Bologna's tribunal formalizes the findings of the latest (and largest) investigation on the 1980 Bologna Train Station Massacre. It's now official that the bombing (85 dead and 200 wounded) was organized and sponsored by P2's head Licio Gelli 1/ ansa.it/english/news/2…
Gelli worked together with Umberto Ortolani (shady financier who was the real boss of P2), Mario Tedeschi (far-right journalist, senator and disinformation master) and Federico Umberto D'Amato, a member of the "Secret Affairs" office of the Ministry of the Interiors 2/
They found the money, contacted the low level "troops" (the members of the NAR who conducted the actual bombing), "oiled wheels" when necessary and conducted a complex media disinformation campaign to cover their tracks. 3/
Of all these people, Gelli is actually the least interesting. He was a crook with a strong ability to present himself as much more powerful than he really was. The other three were much more interesting figures 4/
Ortolani was little known outside his circle of powerful financial/ politicals figure. But he literally owned a banking empire in South America. He was the central mastermind of the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano, a financial earthquake that did more than anything else to expose 5/
the "soft underbelly" of Italian politics of that time. He was incredibly well connected with Church's financial powers and he used this connection ruthlessly to extend his influence. It's still difficult to understand his real motivation, as he was a very remote, discrete 6/
character whose "friends" loved to call "Mr. No One". When the magistrature began zeroing on him he escaped to Brazil and was protected by the Brasilian regime until the end of the 90s. He died in 2002 without spending one day in prison. 7/
Mario Tedeschio was a veteran of WW2 who fought with the Nazi forces at Anzio. After the war he became one of leading Italian practitioner of false flag / disinformation ops against the Communist Party, including the infamous 1966 "Chinese posters" 8/
where he (collaborating with future right wing terror mastermind Stefano Delle Chiaie) flooded Rome with fake "Chinese revolution" leafleets signed by (fake) "Stalinist extremists groups" 9/
he then became a leading exponent of the MSI (Movimento Sociale Italiano), the "legal" heir of the Fascist Party. He then curiously moved to the left (or right, depending on the views) of MSI entering a "moderate" 10/
splinter group with more pro-market friendly ideas. All the while he collaborated with P2 and secretely with several fascist terror groups. He died in 1993 11/
The creepiest of the lot was D'Amato. A former police commissar, with globetrotting habits and fluent in different languages, he became in 1943 an agent of the American OSS, directly answering to James Angleton. After the war he becomes the main link between the Italian 12/
and NATO in the so-called "Segreteria Atlantica". In 1957 he enters the infamous "Confidentails Affairs Office" of the Ministry of the Interiors where he begins a meteoric rise that will make him the Office's head in 1971. While in this position he collaborates with all sorts 13/
of anti-communist / anti-union ops, including the above mentioned "Chinese Posters" affair. He's the main (and possibly the only important) connection between NATO, the Italian Government &right-wing terrors. But he has a personal agenda 14/
that is still unclear today and defies any easy classification. He is removed by Paolo Taviani in 1974 (no doubt the fact he had probably planned to assassinate Taviani helped) and sent to command the border police, but he still remained incredibly powerful. He entered P2 15/
(of course) and began also a curious parallel career as food & cuisine expert of left-wing magazine "L'Espresso". He died in 1993. In 1995 a judge ordered his house to be searched. Lo and very much behold, they found inside 16/
150.000 secret, uncatalogued security files on all sorts of subjects, plus interesting memorabilia of some of the most infamous terrorist attacks of the Years of Lead. The material remains classified today. It was defined "A parallel archive of the Ministry of Interiors" 17/
In case you want to know more about the background of this story, look no further than RWN "Years of Lead" series hoster by @TheWarNerd and @MarkAmesExiled, eps #135, #136 and #139 patreon.com/posts/radio-wa…
