defence Minister Marras to 'give his approval for this course because, unknown to the British, I am in agreement with the American secret service on us going to 37 the course'. This division of labour, however, did

British Gladio training was not for free, but a serious business, and Broccoli confessed that 'one can imagine that the costs will amount to about 500 million Lira which can not be taken on the budget of the SIFAR and which should be dealt 38 with in the budgets of the Armed Forces'. The MI6, as Broccoli specified, had offered the training of Italian Gladio officers on the condition that Italy bought arms from the British. At the same time, however, in what could be interpreted as a combat for spheres of influence the rich CIA was offering Gladio arms for free. In the end the Italians decided to take the best of both. They sent their officers to the highly reputable British Special Training Schools, but at the same time secretly made a deal with the Americans who provided them with arms for free. The British were not amused. And when General Ettore Musco, successor of Broccoli at the head of SIFAR, visited the British Fort Monckton near Portsmouth where Gladio training took place the atmosphere was tense: 'In 1953 the British realised that they have been fooled and angrily reproached General Musco, protesting that 39 "his service was delivering itself hook, line and sinker to the Americans". '

Competition between CIA and MI6 for spheres of influence was not limited to Italy. In late 1990, Belgian Defence Minister Guy Coeme upon discovering the secret army explained that 'The relationship between the British and Belgian intelligence services originates in the contacts which took place between Mr. Spaak and the head of the British intelligence service [Menzies], and in the 40 arrangement between the United States, Great Britain and Belgium.' The menage a trois had its tricky sides, as MI6 and CIA wanted to make sure that Belgium would not privilege one to the other. Chief of the MI6, Steward Menzies, therefore on January 27, 1949 wrote to the then Belgian Prime Minister Paul Henri Spaak: 'I was delighted to have an opportunity of discussing with you personally certain problems concerning our two countries which I regard as of

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very real importance and which have been giving me some concern recently.'

Whereupon he stressed that both countries should strengthen their cooperation 'on the subject of Cominform and potential enemy activities' and start the 'preparation of appropriate intelligence and action organisations in the event of

war'. Specifically 'certain officers should proceed to the United Kingdom in the

near future to study, in conjunction with my Service, the technicalities of these matters'. Menzies was very concerned that Spaak would make the Gladio deal with the CIA and not the Ml6 and highlighted that he had 'always regarded American participation in the defence of Western Europe of capital importance. I am, however, convinced that all effort, American not excluded, must be inte- grated into a harmonious whole. Should, therefore, the Americans wish to pursue with your Service certain preparations to meet the needs of war, I regard it as essential - and I understand that I have your agreement - that these activities should be co-ordinated with my own.'

Thereupon Menzies specifically referred to the 'Clandestine Committee of the Western Union' (CCWU), which as of 1948 coordinated non-orthodox warfare until in 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty was signed and NATO took over Gladio coordination. 'Such co-operation', Menzies emphasised in his letter to Spaak, 'moreover will prevent undesirable repercussions with the Western Union Chiefs of Staff. I have already indicated to the Head of the American Service that I am ready to work out plans for detailed co-operation with him on this basis, and I therefore suggest that any projects formulated by them should be referred back to Washington for subsequent discussion between the British and the American Services in London.' Menzies also noted that the Belgian Gladio had to be equipped and that 'Demands for training and material will arise in the near future. I have already undertaken to provide certain training facilities for officers and others nominated by the Head of your Special Service, and I am in a position to provide items of new equipment now in production (such as W/T sets) which will be required for clandestine activities, in the immediate future.' Some of the material, as the chief of the MI6 saw it, could be given for free to the Belgian Gladio while other equipment had to be paid for: 'Such specialised equipment would be given or loaned, but I suggest that should the handling over of more orthodox types of new material arise (e.g. small arms and other military stores), the accountancy should be the subject for friendly negotiation between the British and the Belgian Special Services.' Of course the setting up of the Belgian Gladio had to be carried out in the utmost secrecy and Menzies concluded his letter by stating: 'I need hardly add that I am confident you will share my wish that this correspondence should be regarded as highly secret and that it should not be divulged to a third 41 party without our joint agreement.'

About two weeks later Spaak replied to Menzies stating in his letter that while he was glad to receive the help from the British, he had to inform him that the Americans had also approached Belgium on the subject, and that he therefore thought it important that the British and the Americans first solved this issue amongst themselves. 'I agree with you', the Belgian Prime Minister wrote, 'that it

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would be highly desirable that the three services (British, American and Belgian)

should collaborate closely'. Aware of the competition for influence between the MI6 and the CIA, Spaak noted that, however, 'If two of them, the American and the British, refuse that collaboration, the s i t u a t i o n of the Belgian service would be extremely delicate and difficult. I therefore think that it is unavoidable, that on the highest levels negotiations take place between London and Washington to 42 solve this question.'

In Norway secret service chief Vilhelm Evang was the central figure for both the erection of the stay-behind and the creation of the first Norwegian Intelligence Service (NIS). Evang, a science graduate from Oslo, had joined the small intelligence service of the Norwegian government in exile in London in 1942. Back in Norway, Evang with excellent relations to the British built up the post-war NIS in 1946 and led it as Director for 20 years. In February 1947, Evang met an unnamed British MI6 officer with 'close connection with centrally placed defence and military circles' as Evang remembered in his notes. 'Those considerations have led the English to take a strong interest in the build-up of a defence in countries under enemy occupation. It seems as if the Netherlands, France, and Belgium are in the process of setting up a more or less fixed organisation for an under- 43 ground army.'

