Stay-behind

Within the framework of the Cold war, the cells stay-behind were clandestine networks connected to NATO. Established in sixteen countries of Western Europe, these cells aimed at avoiding the threat of an occupation by the Eastern bloc, being ready to be activated in the event of invasion by the forces of the Warsaw Pact. Most famous Gladio is the Italian network.

The existence of these cells will be revealed by the media only in the Années 1990, although the former director of the CIA William Colby has, since 1978, describes the genesis of these groups in its memories.

History

At the beginning of the Cold war, at the end of the years 1940, a invasion by the Soviet Union of Western Europe was a plausible assumption in the event of Third World war. In the event of success of this one, the Office off Policy Coordination, become the service action of the CIA, wished to be able to count on the rising of networks of resistance armed well and organized well.

Benefitting from the experiment of the Second world war, the OPC did not want to have to arm its partisans after the Occupation by calling upon the random techniques with the parachuting and the infiltration with agents in enemy territory. From where the decision to establish in the countries threatened of the capacities of resistance and Sabotage which would enter in work only after the possible invasion.

Under the control of Frank Wisner, the director of the OPC, the operation gathers some veterans of clandestinity having faced the security services of the Nazi Germany.

One finds thus during the first years of the Gladio networks, beside agents of the CIA, of old of MI9 (charged during the 2nd world war of the networks of escapes) or of the Special Operations Executive become Special the Branch Operations of MI6.

Thereafter, a clandestine Committee of planning (CPC) was creates in which the key roles will be held by the special services American and French.

In 1990, the CPC, become since the allied Coordination committee (CCA) met still regularly.

Into schematizing, the CPC and the CIA divided the roles; CPC managing the networks in the countries of the Atlantic Alliance and the CIA organizing them in the neutral countries.

The theoretical context of their possible activation is always the same one: if one of the countries concerned is invaded by the Soviet armed , its Gouvernement legitimates takes refuge with the the United Kingdom, in North America or in Ireland and it (S) network (X) Stay-behind, become (S) immediately operational (S), passes (NT) to the action in close coordination, thanks to its own means of Télécommunications, with this one.

It is necessary to underline Gladio is never, except for two countries, Greece and Italy, left the role which was to him assigns.

Its main activity consisted in locating and selecting, during the periods of Military service, called judged enough the walls and of confidence to be able to belong to the network. Once co-opted, those rather regularly convened for periods of one one week approximate duration exercise. In theory, the membership of these networks is incompatible, except for the framing, with a function in the official security services.

The public revelation of the existence of these networks by Italian the Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in October 1990 with fact of being born an enormous press campaign, which fed partly by the reaction of fold of the authorities concerned like many speculations and of Theories of the plot allotting to these organizations the paternity of many criminal activities with political connotation although reality is more prosaic.

Networks in various countries

Networks stay-behind existed in twelve nations of NATO (West Germany, Belgium, Spain, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Turkey) and in four neutral countries (Austria, Finland, Suisse, Sweden).

They were composed, according to the countries, of a few tens to a few hundreds of people.

In West Germany

The network Schwert (Sword in German) will be created at the end of the years 1940. Composed in the beginning old S, it envisaged, according to the magazine Stern, to assassinate personalities of the German left wing in the event of conflict with the USSR. But as of the years 1950, Schwert was taken again in hand by BND and the Militärischer Abschirmdienst (military intelligence service).

In Belgium

Slaughters of the Brabant

New revelations burst in 1996

In 1996, an article of the daily newspaper the Evening made a scandal by revealing that a basic plan of the military defense of Belgium, made up in August 1995, declared that “ there does not exist any open threat in Belgium but there exists well a permanent clandestine threat” emanating from the “ communities immigrées ”. The plan of the ITC (territorial command inter forces) envisaged the constitution of a spy network in order to infiltrate the civil society, to prevent actions of Subversion of “agents or sympathizers” resulting “ diplomatic, cultural, commercial circles and religieux ” foreign in Belgium. Confronted with the charges of racism, the Belgian military authorities affirmed thereafter that they would modify the plan.

Just like the business of the Department of strategic studies anti-terrorist (DSSA) in Italy, this plan of 1995 inclines to believe that the networks stay-behind were not completely dismantled since the revelation of Giulio Andreotti.

In Spain

August 1st

In France

In France, the staff was composed in the beginning of old resistant not Communists. Certain networks having generally worked with the OSE and the SOE during the Occupation depended then on the CIA, the MI6 and SDECE.

The center of drive of the reserves parachutists (CERP) installed in the Loiret, in France, and depend on the Service Action of the SDECE, which organized training courses and of drive for the members of the network Stay Behind French charged to supervise Soviet networks of agents sleeping (charged in other to help the Spetsnaz S).

In the Years 1970, Alexandre de Marenches decides to set up the plan Parsifal which is in fact a plan Stay Behind (a).

Victim of the events of Algeria, of the withdrawal of France of the integrated military command of NATO, the events of May 68 and the natural disappearance of several of its members, the network Stay Behind original was somewhat surbedded.

Fearing that the penetration of Soviet espionage did not also touch this network, Alexandre de Marenches and his close relations, prefer to use people already not having any bond with the structures in place. An internal reorganization of the SDECE is undertaken, making it possible to the managing director to exert a greater control on the service action and the service of against-espionage.

