D. Gansers book is frightening. He shows how a secret stay-behind network (Gladio) that should only become effective after a Warschaw Pact invasion of Western Europe, became an all important factor in Western politics, after the wealthy and powerful understood that their real enemies were the strong communist parties in Western democracies and the political parties of the left. As John Prados says in his excellent introduction: `in country after country, Gladio influenced, violently or not, political processes through fear and terrorism. Police and security services protected perpetrated crimes and antidemocratic `state sponsors created terrorist networks.
This warfare planning group was linked to NATO, the Pentagon and the CIA and operated completely outside democratic control from the nationally elected legislators. It made a joke of national sovereignty.
Codenamed Gladio (the sword), the Italian secret army was exposed in 1990 by Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti to the Italian Senate, whereupon the press spoke of "The best kept, and most damaging, political-military secret since World War II" (Observer, 18. November 1990) and observed that "The story seems straight from the pages of a political thriller." (The Times, November 19, 1990). Ever since, so-called stay-behind armies of NATO have also been discovered in France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, Greece and Turkey. They were internationally coordinated by the Pentagon and NATO and had their last known meeting in the NATO-linked Allied Clandestine Committee (ACC) in Brussels in October 1990.