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Approaches to Understanding theInaugural CIA Covert Operation in Italy:Exploding Useful MythsKaeten MistryPublished online: 20 May 2011.

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Approaches to Understanding theInaugural CIA Covert Operation in

Italy: Exploding Useful Myths

KAETEN MISTRY

ABSTRACT The Italian election of April 1948 represented the first occasion on whichthe CIA intervened to influence events abroad. Understanding of the operation has beenshaped by three dissimilar approaches that have been critical, celebratory, and stressedcontinuity. These approaches have, in turn, fuelled a series of useful myths around theepisode. Agency declarations of greater ‘openness’ after the Cold War promised toadvance historiographical debates on this – and other – interventions through thedeclassification of records, although proved a false dawn. This article offers analternative method to analyse the case through a broader international frame of inquirythat considers CIA action in the context of both American and Italian efforts during theelection. In so doing, it challenges the useful myths around 1948.

Speaking at a 1994 conference on the CIA during the Truman administra-tion, former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Richard Helms reflectedon the inaugural covert operation undertaken by the Agency. The 1948Italian election represented the first major mobilization by the CIA toinfluence events abroad in the nascent Cold War. When questioned whyrecords of the intervention, despite several promises to declassify, remainedunder lock-and-key Helms responded that an ‘important election [was]coming up in Italy shortly’ and the Agency considered it imprudent to releasefiles at such a moment. He went on, ‘all you have to do is declassify thesepapers at this particular time and it’ll be headlines all over Italy. There willbe the assumption that we’re messing around in Italian politics again.’ Onthe details of the episode Helms nonetheless declared: ‘Certainly these thingsare known to historians; there’s no particular secret about them.’1

Beyond the curious suggestion that accusations of US meddling wouldarise only if details on 1948 were revealed, Helms’s comments were strikingwith respect to how historians supposedly ‘knew’ the secrets of the Italianoperation. Historians had certainly started to analyse the 1948 election

1Richard Helms, 18 March 1994, in The Origin and Development of the CIA in theAdministration of Harry S. Truman: A Conference Report (Washington: Center for the Studyof Intelligence 1995) p.58.

Intelligence and National SecurityVol. 26, Nos. 2–3, 246–268, April–June 2011

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campaign. Yet none had set out to focus on the Agency’s role amid theelectoral defeat of the Italian left and, moreover, had not uncovered the‘secrets’ of the CIA effort.2

The suggestion by Helms came at a telling juncture as it was with the endof the Cold War that historians stood to make the greatest discoveries withrespect to CIA covert action, including the inaugural Italian case. For all therevelations of the 1975 Church Committee investigation into Agencyclandestine activity – as well as the more antagonistic Pike Committeereport3 – the 1990s offered scholars the first tangible opportunity tocomprehensively document covert action. Days after being confirmed as thefirst DCI of the post-Soviet era, Robert Gates convened a ‘Task Force onGreater CIA Openness’ to accelerate the declassification of primary records,including those of 11 high profile Cold War interventions, as part of a driveto make the Agency and intelligence functions more comprehensible to thepublic in a world without the communist nemesis. Major operations in Italy,Iran, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Congowere all slated for review.4 The collapse of the Soviet Union seeminglyheralded a new era of transparency and – contrary to Helms’ assertion –would provide scholars with the resources to document the history ofAgency clandestine action.

These developments offered tremendous opportunities for advancing thehistoriography of US intelligence, with historians standing to benefit most.An academic field that had, to date, largely ‘been left to reporters,journalists, former intelligence officers, political science theorists, andinternational affairs experts’, historians had been underrepresented.5 Allthose working on intelligence faced inherent challenges yet, with a greaterinclination toward empiricism, historians suffered disproportionately fromrestrictions on a documentary record that was, at best, sketchy. Unravellingcases of covert action – those attempts by a government to influence events

