NATO's Secret Armies
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"NATO'S SECRET ARMIES examines three major terror attacks: The Brabant massacres in Belgium, The Oktoberfest bombing in Germany and the Piazza Fontana killings in Italy. Through the testimony of former Gladio terrorists, ex-CIA agents, diplomats, prosecutors and police investigators the film pieces together the disturbing trail of influence behind each of the attacks and considers whether hundreds may have died at the hands of state sponsored terrorism. More chillingly, it asks whether the strategy of tension might still be in use today."[1] |
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NATO's Secret Armies (2004) is a book by Swiss historian Daniele Ganser which addresses secret armies run by NATO, especially Operation Gladio.
Ganser states that Gladio units were in close cooperation with NATO and the CIA and that Gladio in Italy was responsible for terrorist attacks against the Italian civilian population.
Peer Henrik Hansen, a scholar at Roskilde University, wrote two scathing criticisms of the book for the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence and the Journal of Intelligence History, describing Ganser's work as "a journalistic book with a big spoonful of conspiracy theories" that "fails to present proof of and an in-depth explanation of the claimed conspiracy between USA, CIA, NATO and the European countries." Hansen also criticized Ganser for basing his "claim of the big conspiracy" on the US Army Field Manual 30-31B, which members of the intelligence community claim is just a 'Cold War era hoax document.' Hayden Peake's book review Intelligence in Recent Public Literature describes: "Ganser fails to document his thesis that the CIA, MI6, and NATO and its friends turned GLADIO into a terrorist organization." Philip HJ Davies of the Brunel University Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies likewise concludes that the book is "marred by imagined conspiracies, exaggerated notions of the scale and impact of covert activities, misunderstandings of the management and coordination of operations within and between national governments, and... an almost complete failure to place the actions and decisions in question in the appropriate historical context." According to Davies, "The underlying problem is that Ganser has not really undertaken the most basic necessary research to be able to discuss covert action and special operations effectively." Olav Riste of the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, writing for the journal Intelligence and National Security, mentions several instances where his own research on the stay-behind network in Norway was twisted by Ganser and concludes that "A detailed refutation of the many unfounded allegations that Ganser accepts as historical findings would fill an entire book." In a later joint article with Leopoldo Nuti of the University of Rome, the two concluded that the book's "ambitious conclusions do not seem to be entirely corroborated by a sound evaluation of the sources available."
Lawrence Kaplan wrote a mixed review commending Ganser for making "heroic efforts to tease out the many strands that connect this interlocking right-wing conspiracy", but also arguing that "Connecting the dots between terrorist organizations in NATO countries and a master plan centred in NATO's military headquarters requires a stretch of facts that Ganser cannot manage." Kaplan believes that some of Ganser's conspiracy theories "may be correct", but that "they do damage to the book's credibility." In a mostly positive review for the journal Cold War History, Beatrice Heuser praises Ganser's "fascinating study" while also noting that "It would definitely have improved the work if Ganser had used a less polemical tone, and had occasionally conceded that the Soviet Empire was by no means nicer." Security analyst John Prados writes "Ganser, the principal analyst of Gladio, presents evidence across many nations that Gladio networks amounted to anti-democratic elements in their own societies."
The U.S. State Department stated in 2006 that Ganser had been taken in by long-discredited Cold-War era disinformation and "fooled by the forgery". In an article about the Gladio/stay-behind networks and US Army Field Manual 30-31B they stated, "Ganser treats the forgery as if it was a genuine document in his 2005 book on “stay behind” networks, Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe and includes it as a key document on his Web site on the book.
