Operation Gladio: NATO/CIA stay-behind networks (1948–1990)

Secret 'stay-behind' paramilitary networks (arms caches, recruits, escape lines) prepared by the UK and US with NATO and national services to resist a Soviet occupation. 'Gladio' is the Italian branch, often used for all. Italian PM Giulio Andreotti revealed it to the Chamber of Deputies on **24 Oct 1990**: 622 named civilians and 127 dismantled arms caches; he denied involvement in the 1960s–80s bombings. Neo-fascist Vincenzo Vinciguerra (1972 Peteano car bomb) had already exposed it at his 1984 trial. The European Parliament condemned it (Nov 1990); only Italy, Belgium and Switzerland held parliamentary inquiries; the Bush administration refused comment. A 2000 Italian parliamentary report (center-left group) said the US supported a 'strategy of tension' to keep the PCI from power. Scholars dispute Ganser's thesis that NATO/CIA ran Gladio as terrorism; FM 30-31B, central to that thesis, is widely considered a Soviet forgery.