2James Miller, ‘Taking Off the Gloves: The United States and the Italian Elections of 1948’,Diplomatic History 7/1 (1983) pp.35–55; David Ellwood, ‘The 1948 Elections in Italy: A ColdWar Propaganda Battle’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 13/1 (1993) pp.19–33.3The Pike Committee report was initially blocked, although was later published by the VillageVoice and then as a book, much to the chagrin of Agency officials. Tellingly, the book –featuring an introduction by renegade CIA agent Philip Agee – was only published in Europewhere it enjoyed vast popularity, especially in Italy. Richard Helms, A Look Over MyShoulder: A Life in the CIA (New York: Random House 2003) pp.432–34; CIA, The PikeReport (Nottingham: Spokesman 1977).4For a cautionary tale: Zachary Karabell and Timothy Naftali, ‘History Declassified: ThePerils and Promise of CIA Documents’, Diplomatic History 18/4 (October 1994) pp.615–27;J. Kenneth McDonald, ‘Commentary on ‘‘History Declassified’’’, Diplomatic History 18/4(October 1994), pp. 627–34.5Gerald Haines, ‘An Emerging Field of Study: US Intelligence’, Diplomatic History 28/3 (June2004) p.442. For general overviews: John Ferris, ‘Coming in from the Cold War: TheHistoriography of American Intelligence, 1945–1990’, Diplomatic History 19/1 (1995)pp.87–115; John Lewis Gaddis, ‘Intelligence, Espionage, and Cold War Origins’, DiplomaticHistory 13/2 (Spring 1989) pp.191–212.

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abroad without revealing its involvement – had presented even greaterobstacles.6 Drawing largely on sources from other US government agenciesduring the 1980s, a handful of historians did produce general surveys of theAgency and select episodes of intervention.7

However the post-Cold War era of ‘openness’ augured well for betterknowledge of high-profile cases that would, in turn, offer a clearer picture ofthe machinations behind covert action. Centres like the National SecurityArchive emerged as a key resource by publishing declassified documents inedited volumes, microfiche collections, and digital archives, which scholarshave drawn upon in analyses of foreign interventions and the tactics usedtherein.8 The growing attention to documenting covert action was mirroredin the intelligence community and led to greater collaboration betweenspooks and scholars, especially over declassification. The Agency increasedits publishing activity through the CIA History Staff and, in 1992, hired thehistorian Nick Cullather to write an official history of PBSUCCESS, theinfamous 1954 covert operation in Guatemala that was subsequentlypublished by an academic press.9 Scholars also began to play an active rolein the CIA Historical Review Panel (HRP), which was established in 1995and whose duties include recommendations on declassifying Agencydocuments. The HRP advises on the established Foreign Relations of theUnited States series, which – following high-profile censorship controversies

6Most works focused on covert action were by figures formerly involved in intelligence thatwere geared toward policy guidance: Gregory Treverton, The Limits of Intervention in thePostwar World (New York: Basic Books 1987); Roy Godson (ed.), Intelligence Requirementsfor the 1980s: Covert Action (Washington: National Security Information Center 1981). Anotable exception was: John Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon CovertOperations since World War II (New York: William Morrow 1986).7John Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations since WorldWar II (New York: William Morrow 1986). Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and AmericanDemocracy (New Haven: Yale University Press 1989); John Ranelagh, The Agency: The Riseand Decline of the CIA (New York: Simon & Schuster 1986); Trumbull Higgins, The PerfectFailure: Kennedy, Eisenhower, and the CIA at the Bay of Pigs (New York: W. W. Norton1987); Richard Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Interventionism(Austin: University of Texas Press 1982).8For details of National Security Archive resources and works that utilize them: 5http://www.gwu.edu/*nsarchiv/4; Zachary Karabell, Architects of Intervention: The UnitedStates, the Third World, and the Cold War, 1946–1962 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana StateUniversity Press 1999); Stephen Rabe, US Intervention in British Guiana: A Cold War Story(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 2005); Kenneth Osgood, Total Cold War:Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad (Lawrence: University Press ofKansas 2006); Bradley Simpson, Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development andUS–Indonesian Relations, 1960–1968 (Stanford: Stanford University Press 2008).9Mary McAuliffe (ed.), CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis (1992); James Nathan(ed.), The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited (1994); Michael Warner (ed.), CIA Cold WarRecords: The CIA Under Harry Truman (1994) [all Washington: CIA History Staff]; NickCullather, Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of Its Operation in Guatemala, 1952–1954 (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1999). The Agency also maintains a site withdocuments and resources for intelligence studies: 5https://www.cia.gov/library/index.html4.

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in the 1990s – recently reissued an edition of the Guatemalan episode thathad previously omitted references to the CIA.10

It is therefore peculiar that understanding of the Italian case did not reapbenefits from the increased availability of documents. Despite assurances ofdeclassification from Gates and his successors, James Woolsey and JohnDeutch, files on the 1948 intervention were never released. This promptedthe National Security Archive to sue the Agency in 2000, although it was tolittle effect.11 There are of course many pitfalls in placing too much emphasison documents since records have an institutional context and should not beconsidered significant just because they exist.12 Nonetheless, understandingof the inaugural CIA covert operation was not refined by the much-celebrated era of ‘openness’.

