From Luigi DiFonzo's "St. Peter's Banker:
Michele Sindona" (I referred to this incorrectly yesterday as "God's Banker")
Freemasonry first appeared in Europe in the
seventeenth century. The Masonic lodges as an
organized group remained politically neutral;
members, however, were bound by oath to fight for
the abolition of censorship, for religious
choice, freedom from arbitrary arrest and
imprisonment without trial, and the destruction
of authority that refused to grant representation.
Freemasons have throughout history been involved
in revolutions. Voltaire and Diderot, writers who
influenced the French Revolution, were both
members of the order. Some historians have
credited the Freemasons with the success of the
Russian Revolution of 1917. The Masons have also
been credited with, or blamed for, the Spanish
civil war and the start of World War I (the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand). The
ideals behind Freemasonry were the foundation of
the American Revolution: Benjamin Franklin,
George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Paul
Revere, and John Paul Jones were all Masons. And
under the direction of Grand Master Giuseppe
Garibaldi, the Masonic Order played a leading
role in the unification of Italy. Only in Italy
have the Freemasons as a group been actively involved in politics.
During World War II a large number of Masons were
jailed and tortured by Mussolini for opposing his
dictatorship. Yet, for some unexplainable reason,
the Masonic Order accepted Licio Gelli as a
member. As a result, with the support of the
Grande Oriente, the Anti-Fascist Commission
cleared Gelli of war crimes with which the partisan commission had charged him.
With the backing and support of the Masonic Order
and the government of Argentina, Gelli soon
prospered. He traveled frequently to Hungary,
Rumania, and Libya to negotiate
multimillion-dollar contracts for Argentina and
for himself. Within a few years he had purchased
several magnificent villas in northern Italy,
Monaco, and Argentina, and he threw lavish
parties to display his wealth. In Rome, however,
Gelli operated secretly out of room 127 of the Excelsior Hotel.
In 1964, when the communists and other leftists
were gaining influence in Italy, Michele
Sindona's preaching of pro-Western philosophy
roused Gelli's political beliefs. Eventually, as
grand master of Propaganda Due, Licio Gelli
declared himself "a lifelong anti-communist."
Propaganda Due originated in the early nineteenth
century with the birth of the secret society
known as the Carbonari. The lodges were similar
to Masonic lodges. Carbonari membership however,
included Freemasons, mafiosi, and military
officers who were more serious about their
political beliefs than other Masons. They opposed
Napoleonic rule,- recruited members in Spain,
Greece, France, and Russia; won constitutions in
Spain and a few Italian states,- and led Greece in its fight for independence.
The success of the Carbonari was due to the
dedication of its individual members and to the
initiation ceremony, which threatened "certain
and violent death" for any member who violated
the society's secrets. The presence of mafiosi
among the Carbonari guaranteed that violators of
omerta, the Sicilian code of silence, would meet death by mutilation.
As grand master of P-2, Licio Gelli turned the
lodge into the most powerful, political, and
violent secret organization in Italy. Important
Italian generals, magistrates, and businessmen
became members of P-2, which Gelli severed from
the hierarchy of Freemasonry. According to a
former U.S. intelligence officer who until
recently was stationed in Italy where he became
friendly with Gelli, P-2 under Gelli's command
became "an underground state within a state."
Determined to destroy Italy's parliamentary
system of government in order to form a
presidential dictatorship, Gelli recruited
members who swore allegiance to him rather than
to the nation of Italy. A distinguished-looking
man of medium height and build, with silver hair
and a charismatic personality, Licio Gelli
recruited powerful bankers, industrialists,
generals and colonels of the Italian army, and
agents of Italy's highly secret Service of
Defense Information (SID). His greatest single
recruiting victory, however, was the membership
of Carmelo Spagnuolo, who was at the time chief
public prosecutor in Milan and who later became
president of a division of the Italian supreme court.
Gelli was not brilliant so much as shrewd and
devious. He had money and power, but he realized
that wealth and position meant little without the
weapon of fear. Gelli believed that fear was the
instrument by which real power could be
masterfully employed, and he believed fear was
most useful when cloaked in silence. So Grand
Master Gelli divided members of P-2 into
divisions and forbade them to disclose their membership.
Secret societies are illegal in Italy.
