Democracy and the CIA
Michael Ledeen
Rome Scandals are nothing new to Italy, but Italians have clearly been shaken by the source of the latest accusations to rock their political world. The members of governing coalitions for the past thirty years have suddenly found themselves accused of corruption by various investigation committees of the United States Congress, which they had previously considered a good and trusted friend. Words like 'schizophrenic' and 'suicidal' were being heard in Parliament, and ll Tempo, perhaps the most pro-American of Italy's leading dailies, told its readers that there were only two explanations possible for the behaviour of the Americans: either they had taken leave of their senses, or they were being used by procommunist elements in their own ranks.
While the scandals dealing with the alleged bribing of public officials by multinational corporations such as Lockheed and Exxon had roused considerable passion, the most intense emotions were reserved for reaction to the revelations of the Pike Committee, dealing with CIA activity in Italy. 'It is bad enough that they want to wash their own dirty laundry in public,' a highly-placed observer in the Chamber of Deputies muttered angrily last week, 'but it is criminal for them to wash ours.' The impact of the revelations about the CIA was not lost on the Italian left, and the message has gone out in terms of pious condemnation from radical-chic weeklies like Panorama and l'Espresso to the Communist daily l'Unita, Italians are being told that their country is in the hands of foreign agents, that Italy's anti-communist politicians have been bought by the United States, that the CIA has attempted to organise coups d'etai with forces of the far right in the past and would immediately launch similar efforts in the event of communist participation in t he government, and that the history of Italian politics from 1942 to the present is nothing more than the story of United States manipulation of her Italian clients. This is the line of a best-selling book written by two Communist journalists, entitled The Americans in Italy. Dealing with the period 1942-49, it is based upon recently declassified information in the American National Archives and some additional documents released through the Freedom of Information Act. The theme the two authors present is disarmingly simple: the Americans 'subverted the Italian political system' in the name of anti-communism. The CIA is viewed as the secret government of Italy, and Italian politicians reduced to the level of puppet actors on the Cold War stage.
The information on which these remarkable judgments are based has come to light as part of a lengthy investigation in America, and many of those who recognise the necessity of intelligence activities have been deeply concerned about the effect of the release of such information, both upon the CIA and upon those allies who might be embarrassed by the recent revelations. There has been a good deal of this, to be sure, but it must be said that to date the information that has emerged concerning the activities of the OSS and the CIA in Italy points toward a surprisingly rational and moderate conduct. Despite Mr Kissinger's evident concern about the consequences of the investigations, it is a bit curious that he continues to be so reluctant to have this particular story told. The result of his unsuccessful efforts to block publication of the report of the Pike Committee has been to have the information dribble out slowly and thus enhance the impression that something dreadfully scandalous is contained in it. Moreover he has guaranteed that those critical of CIA activities, frequently unburdened by any particular knowledge of post-war Italy, would be the tellers of the tale. It is one of the ironies of this affair, for example, that the National Archives evidently gave some documentation to the authors of The Americans in Italy by mistake, and have since refused to show the materials to scholars who wished to check the accuracy of the book. At this point, continued attempts to maintain 'secrecy' only impede rational discussion of problems which are now very much at the centre of debate both in America and Italy. This is amply demonstrated by the level of analysis currently under way in the Italian media, and by the presentation of part of the Pike Report in the New York Village Voice. , Much of the story which emerges from the Pike Report and The Americans in Italy has been well known for some time, even if the particulars are often new and entertaining. Of particular interest is the air of scepticism with which the CIA treated proposals to give money to Italian political parties, and the high level of involvement of American trade unions and businesses in Italy immediately following the war. They attempted to create anti-communist organisations capable of withstanding the challenge of Rogliatti and his comrades in a period when the Communist Party had emerged from its years of clandestine activity and exile as the best-financed and best-organised of the Italian political parties. Despite the PCI's frequent claims
to represent a new kind of communist party, it was inevitably viewed in the context of an aggressive and omnivorous Stalinism which menaced the Mediterranean basin through its Yugoslavian and Greek allies. The Americans and the British necessarily turned to the alternative structures: the Mafia, the fascist bureaucracy(including the police), the Vatican, the Christian Democrats and non-communist socialists. The Allies first and the Americans over the next thirty years helped finance the entire spectrum of anti-communist forces, save the far right (with an important exception, to which we shall return). As early as 1942 such antifascist exiles as Saragat, Lizzadri, La Malfa and Tarchiani were receiving aid from the Americans. This kind of support reached a climax in the elections of 1948, in which De Gasperi's Christian Democrats won a decisive victory at the PCI's expense.