As a result, the historiography has remained rooted in debates originatingin the Cold War. Three dissimilar approaches that emerged during the ColdWar continue to shape understanding of the CIA in Italy. Furthermore, theysustain a series of useful myths that stem from these interpretations. The firsttwo approaches revolve on the notion that Agency activities helped swingthe Italian election away from the left. The first approach – presented by aloose band of journalists and political activists – is highly critical of CIAefforts, while the second – developed by former-Agency officials – hascelebrated it. The third approach – advanced by scholars – has sought toplace the episode in the chronology of CIA covert operations; the openingsalvo of a capability that grew in subsequent decades with terrifying humanand moral costs. Historians have analysed the case with most sobrietyalthough Helms’s assertion that they have discovered all that is to be knownis an exaggeration. All the ‘secrets’ have not been uncovered – if they evercan in such an elusive subject – nor have historians ended the debate on1948. As such, the Italian case constitutes a contested space in which thethree interpretations coexist without the means to address some of thediscrepancies.

The notion of Agency interference as a determining and unregulated forceover domestic Italian affairs has exerted a powerful influence inside Italy,from claims by the head of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in the days

10Robert Jervis, ‘The CIA and Declassification: The Role of the Historical Review Panel’,Passport: The Newsletter of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations 40/1(2009) p.10; Robert Jervis, ‘Report from CIA’s Historical Review Panel’, 25 September 2008,H-Diplo Discussion Log (accessed 11 February 2009). For critiques of the HRP andinadequacies of early FRUS editions: George Herring, ‘My Years with the CIA’, Organizationof American Historians Newsletter 25/2 (May 1997); Anne Van Camp, ‘Trying to Write‘‘Comprehensive and Accurate’’ History of the Foreign Relations of the United States: AnArchival Perspective’, in R. Cox and D. Wallace (eds.) Archives and the Public Good:Accountability and Records in Modern Society (Westport: Greenwood 2002) pp.229–46.11See original court filings and documents at: 5http://www.gwu.edu/*nsarchiv/NSAEBB/ciacase/4 (accessed 26 April 2009). Based on author discussions with Archive staff, there islittle evidence that materials on Italy will emerge in the near future.12Michael Warner, ‘Documenting the History of Intelligence History’, Intelligence andNational Security 24/3 (June 2009) p.462.

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after the 1948 election to contemporary instances like the 2003 ‘extra-ordinary rendition’ of a Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan.13 CIAaction – whether real or fictional – has cast a long shadow on the local sceneand fuelled urban myths. Generations on the Italian left have used thepretext of Agency intrusion as an explanation for successive electoraldefeats. The idea that the CIA represents a shadowy force inside theAmerican state and sponsors of a similarly obscure ‘parallel state’ withinItaly – comprising elites of the state, Masonic lodges, right-wing organiza-tions, the Vatican, and Mafia – has also endured. The spectre of Agencyconspiracies to subvert Italian democracy has, therefore, played a prominentrole in left-wing attempts to construct identities of resistance and narrativesof national independence.14 Since ‘American intervention in foreigncountries always matters more to the nation in question than it does tothe United States’, similar conceptions would also inform generations in theMiddle East and Latin America for whom US meddling was, and remains, aliving memory.15

Ironically, the first report by the CIA Task Force in 1991 urged ‘near-term . . . declassification of historical materials on specific events, particu-larly those which are repeatedly the subject of false allegations, such as the1948 Italian Elections.’16 All of which would suggest that the continuedrefusal to release records perpetuate ‘false accusations’. It could also besuggested that ‘true’ claims are sucked into a vortex of myth and counter-myth. The resultant ambiguity has sustained the critical, celebratory, andcontinuity narratives.

