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| Ambassador Bridges |
A leaked diplomatic cable from 1973, sent from Rome, details how panicked US officials became at the publication of an article by Gianni Farneti titled "The Fascist Poison" in the weekly Panorama, going so far as urging all embassy officials to forgo comments surrounding the article, and with instructions to denounce it as an "outrageous lie."
In that Panorama story, the neo-fascist MSI political party, the US Central Intelligence Agency, and long-time diplomat Peter Bridges [assigned to Rome from 1966 to 1971] are linked in a conspiracy to carry out the 1969 Piazza Fontana Bombing. 88 people were injured and 16 killed during the attack.
The MSI is also alleged to have carried out the murder of Antonio Marino and Antonio Annarumma, two police officers, while making it look like the crime was carried out by leftists in order to initiate a massive social backlash against communism.
The alarming story alleges that funds for the MSI [Italian Social Movement] were being channeled through the Feed Grains Council, which informed US officials that they had intentions to file a lawsuit against Farneti for his article, but were told by the US Embassy in Rome not to "dignify and encourage" reprinting of the article by writing "rebuttals" or taking "legal action." Instead, the Feed Grains Council was instructed to "categorically and emphatically" deny the story, to not talk to the media
The diplomatic cable also mentions Merrill Lynch, and Continental Bank of Illinois as funding MSI activities. Michele Sindona, a former member of Propaganda Due -- an Italian lodge of Freemasonry -- is mentioned in the diplomatic cable because of his links to Continental Bank of Illinois.
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| Sindona and co-defendant. Dengrove |
Sindona -- a former financial adviser to the Catholic Church with so much pull that "Pope Paul VI sought his advice on Vatican investments" -- would later go on to be convicted in the murder-for-hire of the lawyer representing him in what was in the 1980s the "largest bank collapse in United States history."
William Arico, the American gunman who killed Sindona's lawyer, died during "an escape attempt at a New York jail" shortly "after telling United States prosecutors about the murder contract."
Sindona, who made his fortune working for Societa Generale Immobiliare - whose best known location in the United States was the Watergate complex in
Washington -- died of cyanide poisoning in prison 4 days after he was convicted.
As for the US government, the Rome cable ends by saying that the publication of the story was not a matter for "direct or indirect" government intervention, but assures readers in Washington that the Italian Prime Minister would lend a "sympathetic ear" and that the publisher of Panorama would feel "displeasure" in an "appropriate and indirect way." If any of the thousands of diplomatic cables that Abreu Report has analyzed come close to making a direct, overt threat against a foreign citizen/entity, this one is definitely it.
As for the US government, the Rome cable ends by saying that the publication of the story was not a matter for "direct or indirect" government intervention, but assures readers in Washington that the Italian Prime Minister would lend a "sympathetic ear" and that the publisher of Panorama would feel "displeasure" in an "appropriate and indirect way." If any of the thousands of diplomatic cables that Abreu Report has analyzed come close to making a direct, overt threat against a foreign citizen/entity, this one is definitely it.
Source: 1 [Warning to US personnel: public disclosures of classified documents do not alter the
documents' classified status or automatically result in declassification
of the documents.]
