Italian authorities were on the trail of Roberto Calvi and the Banco Ambrosiano’s irregular activities, oblivious to the incredible chasm of corruption, blood and terrorism that lay open just behind him. Founded in 1896, the bank had cultivated a pristine reputation as a model of integrity and independent governance, thanks to its policy of restricting the total amount of stock any single entity could own in the institution to 5%. Calvi had created a web of shell companies with myriad subsidiaries to get around these limitations, and by such means attained 16% control of the bank on behalf of the Vatican.
When the scandal broke all over the Italian press, the Pope himself was implicated in a conspiracy so large and dark, that even the most audacious spy novelists would balk at the premise. A wide-ranging Masonic fraternity called P2, comprising hundreds of powerful government figures and mobsters, was exposed as a central mover in the multi-billion-dollar scandal. Even high-ranking Vatican officials were part of the fraternity – a violation of Church tenets.
Banco Ambrosiano’s long-established good name had been tarnished beyond recovery, but the Milan-based institution’s role barely scratched the surface of a far bigger and much more sinister reality emanating from the deep recesses of post-World War II America; a burgeoning superpower intent on asserting itself on the rest of the world, bleeding from the shores of the Mediterranean all the way to Latin America.
Dubbed “God’s Banker”, Calvi was in charge of laundering billions of dollars generated through world-wide heroin trade networks established years earlier by the CIA and its precursor agency, the OSS. Allen Dulles, future Director of the CIA, and his spy mentor “Wild” Bill Donovan, devised a plan at the conclusion of World War II to prevent – as claimed – a Soviet invasion of Europe. The concept revolved around recruiting Nazi officers and other extreme right wing elements to form so-called “stay-behind” units throughout the old continent, stationed clandestinely in several countries ready to act on a moment’s notice. They called the operation “Gladio”, and though the awaited red invasion never materialized, the services of the covert militias, who stashed CIA-provided armaments in thousands of secret locations, were requisitioned on multiple occasions as the need to quash left-leaning movements arose. (more...)
Lucifer’s Reign: The Role of Operation Gladio in the Subversion of Latin America
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