#NOT ONLY DID MORO COOK BUT THE RESEARCH?!

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Some extremely preliminary and scattered thoughts and comparisons on Cold War-era terrorism in Italy and the far-left under Ronald Reagan’s California

An American Strategy of Tension? Reagan’s California and the Cold War

The 1960s and 1970s were a period of tremendous political tumult for not only the United States and Italy, the two countries at the center of this piece, but for the entire West (which can be thought of, generally, as the NATO alliance, as well as many of the reactionary Latin American governments of the time) as it was embroiled in what was perceived to be an existential contest with its dialectical opponents to the east, the Soviet Union, and to a lesser extent communist China. This was one of the most contested eras of the Cold War, but as much as the actors embroiled in this global conflict spent resources combatting one another (often through proxy wars), actors, both state and non-state, spent considerable resources waging what can best be described as domestic counterinsurgency campaigns. In the background of this piece is the idea that anti-communism in the post-WWII and Cold War era was a transnational affair, less segmented by borders than generally imagined. A main controversial conclusion of this approach is that similarities between events in Italy and the United States will be proposed to be less coincidence, and more a product of shared ideology, tactics, and counterinsurgency/anti-communist strategies on the part of Western states during the Cold War.

Particularly in the United States though, these types of counterinsurgency strategies were deployed in instances where there may not have actually been an insurgency by any accurate measure. The Church Committee’s revelations regarding programs like COINTELPRO and Operation CHAOS, the brainchild of paranoid Central Intelligence Agency Counterintelligence Chief James Jesus Angleton (1954-1975), as well as subsequent scholarly and historical investigations over the years have revealed that, despite the protestations of the right-wing and aspects of the intelligence and security communities during the era, there was little to no evidence of a centrally planned foreign communist conspiracy to foment revolution or subvert the government of the United States[1]. Of course there were genuine left-wing plots, violence, and attempted acts of violence—the goal here is not to deny the agency of the left, particularly the New Left and associated movements, but to gain a clearer understanding of where they actually succeeded, where they failed, and ultimately how these movements lost momentum, and for all intents and purposes were destroyed. What I am aiming to highlight here is that minimally the far-right, security establishment, and intelligence establishment’s pursuit of evidence of a communist conspiracy in the West, their use of infiltration, instigation, and agent provocateur led to actual instances of violence that the left was forced to answer for, but may not have been totally responsible for. While Italy’s government and public have systematically recognized this reality, the United States and many other countries have not.

The questions are: did right-wing elements in the United States infiltrate and manipulate left-wing and New Left groups to commit violence that ultimately undermined the left’s political appeal to the public? If so, what were the actual political effects of these efforts, did they succeed? How did they alter the body politic in years going forward, up to the present? These types of issues and activities are the subject here. Liberal political science, particularly on the subject of New Left movements in the Western “democracies,” has assumed these organizations and movements had an agency and autonomy that may not have actually existed. The formidable repression these groups faced from the FBI, CIA, military intelligence, and police departments is well documented, but less attention has been paid to the actual mechanisms by which the repression took place, and even less attention has been paid to the particular issues of infiltration, instigation, and agent provocateur and what their effects have been and continue to be.

One of the most well documented and verified instances of the counterinsurgency dynamic I have referred to is Italy’s experience during the infamous “Years of Lead,” which lasted from roughly 1968-1980. The Years of Lead were a period of intense political violence featuring a bevy of terrorist attacks from both Italy’s far-right and far-left. While demonstrations and skirmishes between the left, the right, and the state had occurred prior to this event, a first major attack and inaugural bombing during the Years of Lead was the Piazza Fontana bombing which took place on December 12, 1969 in the headquarters of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura (National Agrarian Bank), killing 17 and wounding 88. While initial police investigations would attempt to finger anarchists (more associated with the radical left than right) with the bombing, it would eventually be confirmed in January 1987 through Italian courts that the far-right was responsible for this bombing.[2] One must consider the political ramifications of groups opposed to the right even being considered responsible for this bombing at a time when the Italian Communist Party (PCI) was rising to power. Further, consider that there where many other such violent incidents and bombings that were credited to Italy’s radical left—culminating in the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro (Italy’s prime minister from the Christian Democracy Party who was planning to make a historic political compromise with Italy’s socialist and communist parties which would have cut the country’s rightists out of power)—which may have been planned, promoted, and/or executed by the right.