Also in neighbouring neutral Sweden the British, together with the US CIA, had played a dominant role in the training of the local Gladio commanders as was revealed in Sweden by Reinhold Geijer, a former Swedish military professional, who in 1957 had been recruited into the Swedish Gladio network and for decades worked as a regional commander. Almost 80-years old, in 1996 Geijer on Swedish television TV 4 recalled how the British had trained him in covert action operations in England. 'In 1959 I went, via London, to a farm outside Eaton. This was done under the strictest secrecy procedures, with for instance a forged passport. I was not even allowed to call my wife' Geijer remembered. 'The aim of the training was to learn how to use dead letter box techniques to receive and send secret messages, and other James Bond style exercises. The British were very tough. I sometimes had the feeling that we were 44 overdoing it.'

As the secret armies were discovered across Western Europe in late 1990 and a beam light focused also on the formerly hidden British hand in the operation, the government of John Major refused to take a stand. 'I'm afraid we wouldn't discuss 45 security matters', spokespersons told the inquisitive British press day after day. The British parliament refrained from an open debate or a parliamentary investi- gation of the matter and still in summer 1992 journalist Hugh O'Shaughnessy lamented that 'The silence in Whitehall and the almost total lack of curiosity among 46 MPs about an affair in which Britain was so centrally involved are remarkable.' It was left to the British television BBC to observe that 'Britain's role in setting up stay-behinds throughout Europe was absolutely fundamental.' BBC in its Newsnight edition of April 4, 1991 stressed the criminal dimension of the secret armies and reported that as 'the mask is removed, there are horrors to behold'.

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BBC correctly found that next to the stay-behind function the secret armies had

engaged in political manipulation: 'Just as the Gladiator's sword had a double edge, there were two sides to the story of the modern Gladio'. The question is, the documentary continued, was Gladio, with its hidden supplies of arms and explo- sives used by its mentors ... for internal subversion against... the left? Were the agents of the state in fact responsible for an unexplained wave of terrorist killings?' And what was the role of Great Britain? 'We have evidence that right from the beginning of Gladio', Italian parliamentarian Sergio de Julio in front of the camera declared, 'officers were sent to England for training. They were in charge of constituting the first nucleus of the Gladio organisation. So we have 47 evidence for cooperation, let's say, for cooperation between the UK and Italy.'

BBC journalist Peter Marshall interviewed Italian General Gerardo Serravalle, who had commanded the Italian Gladio from 1971 to 1974, and directly questioned him on the role of the British. The Italian General confirmed that cooperation with the British had been intense: 'I invited them [the British] because we had visited their bases in England - the stay-behind bases [of the UK] - and in exchange for this visit I invited them.' Journalist Marshall asked: 'Where is the British stay-behind base?', upon which General Serravalle laughed and replied: 'I'm sorry, I'm not going to tell you where it is, because that enters the area of your country's secrecy.' Then Marshall, in order to get a guaranteed reply, asked: 'But you were impressed with the British?' To which Serravalle replied: 'Yes, I was.

48 Because it's [sic] very efficient, very well organised, and the staff was excellent.' A year later the BBC took up the Gladio issue once again and broadcasted three excellent documentaries on Gladio by Allan Francovich. Few had as much experience in making documentaries on sensitive issues as filmmaker Francovich who with his 1980 production 'On Company Business' had exposed the dark side of the CIA which won him the International Critics Award for the best documentary at the Berlin Film Festival. Then he investigated Gladio, and thereafter with 'The Maltese Double Cross', Francovich in 1995 presented the connection between the 1988 crash of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie and the accidental shooting down of Iran Air 655 by the American warship USS Vincennes in the same year. 'Rare indeed, outside fiction, are the crusaders of truth who, time and time again, have put themselves in personal danger as Francovich did', his friend Tarn Dalyell remembered him after Francovich had died from a heart attack under mysterious circumstances upon entering the United States at the Customs Area of Houston 49 Airport, Texas, on April 17, 1997.

Mainly based on interviews, and focusing almost exclusively on Gladio in Italy and Belgium, Francovich's BBC documentaries feature in front of the camera such key Gladio players as Licio Gelli, head of the P2, Italian right-wing activist Vincenzo Vinciguerra, Venetian judge and Gladio discoverer Felice Casson, Italian Gladio commander General Gerardo Serravalle, Senator Roger Lallemand, head of the Belgian Parliamentary inquiry into Gladio, Decimo Garau, former Italian instructor at the Sardinian Gladio base, William Colby, former Director of CIA, and 50 Martial Lekeu, former member of the Belgian Gendarmerie to name but a few.

49

'The stay-behind effort, in my view, was simply to be sure that if the worst came

to worst, if a Communisl Party came into power, that there would be some agents there who would tip us off, and tell us what was happening and be around', Ray Cline, Deputy Director of the CIA from 1962 to 1966, explained for instance in front of Francovich's camera. 'It's not unlikely that some right-wing groups were recruited and made to be stay-behinds because they would indeed have tipped us off if a war were going to begin, so using right-wingers, if you used them not

51 politically, but for intelligence purposes, is o.k.', Cline went on the record. The

papers on the next day in London reported that 'It was one of those programmes

which you imagine will bring down governments, but such is the instant amnesia

generated by television you find that in the newspapers the next morning it rates

52 barely a mention.'

50

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THE SECRET WAR IN THE UNITED STATES