13Palmiro Togliatti, L’Unita, 22 April 1948; ‘Italian court convicts 23 Americans in CIARendition Case’, Washington Post, 4 November 2009; ‘Abu Omar, Washington ci ha traditigli agenti Cia’, La Repubblica, 6 November 2009.14Roberto Faenza and Marco Fini, Gli americani in Italia (Milan: Mondadori 1976); SergioFlamigni, Convergenze parallele: le Brigate rosse, i servizi segreti e il delitto Moro (Milan:Kaos 1998); Giuseppe De Lutiis, Il lato oscuro del potere. Associazioni politiche e struttureparamilitari segreti in Italia (Rome: Riuniti 1996); Paolo Cucchiarelli and Aldo Giannuli, Lostato parallelo. L’Italia ‘‘Oscura’’ nei documenti e nelle relazioni della Commissione stragi(Rome: Gamberetti 1998); Philip Willan, Puppetmasters: The Political Use of Terrorism inItaly (London: Constable 1991); Giusy Arena and Filippo Barone, P3: Tutta la verita (Rome:Editori Riuniti 2010).15Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms & the CIA (London:Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1979) p.viii; Douglas Little, ‘Mission Impossible: The CIA and theCult of Covert Action in the Middle East’, Diplomatic History 28/5 (2004) pp.663–701;Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror(Hoboken: Wiley 2003); Mark Hove, ‘The Arbenz Factor: Salvador Allende, US–ChileanRelations, and the 1954 US Intervention in Guatemala’, Diplomatic History 31/4 (September2007) pp.623–63; Greg Grandin, ‘Your Americanism and Mine: Americanism and Anti-Americanism in the Americas’, American Historical Review 111/4 (October 2006) pp.1042–66.16CIA Task Force to DCI Gates, 20 December 1991, 5http://www.gwu.edu/*nsarchiv/NSAEBB/ciacase/EXB.pdf4 (accessed 27 April 2009).

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Yet rather than fixate on access to documents or Agency stonewalling,moving beyond the impasse requires an alternative methodology thatcombines old and new approaches. A more fruitful path to advancing thehistoriographical debate is to highlight CIA intervention in the wider contextof US foreign relations and Italian policy objectives. Complementing arenewed emphasis on historical methods with alternative documentaryresearch and attention to the activities of foreign protagonists, aninternational approach emphasizing the full dynamics of interventionismcan be developed. The historiography of American foreign relations hasinternationalized the study of the Cold War by considering local contextsand indigenous actors. These practises offer innovative avenues of researchfor intelligence history. Preventing against insular CIA micro-histories andsimplistic ‘airport bookstall’ works, it better situates Agency action in thebroader context of international history.

In so doing, the approach provides an important reappraisal of the Italiancase. The activities most commonly linked to the CIA – covert funding andmilitary rearmament – are revealed to be far from vital in the defeat of left-wing forces. They are, in fact, exposed as improvised operations that camelate in the day. Moreover, the CIA was a peripheral figure as the Agencyhierarchy cautiously protested from the sidelines as other Trumanadministration officials and agencies took charge of covert actionprogrammes. In short, the CIA was neither an effective covert operatornor a ‘rogue elephant’ of the US government. A fuller understanding ofAgency action must consider its role amid a wider analysis of US–Italianrelations, as well as the alliances governments cultivated with privategroups.

While a more comprehensive archival record is always preferable forscholars, Agency files may in fact reveal little more than select operationaldetails. Meanwhile, records from Italy highlight local efforts to encourageand simultaneously restrain American involvement, thus helping to identifyboth how and why US intervention occurred. This ensures a clearer accountof the inaugural CIA covert operation by challenging the establishednarratives on the episode and, thereby, exploding some of the useful mythsthat have surrounded it.

Useful Myths and Historiography

While there have been several important works around the Italian election,largely in the context of post-war US–Italian relations, none have analysedthe CIA effort per se. Some have focused on American diplomacy andeconomic planning, others have looked at cultural factors, and someconsider the post-election period.17 Scholars analysing early Cold War

17James Miller, The United States and Italy, 1940–1950: The Politics and Diplomacy ofStabilization (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1986); John Harper, Americaand the Reconstruction of Italy, 1945–1948 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1986);Robert Ventresca, From Fascism to Democracy: Culture and Politics in the Italian Election of

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American foreign relations have referred to Italy in broader surveys withouta close consideration of the Agency’s role.18 The aforementioned documen-tary problematic has seemingly not been conducive to a focused study.Fragments of CIA involvement have emerged, such as the National SecurityCouncil (NSC) directive 1/3 that instructed the United States to ‘immediatelyprovide campaign funds from unvouchered and private sources’ to anti-communist Italian groups. From work conducted during the ChurchCommittee investigation, the Agency is reported to have ‘provided aconvenient mechanism’ for covert funding.19 Yet the key issue is not whetherthe Agency channelled funds but the notion that it represented a highlyeffective operation. This has featured prominently in the three interpreta-tions of the case.