Bull and Cooke recount what is known about such activities in Italy

“[1] The main suspicion is that the state, or part of the state, connived with neo-fascist terrorists in pursuing a strategy of tension aimed at curbing the increasing power of the Communist Party and fostering a turn to the right. The responsibility of neo-fascist group Ordine Nuovo in the bombing massacres has indeed been fully ascertained by the courts, even though it has proved difficult to incriminate individual defendants, not least due to (largely proven) acts of obstruction on part of the state bodies. [2] As for the responsibility of the latter, starting with the secret service and parts of the armed forces, there exists very substantial circumstantial evidence pointing in the direction of their involvement in neo-fascist terrorism, at least in the sense of aiding and abetting their subversive activities and/or protecting them from prosecution. [3] Another suspicion is that the state did not do everything it could to fight left-wing terrorism, allowing it some space to develop in order to keep the Communist Party at bay, since the latter’s gradual path to power and government was jeopardized by the emergence of revolutionary groups to its left.”[3]

Within this brief yet comprehensive summary of terrorism in Italy during the Years of Lead, Bull and Cooke have identified three mechanisms by which the state, its security agencies, and far-right (in the Italian case often neo-fascist) organizations worked together, directly or indirectly, to harm the left politically and literally through the use, manipulation, and framing of terrorism.

The first they allude to involves the pursuit of a “strategy of tension�� and involves the planning, execution, or allowance of terror by the state and its allies to lead public opinion toward supporting the status quo through the securitization of public life and the political process. This strategy involves steering political groups in directions advantageous for the state, such as infiltrating and steering far-left (and at times far-right) groups towards the utilization of violence. This is perhaps the least understood dynamic and may involve such complicated strategies on behalf of security and intelligence agencies that many critics doubt the veracity of claims that purport the usage this type of strategy. It is important to note that this is (or would be) a resource intensive strategy—the cost of infiltrators and agent provocateurs are not cheap, especially if many are necessary and they are needed for extended lengths of time. But if there was any time when governments were willing to foot the bill for such activities, the Cold War was the time. There remains evidence that the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) may have arisen out of this type of counterinsurgency strategy.

Researchers who subscribe to the theory that steering and manipulation by the state are responsible for a group’s use of violence point to definitive splits and different periods in a group’s existence as evidence of takeover or infiltration by outside parties. Often this involves the first wave of a group’s leadership being killed, jailed, or otherwise removed from activity, then a new set of leadership arises, one that ratchets up the violence the group is willing to use. In the case of the Red Brigades, this type of periodization of the group’s history is widely accepted. The first phase of the group was led by Renato Curcio until June 1974 when he was arrested. While the group was by no means nonviolent during this first era, its actions pale in comparison to the Red Brigade’s actions during the later phases, after Curcio’s arrest. Post-arrest of the Red Brigade’s founders and initial leadership, Mario Moretti came into leadership of the group. The group’s tactics immediately took a more violent turn; the Red Brigades would kidnap and kill Aldo Moro during this phase. Does the timeline of the Symbionese Liberation Army show this kind of periodization accompanied by a change in structure, as well as tactics (especially as they relate to violence)?

The second dynamic Bull and Cooke identify is one in which state security and intelligence agencies cooperate with, and aid and abet far-right terrorism. The assistance that security and intelligence agencies are able to give often ideologically allied right-wing movements ranges from money, weapons, and other material resources, to information about targets, to tips to avoid detection by the state, to protection from prosecution. In the most extreme cases, a security and/or intelligence apparatus with enough autonomy or independence from the state, or where the state’s interests are aligned as such, far-right groups often operate above the law and with impunity. An example of a far-right group with this kind of relation to a state and its security apparatus might be the case of the Grey Wolves which have operated in Turkey from roughly 1968 until the present. Despite the open secret that the Grey Wolves have been deeply involved from crimes ranging from heroin production and smuggling, to murder (the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II was carried out by a Grey Wolves’ member and is widely believe to be related to the neo-fascist Italian activity discussed here and elsewhere), it is clear that they exist and operate with state approval. Looking at the case of California under the governorship of Ronald Reagan and during the heyday of COINTELPRO, we see clear evidence of this type of activity emerge in the relationship between the state and federal security/intelligence officials and far-right, paramilitary groups like the Minutemen and the Secret Army Organization. In the case of California we see far-right groups who were evidently allowed to violently harass, assault, and even attempt to kill leftist radicals, dissidents, and organizers in the 1970s. Here, the case of Peter Bohmer is instructive. Bohmer, who is still a political economy professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, was a victim a conspiracy between federal and state security officials and the far-right paramilitary organization the Secret Army Organization (successor to the Minutemen) in which he was harassed and had his life threatened, including an incident where he was shot at in his home and the bullets struck a woman inside, Paula Tharp, leaving her with permanent injuries.[4]

