Documentation for Gladio
Nov. 16, 1990
The New York Times
“The focus of the inquiry is a clandestine operation code-named Gladio, created decades ago to arm and train resistance fighters in case the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies invaded. All this week, there have been disclosures of similar organizations in virtually all Western European countries.”
“Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece and Luxembourg have all acknowledged that they maintained Gladio-style networks to prepare guerrilla fighters to leap into action in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion. Many worked under the code name Stay Behind. […] News reports in recent days assert that similar programs have also existed in Britain, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Austria, Turkey and Denmark, and even in neutral countries like Switzerland and Sweden. […] The British newspaper The Guardian today quoted a former Commander in Chief of NATO forces in northern Europe as saying that the purpose was to have a secret organization in place for guerrilla warfare if Britain were overrun by Communist troops.”
Jan. 20, 1996
The Boston Globe
“More than 80 secret caches of US weapons, hidden by CIA agents in Austria a half century ago, are suddenly posing a delicate diplomatic problem for US diplomats and intelligence officers. The caches, containing machine guns, explosives, radio equipment and perhaps even gold, were part of a network of "stay-behind" supplies tucked away throughout Western Europe and intended to supply local guerrillas in the event of a Soviet invasion.”
Jan. 27, 1996
The Guardian
“THE United States recruited, armed and trained Austrian former SS personnel and neo-Nazis to man secret arms caches established in Austria during the early stages of the cold war as a bulwark against Soviet invasion, it has emerged. "The SS were confirmed anti-communists, and the Americans felt they could be relied on to fight against the Russians," says Wilhelm Hottl, one of the more senior Austrian Nazis recruited in 1947 as a US intelligence agent, who also helped build a secret communications network to be activated during any crisis with the Soviet Union. These arms dumps and the communication network were the precursors of Operation Gladio, organised by Nato in the 1950s to be a core of resistance fighters in the event of a Soviet invasion of western Europe. Each day brings fresh revelations about secret US intelligence activities in Austria in the late 1940s. […] arms hidden by the US in the mountains of upper Austria and the Salzberg region […].”
Jan. 1, 2005
Daniele Ganser. 2005. NATO’s Secret Army. Operation Gladio and terrorism in Western Europe. London and New York: Frank Cass: 103-113.
“According to Dutch secret services […] MI6 actively promoted the setting up of secret anti-Communist armies as Special Operations started to erect networks in West Germany, Italy and Austria. These networks (stay-behind organisations) could have been activated in case of a potential Soviet invasion, in order to collect intelligence and carry out offensive sabotage activities. […] Even after 1945 SOE [Special Operation Executive] personnel remained in countries including Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece and Turkey. […] The explicit directive of 1945 made it clear the SOE’s main enemy was Communism and the Soviet Union […].” (Page 41-2)
Jan. 5, 2019
Wikipedia. “Operation Gladio”.
Franz Olah set up a new secret army codenamed Österreichischer Wander-, Sport- und Geselligkeitsverein (OeWSGV, literally "Austrian Association of Hiking, Sports and Society"), with the cooperation of MI6 and the CIA. He later explained that "we bought cars under this name. We installed communication centres in several regions of Austria", confirming that "special units were trained in the use of weapons and plastic explosives".He stated that "there must have been a couple of thousand people working for us... Only very, very highly positioned politicians and some members of the union knew about it
retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Gladio&oldid=876810883