The first approach, which enjoys most common currency, is thatcondemning CIA activities. It derives from the work of investigativejournalists, reporters, and filmmakers, such as Christopher Simpson,Roberto Faenza, Marco Fini, and Tim Weiner. The group also featurespolitical activists like William Blum and disaffected former intelligenceofficials like Victor Marchetti and John Marks, writing in a post-Vietnamframe of opposition to ‘American empire’. Stressing the subversion of Italianand American democracy, critics suggest Agency activity was incongruentwith the purported claim of protecting Italy from outside influence. Someconclude that the Agency represented a rogue element within the USgovernment – for instance, through ties with former Nazi collaborators –while others emphasize the immorality of American foreign relations moregenerally: ‘All the good ol’ Yankee know-how, all the Madison Avenuesavvy in the art of swaying public opinion, all the Hollywood razzmatazz[was] brought to bear’ in Italy.20 This critical interpretation has been

1948 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2004); Mario Del Pero, L’alleato scomodo: gliUSA e la DC negli anni del centrissimo, 1948–55 (Rome: Carocci 2001).18Melvyn Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration,and the Cold War (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1992) pp.195–97, 213–14; GeorgeHerring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 (New York: OxfordUniversity Press 2008) p.621. For an attempt to link the case to broader strategic issues:Kaeten Mistry, ‘The Case for Political Warfare: Strategy, Organization & US Involvement inthe 1948 Italian Election’, Cold War History 6/3 (2006) pp.301–29.19NSC 1/3, 8 March 1948. Box 176, PSF, Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, MO[henceforth HSTL]; Final Report of the Senate Committee to Study Government Operationswith Respect to Intelligence Activities, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Foreign andMilitary Intelligence: Book IV (Washington: US Government Printing Office 1976) p.29.20Christopher Simpson, Blowback: America’s Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on theCold War (London: Weidenfeld 1988) pp.89–95; Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The Historyof the CIA (New York: Doubleday 2007) pp.29–31; Faenza and Fini, Gli americani in Italia,pp.278–98; Paolo Mastrolilli and Maurizio Molinari, L’italia vista dalla Cia, 1948–2004(Rome-Bari: Laterza 2005) pp.3–10; William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIAInterventions Since World War II (Montreal: Black Rose Books 1997) pp.27–34; VictorMarchetti and John Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (London: Jonathan Cape1974) p.25.

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prominent in the public arena, enjoying high book sales and – in the case ofWeiner – receiving a popular book award.

A contrasting view is offered by a second group of former-Agency officialswho have defended, and even proudly celebrated, the Italian operation. Theynote the effort as vital in checking communism and depict intelligence as anecessary dirty business. Mark Wyatt, an operative in 1948, suggested thatleft-wing Italian groups secretly received up to $10 million a month fromMoscow and Eastern Europe, while Italian businesses were forced tocooperate with labour unions dominated by communists. To combat suchsubversive activities, the CIA launched its own funding campaign ‘whichwas one of the great, covert action operations of all time . . . the Italianoperation was expensive, it was large, it was well handled; the secrets werekept at the critical time; and it was successful’. Wyatt, along with WilliamColby – who later led covert operations in Rome during the 1950s – upholdthat money was only given to Christian Democrats (DC), centrists and theVatican’s grass-roots Civic Committee network. The express purpose behindclandestine help was to ensure a ‘stable, viable and truly democraticgovernment majority’.21 Noting the importance of the effort, Wyatt declared‘I’m very proud’ of keeping Italy out of the communist camp. MeanwhileTom Braden – later head of the CIA’s International Organizations Division –wrote in defence of covert action in a much publicized 1967 article: ‘Was it‘‘immoral,’’ ‘‘wrong,’’ ‘‘disgraceful’’? Only in the sense that war itself isimmoral, wrong and disgraceful.’ Such comments could be consideredrearguard actions by covert operators looking to safeguard their record,although are equally significant in highlighting the interventionist ideologyof the epoch.22

The third interpretation has come from respected scholars on the originand evolution of the CIA. Historians like Christopher Andrew, RhodriJeffreys-Jones, John Prados, John Ranelagh, Richard Immerman, and AthanTheoharis depict Italy as an early Agency operation that was a springboardfor bigger and bolder covert action in later years.23 Consistent with the