In 1990, when François Mitterrand decides the stop of their activity, all the French networks were placed under the exclusive control of DGSE. Their last owner was the general Jean Heinrich, then chief of the Service action.

François de Grossouvre was one their chiefs on the French territory, initially for the region of Lion, then for all France.

According to an article published on April 6th, 1992 in the American newspaper The Nation and quoted by Daniele Ganser (2005), the admiral Pierre Lacoste, who directed the military secret services of 1982 to 1985, indicated after the revealing in 1990 of the Italian network Gladio that certain “terrorist activities” directed against de Gaulle and his plan to put an end to the Guerre of Algeria had been the fact of groups including “a number limited people” belonging to the networks “stay-behind” French. According to this source, OAS would have indeed counted members of the network in its rows. This information is however confirmed by no other study on this movement.

In Greece

The network Lochos Oreinon Katadromon (LOK), created at the end of 1944 on order of Winston Churchill, was integrated into the whole of the European stay-behind when Greece joined NATO in 1952. It was implied in the coup d'etat of 1967, one month before the probable election of Andreas Papandreou, and in the introduction of the Dictature of the colonels (1969-1974). Become Prime Minister in the years 1980, Andreas Papandreou stated to have discovered the existence of Gladio in 1984, requiring its dissolution. But when in 1990 the socialist opposition asked for the creation of a board of inquiry on Gladio and its bonds with the coup d'etat of 1967, this one was refused, the Minister of Interior Department Yannis Vassiliadis informant which it was about a “ act nationally justifié ”.

In Italy

In the Netherlands

With the Netherlands, Gladio, directed at the beginning by the former chief of the intelligence service in London during the Second world war, maintains stocks of weapons until 1983, disseminated in all the country.

One of the leaders of the Opérations section created a structure of documentation in the years 1960 which was located by the the KGB, which made a priority target of it.

It is extremely probable which the network would have was destroyed at the time of a conflict and which that would have can be threatened the other national structures with which it was dependant.

In Portugal

See also: Aginter Close

Although not having a relationship with the networks of NATO, Aginter Close with those Ci by various media is often associated.

According to the report/ratio of the Italian Senate on Gladio, the CIA supported Aginter Close with the Portugal, which was “actually, according to the last documents obtained, an information center directly related on the CIA and the Portuguese secret service, specialized in the operations of provocation”. The false news agency, true dispensary mercenary of extreme right-hand side, was also called “Power station Order and Tradition”. It took share with the “strategy of the tension” in Italy, thus overflowing the borders of Portugal of Salazar.

Aginter Close was officially founded in Lisbon only in September 1966, although its members were already active. The group was directed by Yves Guerin-Serac, a catholic militant anticommunist, ex-officer of the French Army which had taken share with the Guerre of Indo-China (1945-54), to the Guerre of Korea (1950-53) and to the Guerre of Algeria (1954-62). Yves Guerin Serac was also member of the 11th Half-Brigade Parachutist of the Shock, which worked with SDECE.

The Italian Stefano Delle Chiaie was also founding member of Aginter Press. Engaged in June 1962 by Free, he chose then Portugal of Salazar, according to him the last bastion against Communism and atheism.

To Portugal, Gerin Serac bound with the other fugitive ones of OAS, while the Pétain ist Jacques Ploncard d' Assac introduced it with PIDE, the services of Salazar. Guerin Serac was then recruited as instructor for the Legiao Portuguesa and for the units nelles Against-insurrection of the army portuguaise. Aginter Close was created in 1966 in this context. Just like the Cuban anti-castriste Shine Posada Carriles, Yves Guerin Serac conceives the fight anticommunist on the scale of planet: “ During this period we systematically established close contacts with groups sharing our ideology groups” emerging in Italy, in Belgium, in Germany, in Spain or in Portugal, in order to off form the base of a true Western league of fight against the Marxism League Struggle against Marxism ''. "

A document of Aginter Close titrated Our Political activity is discovered at the end of 1974. It describes the strategy of the tension : “ Our belief is that the first phase of the political activity should be to create the conditions supporting the introduction of chaos in all the structures of the mode the first movement which should make us would be to destroy the structures of the democratic State under cover of communist and pro-Chinese activities. Moreover, we have people who infiltrated these gauche groups; ”. Aginter Close theorized thus the actions False flag S.

Some suspects the network stay-behind of having assassinated, inter alia, Humberto Delgado, leader of the Portuguese opposition, celebrates it leader anticolonialist Amilcar Cabral and Eduardo Mondlane, leader independence of FRELIMO in Mozambique, killed in 1969.

The Italian judge Guido Salvin I, in load of the investigation into the Attack of Piazza Fontana of December 1969, explained to the Italian senators that research showed that “Guido Giannettini persons in charge neofascists of the attack had bonds with Guerin Serac in Portugal since 1964. Research showed that instructors of Aginter Close came to Rome between 1967 and 1968 and informed the members activists of Avanguardia Nazionale in the use of explosives”.

Salvini judge concluded that Aginter Press, “window of the CIA” (Ganser, 2005), had played a “ decisive role in the operations of secret war warfare operations in Western Europe and had begun the great massacres in order to discredit the Communists in Italie ”