Operation Gladio, Paul L. Williams
Operation Gladio, Paul L. Williams
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Operation Gladio
The Unholy Alliance Between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia

Author: Paul L. Williams

Narrator: Michael Prichard

Unabridged: 11 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/21/2015


Synopsis

In this disturbing exposé, journalist Paul L. Williams describes a secret alliance forged at the close of World War II by the CIA, the Sicilian and U.S. mafias, and the Vatican to thwart the possibility of a Communist invasion of Europe. Williams presents evidence suggesting the existence, in many European countries, of "stay-behind" units consisting of five thousand to fifteen thousand military operatives. The initial funding for these guerrilla armies came from bogus British bank notes and the sale of large stocks of SS morphine that had been smuggled out of Germany and Italy. As the Cold War intensified, the units were used not only to ward off possible invaders but also to thwart the rise of left-wing movements in South America and NATO-based countries by terror attacks.

Williams argues that Operation Gladio soon gave rise to the toppling of governments, wholesale genocide, the formation of death squads, financial scandals on a grand scale, the creation of the mujahideen, an international narcotics network, and, most recently, the ascendancy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a Jesuit cleric with strong ties to Operation Condor (an outgrowth of Gladio in Argentina) as Pope Francis I.

About Paul L. Williams

Paul L. Williams is a journalist and the author of Crescent Moon Rising, The Day of Islam, Osama's Revenge, The Al Qaeda Connection, and The Vatican Exposed, among other books. The winner of three first-place Keystone Press Awards for journalism, he has written articles for major news outlets, including USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and National Review. He has also served as a consultant for the FBI. Paul is an adjunct professor of humanities at the University of Scranton.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Dan on March 27, 2021

Overall, a decent but flawed look into the relationship between the CIA, various organized crime outfits, and international money laundering. The overarching points the author covers about the interlinked nature of the CIA, the Mafia, and the global drug trade to finance Gladio and other black opera......more

Goodreads review by Zach on February 02, 2023

I feel largely the same way with this as I did reading Peter Dale Scott's "The Road to 9/11". That is, it's full of information and details such as names and places, but it's lacking in an ideological analysis that provides the reader with an understanding of the material forces undergirding the sto......more

Goodreads review by Nick on September 10, 2021

I have to say what an excellent writing style for one and also what excellent research has been done by the author to bring all this to light. I do think his underlying assumptions ruin the conclusions a little bit. I think his assumption that the CIA and the Vatican are secretly Nazis because they......more

Goodreads review by George on June 18, 2023

A detailed accounting of Italy’s years of lead, the shadowy forces behind them, and the way that the ruling class was able to transplant their southern European operations globally. What i found most interesting was the importance of the heroin trade, both during the cold war and in modern day. Oil......more

Goodreads review by Al on February 09, 2019

This might be an interesting book if labeled as historical fiction. Unfortunately, it is an "account" that is built by threading together conspiracy theory and imagining threads of events that may not really exist. It might make a good movie screenplay, but it isn't good history. It relies far too m......more