21Mark Wyatt, Oral History Interview ‘Marshall Plan’, National Security Archive:5www.gwu.edu/*nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-3/wyatt1.html4 (accessed 11 Feb-ruary 2009); Tom Braden, ‘The Birth of the CIA’, American Heritage 28/2 (1977); WilliamColby, Honourable Men: My Life in the CIA (London: Hutchinson 1978) pp.109–16, 138–40; Helms, A Look Over My Shoulder, pp.112–13, 347; CIA Operations Center, ‘NewsService’, 24 May 1978. CIA-RDP81-M00980R002000100018–0, CIA Records Search Tool,National Archives & Records Administration, College Park, MD [henceforth NARA]. Sovietfunding of the PCI is tricky to verify. For an (not altogether convincing) attempt: ValerioRiva, Oro da Mosca I finanziamenti sovietici al PCI dalla rivoluzione d’ottobre al crollodell’Urss (Milan: Mondadori 1999).22Wyatt, ‘Marshall Plan’; Tom Braden, ‘I’m Glad the CIA is ‘‘Immoral’’’, The SaturdayEvening Post, 20 May 1967. For more on the ideology of ‘determined interventionists’: SalliePisani, The CIA and the Marshall Plan (Lawrence: The University Press of Kansas 1991);Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared (New York: Simon & Schuster 1996).23Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the AmericanPresidency from Washington to Bush (London: HarperCollins 1996) pp.171–73;

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narrative of a Cold War ‘containment’ of Soviet communism in WesternEurope, it also accounts for why aggressive covert operations moved fromthe European ‘core’ to the third world ‘periphery’. Historians have presenteda more balanced account of the Italian case, eschewing the partisantendencies of the other approaches, yet scholarship has drawn from the sameprimary and secondary materials. Tellingly, the accounts are brief and neverexceed a handful of pages.

The link between these otherwise contrasting interpretations is that theyoffer a cursory discussion of CIA activities. There is little context withrespect to US policymaking. Moreover, the desires and efforts of Italianprotagonists are consigned to the margins. Italy represents a passive statethat is acted upon by outside forces while Italians are absent from thedebate. Restrictions on CIA sources have of course made it difficult forcurrent approaches to present indisputable evidence to support claims andreject counterclaims. The upshot is that the literature on the 1948operation represents a contested space in which ambiguities sustainuseful myths. Subsequently, the idea that Agency action was effective hasendured, allowing opponents to denounce Agency activities,apologists to defend it, while scholars delineate the lineage of clandestineoperations.

Covert funding most vividly illustrates how an imprecise documentaryrecord sustains contrasting interpretations and subsequent myths. Theargument presented by detractors and advocates on funding has alreadybeen noted, although problems with primary evidence have also affectedscholarly conclusions. Several historians have suggested the Trumanadministration organized circa $10 million in clandestine aid to the DC,centrist parties, and trade unions. The funds were apparently taken fromcaptured Axis monies in the Economic Stabilization Fund with theapproval of the Treasury Secretary John Snyder, before being channelledthrough private bank accounts and CIA front organizations.24 With therelevant Agency records still classified, corroborating the initiative remainsdifficult and is reliant on testimonies by protagonists at the heart of theoperation. In short, clandestine sums are unverifiable and the claim isupheld by secondary sources that frequently refer to one other in a self-

Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy, pp.50–52; John Prados, Safe for Democracy:The Secret Wars of the CIA (Chicago: Ivan Dee 2006) pp.39–40; Ranelagh, The Agency,pp.115, 131–33; Richard Immerman, ‘A Brief History of the CIA’, in A. Theoharis et al. (eds.)The Central Intelligence Agency: Security under Scrutiny (Westport: Greenwood 2006) pp.16–18; Athan Theoharis, ‘A New Agency: The Origins and Expansion of CIA Covert Operations’,in A. Theoharis, R. Immerman, L. Johnson, K. Olmsted and J. Prados (eds.) The CentralIntelligence Agency: Security under Scrutiny (Westport: Greenwood 2006), pp.158–59.24In addition to the cited works by Andrew, Immerman, Weiner and Simpson, see: TrevorBarnes, ‘The Secret Cold War: The CIA and American Foreign Policy in Europe, 1945–56.Part I’, The Historical Journal 24/2 (1981) p.412; William Corson, The Armies of Ignorance:The Rise of the American Intelligence Empire (New York: J. Wade 1977) pp.299–300;Burton Hersh, The Old Boys: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA (New York:Scribners 1992) pp.231–32.

