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With the passing of General Paolo Inzerilli, who died on Sunday 24 March at the age of 90 and was head of the Gladio structure for around 20 years, a page has closed on a very well-known and discussed figure in Italian defense circles between the sixties and ninety.
Former Chief of Staff in the Sismi
Born in Milan on 15 November 1933, Inzerilli has held numerous roles of responsibility over the years, first in the Alpine troops then as an expert in the Italian secret services, as head of the Central Security Office and then (from ’89 to ’91) as Head of State Major in Sismi, military intelligence. Previously, from 1974 to 1986, he had headed the National Security Bureau.
He drove Gladio
But the general’s name is remembered by most above all for having long led the secret NATO organization called Gladio (“Stay behind”), born in the Cold War era from an agreement between the CIA and the Italian secret services, mainly for oppose a possible invasion project of Western Europe by the Soviet Union and the rest of the countries adhering to the Warsaw Pact, not least Yugoslavia.
Andreotti makes the secret structure of the services known
The name of Gladio officially came out into the open on 3 August 1990, when the then Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti made known the existence of a secret service structure before the Massacres Commission, moreover just a few days after the green light for the opening of the Sismi archives.
The process
It is also good to remember that from that date General Inzerilli had to undergo a trial that lasted many years, which he recalled with bitterness in July 2001 immediately after the acquittal: «After 11 years spent between judicial offices and the courtroom of Rebibbia – he stated afterwards the sentence issued in the bunker courtroom in Rebibbia – not only did I and my colleagues get acquitted, but also that of Gladio”.