(More about the attempted shooting of Bohmer can be found in the following California Supreme Court opinion: http://caselaw.lexroll.com/2016/12/06/people-v-hoover-12-cal-3d-875-1974/)

The third mechanism and tactic that Bull and Cooke identify also needs more careful attention and study. This is the dynamic in which the state and its security apparatuses would allow revolutionary and armed left-wing groups grow and operate precisely because their activities would be counterproductive for left-wing forces attempting (and succeeding) to gain political momentum, whether that be through electoral means or otherwise. This tactic by the state is similar to the first one I discussed, in that the goal is to undermine left-wing political parties by having them associated with violence in the public arena. The violence then leads to a securitization of public life and a reaffirmation of support for the status quo and law-and-order rightists who then become seen as protectors of public order.

The subtle difference between the first method and this is that this method would seem to require less infiltration and instigation when compared to the former. As Bull and Cooke suggest in their description, this method involves the state simply allowing far-left groups to operate freely, with the belief that they will engage in unproductive and/or counterproductive behavior that aids the states counterinsurgency plans. This is different than the first proposed method in which the state is steering groups through the use of infiltration, instigation, and provocation (agent provocateur). This strategy assumes that security and intelligence officials believe that certain left-wing groups and/or individuals are already behaving in unproductive or counterproductive ways (in regards to the movements they are broadly identified with), and that officials have identified these unproductive and/or counterproductive actors, separating them from actors who are deemed effective, and thus require more intense counterintelligence efforts, such as protracted infiltration and provocation. There is evidence that something like this final method led to the death of Jonathan P. Jackson, brother of George Jackson, when he attempted to kidnap a judge to trade for his brother’s release from prison. It has been suggested that state and federal authorities were aware that the kidnapping attempt was going to take place and made no provisions to intervene, rather they allowed it to go on, in what seems to have been an attempt to frame Angela Davis and undermine the larger prisoners’ rights movement.[5] Another interpretation of the Symbionese Liberation Army, an alternative to the one already discussed above, is that state and federal authorities recognized the counterproductive nature of many of its doctrines and thus allowed it to operate. While I believe there is too much evidence to the contrary to suggest that state and federal authorities took such a “hands-off” approach to the SLA until the murder of black Oakland school superintendent Dr. Marcus Foster and the subsequent kidnapping of Patricia Hearst, it is worth considering. In general though, my view is that the actions of the SLA, like those of Italy’s Red Brigade in the phase when they decided to kidnap and murder Aldo Moro, are just simply too counterproductive and make little sense from a far-left perspective, even if we account for the ideological extremes and revolutionary fervor present in the 1960s and 1970s. More will be discussed concerning the counterproductivity of the SLA later.

The preceding paragraphs have been an attempt to introduce a typology of some of the dominant counterinsurgency trends that were used in the West’s many domestic theaters during the height of the Cold War and anti-communism efforts. The forthcoming sections will discuss a series of people, organizations, and events in California that relate to the far-left that seem to be symptomatic of the counterinsurgency strategies mentioned. Continual reference will be made to Italy’s Years of Lead and strategy of tension (and other locations in Europe, such as Belgium, where extensive documentation of these activities also exists) in order to make comparisons to the events discussed in California. This is because there is a greater level of official knowledge and sourced information in relation to Italy due to legislative inquiries and “truth and reconciliation” type policies. And then, perhaps more importantly, the comparison is important because there are very interesting connections between Italy and its counterinsurgency efforts and what we see in California under Reagan, all the way down to certain individual actors appearing in (and playing an important role) in both instances, particularly the figure “Ronald Hadley Stark,” who little is known about, but what is known is highly pertinent to this discussion and inquiry.

[1] United States Senate, Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Government Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities: Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, S. Rep. No. 94-755, bk. III, at 681 (1976) [hereinafter Church III].

[2] Anna Cento Bull and Philip Cooke, Ending Terrorism in Italy (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), 2.

[3] Bull and Cookie, xii.

[4] 1. Everett R. Holles, “A.C.L.U. Says F.B.I. Funded ‘Army’ To Terrorize Young War Dissidents,” New York Times, June 27, 1975, http://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/27/archives/aclu-says-fbi-funded-army-to-terrorize-young-war-dissidents.html.

[5] Citizens Research and Investigation Committee and Louis E. Tackwood, The Glass House Tapes: The Story of An Agent-Provocateur and the New Police-Intelligence Complex (New York, NY: Avon Books, 1973), 112-115.