Freemasonry is allowed to exist only if each
lodge agrees to disclose the names of its
members. Gelli, however, would not do this. His
connections were strong enough and high enough
that no one dared to challenge P-2's dark
existence. Gelli had made it impossible for
anyone outside the order to learn the identity of
P-2 Masons, and even within P-2, members of one
group could not learn the identity of any member
of another group. As the only person to know
every member's name, Licio Gelli had ensured his position and power.
He used contacts in government and business to
gather secrets about members and nonmembers
alike, and he used their dossiers to increase his
wealth and influence. A leather folder containing
details of embarrassing and criminal acts
committed by an individual would be delivered to
that person's house or office. A calling card
that read simply "P-2" identified the sender.
Contact would be made and a deal struck for
either money or favors. By his consistent and
ruthless use of blackmail, political favors,
bribes, and the purchase of important government
positions for members of the secret
Mafia-Masonry-style society, Gelli, an Italian
journalist says, "was king and pope. Many hated
him for his bad character and fascist past, but no one dared cross him."
Like a public relations expert, Gelli manipulated
people and situations. At parties he boasted of
his friendship with judges, military leaders, and
powerful businessmen like Michele Sindona.
Gelli's activities, of course, did not go
unnoticed. Italians began to refer to P-2 as "a
state within the state." Rumors of pagan rituals
filled the imagination of the public. Even some
of Gelli's confidants called him "Naja Hannah"
(King Cobra), and Naja Hannah was said to be a
magician who cut through red tape and produced
results. So, in traditional Italian style,
nonmembers seeking promotions in government or
business offered suitcases stuffed with lire or,
if their position allowed, political favors. In
Italy Propaganda Due exists, like the Mafia, as
an accepted fact of life, because Italians have
learned to treat corruption not as an evil but as
an art. They believe not in the state but in the
power of those who are feared the creators of intrigue and chaos.
This conspiratorial chaos permeates every level
of Italian society from the peasantry to the
nobility, with an attitude that says, in effect,
"To survive, one must have the protection of
friends who have friends." Such a belief has fed
the cancer of corruption, undermined the
foundation of social ethics, and distorted the
individual Italian's concept of morality.
Desensitized to crime and scandal, Italians have
come to the devastating yet for them practical
conclusion that parties change faces but the
system remains the same. What is truly important
is not changing the system but instead simply
making it work for oneself. A Mafia complex has
spread throughout northern Italy, especially Rome
and Milan, where political parties serve special
interest groups like the Vatican by manipulating
a degenerate system for personal gain.
In summary, as a result of the morbid realism
that pervades Italy, beneath the structure of
that nation's official government there exists
another more potent government, which serves the
special interests of its members and financial
supporters. Still deeper below, another
government operates in complete darkness. It has
been called the Mafia, the High Mafia, and
Propaganda Due. Italians have surrendered to it,
some by watching without opposition, others by
not caring, and still others by using it. So for
Licio Gelli to have recruited important military
and judicial figures, to have organized P-2 as a
secret power, even as "a state within the state,"
may not have been such an extraordinary accomplishment.
Michele Sindona and Licio Gelli became allies.
The web that they would weave would seriously
threaten the economy of Italy and eventually
bring about the collapse of Italy's fortieth
government since World War II. Before that would
happen, however, they would weave a network of
deals that would include two attempted coups.
Yet their personal differences were extreme.
Licio Gelli proudly fought for Mussolini; Sindona
refused to wear the fascist uniform in school.
Gelli was anti-Semitic; Sindona in 1973 raised $2
million for Israel. Gelli believed in a
dictatorship; Sindona wanted for Italy, he says,
an American form of democracy. But they were both
capitalists, they were both anti-communists and
anti-leftists, and they both believed that some
men, the truly gifted, were above the morals and
laws that applied to the rest of society.
That Gelli wanted a dictatorship was not
important to Sindona. By the time Gelli
approached him, Michele had become hard, cunning,
and scornful of the motives of the Italian
government. That P-2 operated illegally was also
not important to Sindona, because Italians,
especially super-Italians, do not respect the
law. All that was important was that P-2 was
powerful and would create opportunity and protect capital.
In other words, Michele Sindona did not join
forces with Licio Gelli because he was a valiant
defender of democracy and human rights. Sindona
was not a martyr. He became a P-2 Freemason for
the clearest of all reasons, the very same reason
for which men who are driven by success have always done things for profit.
- [PEN-L] P-2 Louis Proyect
-
