Operation Gladio
Clandestine Western military operations during the Cold War / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Operation Gladio was the codename for clandestine "stay-behind" operations of armed resistance that were organized by the Western Union (WU) (founded in 1948), and subsequently by NATO (formed in 1949) and by the CIA (established in 1947),[1][2] in collaboration with several European intelligence agencies during the Cold War.[3] Although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind organizations, Operation Gladio is used as an informal name for all of them. Stay-behind operations were prepared in many NATO member countries, and in some neutral countries.[4]
Operation Gladio | |
---|---|
Secret stay-behind network Part of Cold War | |
Operational scope | Covert operations |
Location | |
Planned | 1952–1990 |
Planned by | Western intelligence agencies |
Objective | Counter an invasion of Europe by the Warsaw Pact |
Date | 1 January 1952 (1952-01-01) |
Executed by | Western Union Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (NATO)
|
Outcome | Continued operations into the 1990s, exposure and disclosure |
According to several Western European researchers, the operation involved the use of assassination, psychological warfare, and false flag operations to delegitimize left-wing parties in Western European countries, and even went so far as to support anti-communist militias and right-wing terrorism as they tortured communists and assassinated them, such as Eduardo Mondlane in 1969.[5][6][7][8] The United States Department of State rejected the view that they supported terrorists and maintains that the operation served only to resist a potential invasion of Western European countries by the Soviet Union.[9]