1948 saw considerable American participation in the election campaign: there was massive support from the AFL-CIO to the non-communist trade unions, one million dollars was given outright from the CIA to 'a major political party' (almost surely the DC), even larger sums were given to Italian anti-communists by private American organisations, and, typically, the Italians were offered a tour by Frank Sinatra. The authors of The Americans in Italy and their friends in the media present this as clear evidence of the Americans 'invention' of a communist menace la Italy, and their determination to keep reactionaries in power in Rome. No mention is to be found of the elements in the early spring of 1948 which in fact produced the wave of anti-communism which characterised the elections: the Russian' backed coup d'etat in Prague in March, the presence of what appeared to be a Soviet puppet regime in Yugoslavia, and the well-known infusion of Soviet aid to the PCI on the eve of the elections. In such circumstances, Italians hardly needed American dollars to convince them that there was considerable risk involved In communist participation in the government, and indeed the documents themselves demonstrate that the Italians were far more concerned about the Americans. As earl/1 as 1945, for example, we find a CIA report proclaiming that there was no longer a threat of communist revolution in ItalY. De Gasperi, nonetheless, demanded that American troops remain in the country a5 late as 1948. It is unlikely that the availability of American support greatly intensified the anti-communism of a political class which had every interest in opposing the PCI,and. a journalist writing in Turin's influential La Stampa is probably correct when he observes that the money went from the Cl" to Italians who were close to Washington 'by free choice, not as a result of a hand: ful of dollars.' Considerable money flow ea to Italy, and continued to arrive for the next thirty years: the CIA documents in th! Pike Report place the figure at some 87'
million, which amounts to something Slightly less than 10 per cent of the funds spent by the political parties in question. It is more meaningful to ask whether this Money served a useful purpose in the long run, and the CIA apparently was somewhat doubtful about the utility of its programmes When it wrote in the early '70s that 'despite this massive aid, the beneficiaries, perhaps too long in power and clearly wrecked Nei with internal dissension, had suffered repeated electoral setbacks.' So it was that the agency recommended a 'quick fix' for the elections of 1972, 'to see our clients through the next vote.' But there were few illusions about the long-term effectiveness of these shots in the arm.
The problem which has beset American Policy makers in Italy is one which was already present in 1944, and which has been excellently discussed in a recent book by Lambert° Mercuri, 1943-45: The Allies and Italy. In a situation where the entry of the Communists was viewed as intolerable, the Allies invariably found themselves forced to support the forces of Christian Democracy. Once the Christian Democrats realised that their position was, as used to be said, for objective reasons untouchable, they predictably took on all the aspects of regimes which feel it unnecessary to respond to their public. In a sense it is remarkable that the DC is not more corrupt, for the majority of Italians have been unwilling to support governments Without them. As one young Christian bemocrat recently lamented, 'the only hope for the reform of this party is to go into oPPosition, but that is unacceptable to the Country.' It is easier to criticise American support of an increasingly corrupt and Unpopular DC than to suggest a useful alternative.
On one occasion—so far as can be gleaned from the documents released and leaked thus far—the CIA was forced to traffic with elements of the far right. This took place under the orders of Ambassador Graham Martin in 1972, prior to his departure for South Vietnam. Martin Proposed that 8800,000 be passed to General Vito Miceli, the head of the SID (Oefence Intelligence Service), for support Of an extreme right-wing group. The CIA station chief protested to Washington so Vigorously that Martin told him that if this activity continued, he would 'instruct Marine guards not to let you in this building and put you on the airplane.' The transfer of funds took place.
Italians have been rightly concerned about this activity, for Miceli has come recently under accusation of having been involved in the attempt at a right-wing coup under the leadership of Prince Valerio Junio Borghese a few years ago. Rumours have long circulated that there ‘vas American involvement in the coup attempt, even to the extent that some of the rnore imaginative Italians involved in the affair have claimed that there was a 'direct line to Nixon' ready to inform the President
if the plan had succeeded.
The tenor of the CIA documents points to another, crucial element in American foreign policy in recent years, one which has not been stressed in the heated debate over the Congressional inquiries. Throughout the documents one finds the CIA complaining that operations in Italy were increasingly becoming the domain of the Ambassador, and that the White House was even further to the right than Martin. Indeed, at one point in the furore over Miceli, the Ambassador told the CIA that unless something was done, the White House 'might be pushed into a disastrous project'. The chief architect of the project was an unnamed international businessman with excellent contacts in the White House.
During the years of the Nixon presidency there was a marked tendency to support adventures of the extreme right. While it has not been possible to identify the businessman in question, there is no doubt about Nixon's use of and confidence in people like Bebe Rebozo and Howard Hughes. The Nixon White House, as more than one observer has written, was highly paranoid, and viewed as legitimate anything which strengthened the hold of the President and his friends on the affairs of the world. A President who believed that an anti-war rally by students constituted a clear and present danger to the Republic could undoubtedly be brought to support all manner of adventures in a country where a real communist party grew in strength every year. The Secretary of State probably played some role, and this may help to explain his reluctance to make the full story public. Yet in the context of the present crisis it can be argued that anything less than full disclosure is as risky to America's interest as continued attempts to plug the leaks. Moreover, if the story is as suggested here, the Americans can take some satisfaction in having removed a President who was not only a threat to their own constitutional system, but to the orderly conduct of a rational foreign policy abroad as well. The supreme irony of the present investigations may turn out to be the discovery that the CIA, on more than one occasion, defended democratic procedures abroad. Then the Italian popular press will find it necessary to write a story which no one will believe.
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