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perpetuating fashion.25 As James Miller – a US–Italian specialist andformer State Department historian – notes, ‘scholars need to be verycautious in analyzing information, particularly that provided secondhand.The figure of $10 million in CIA spending is incorrect’. With the dollar’svalue much greater during the 1940s, the actual sum was closer to a tenthof this figure. On this oft-repeated $10 million claim, Miller adds thatscholars should not be ‘too quick to credit secondary accounts of thetangled thicket of covert operations . . . and careful in accepting ‘‘wellknown facts’’ purveyed by individuals with an ideological ax to grind.’26

Another common suggestion regarding covert efforts concerns James JesusAngleton, the former-Office of Strategic Services (OSS) official whoremained in Italy after World War II and later led CIA counterintelligence.There has been more written on Angleton than other protagonists, yet theassertion made by Robin Winks in his classic text Cloak & Gown continuesto ring true: ‘Angleton’s role in the 1948 Italian election, is of course, notclear.’ Recent works have shed more light on Angleton’s wartime activitiesand while it is known he helped reorganize Italian intelligence services, it is agross over-exaggeration to suggest they were subservient to him.27 Yet theuseful myth that American puppet masters pulled the strings behind thescenes has proved compelling for critics and the Italian left in tracing alineage to the anni di piombo – the wave of left- and right-wing terrorismfrom the late-1960s to early 1980s. As a result, select Italian groups haveapportioned domestic problems – their own troubles included – to Agencymeddling.28

None of this is to imply that the CIA did not channel covert funds or thatAngleton was peripheral in 1948. Rather, it emphasizes the difficulties inauthoritatively supporting claims dependent on evidence that is withheld,inaccurate, or perhaps non-existent. Agency records could settle such scores,particularly in curtailing the useful myths surrounding critical andtriumphant interpretations. Yet with the declassification process in stasis,it poses a dilemma for historians. Without access to Agency documentation,

25For instance, Simpson and Barnes cite Corson, who does not provide a reference, whileAndrew cites the Church Committee report which does not state a $10 million figure.26James Miller, Journal of Modern History 77/4 [Book Review] (December 2005) p.1128.27Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy, pp.50–52; Weiner, Legacy of Ashes,pp.29–31; Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets, p.30; Robin Winks, Cloak & Gown:Scholars in the Secret Cold War, 1939–1961 (New Haven: Yale University Press 1987)pp.380–87; Timothy Naftali, ‘ARTIFICE: James Angleton and X-2 Operations in Italy’, in G.Chalou (ed.) The Secrets’ War: The Office of Strategic Services in World War II (Washington:NARA 1992) pp.199–211; Mario Del Pero, ‘The United States and ‘‘Psychological Warfare’’in Italy, 1948–1955’, Journal of American History 87/4 (2001) p.1309; Leopoldo Nuti, ‘TheItalian ‘‘Stay-Behind’’ Network – The Origins of Operation ‘‘Gladio’’’, Journal of StrategicStudies 30/6 (2007) p.962; Michael Holzman, James Jesus Angleton, the CIA, and the Craftof Counterintelligence (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press 2008) pp.76–78, 87–88.28In addition to texts in note 14 see: Danielle Ganser, NATO’s Secret Armies: OperationGladio and Terrorism in Western Europe (London: Frank Cass 2005) pp.1–37, 63–83.

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can anything further be added to our understanding? Is the episode worthyof further inquiry at all?

In many respects the quandary is not dissimilar to the one facing historiansbefore the establishment of intelligence as a field of inquiry. The seminal1984 volume by Christopher Andrew and David Dilks argued that gaps inthe historical record had unnecessarily deterred historians from approachingintelligence when other scholars had demonstrated how available materialsand lateral thinking could be effectively utilized. Historians of other periodsfaced equally daunting gaps or omissions in the primary record, yet hadnonetheless produced important scholarly works.29 Reconstructing the pastthrough imperfect artefacts lies at the heart of historical inquiry. The processrequires scholars to employ broader contextual awareness – of documents,events, policymaking, institutions, societies, and cultures – when recon-structing the past. Instead of looking to uncover a ‘hidden history’,emphasizing context provides the key to innovative intelligence scholar-ship.30 Furthermore, such context needs to extend beyond the United Statesto the arenas in which covert action took place. Thus, understanding the CIAin Italy requires an appreciation of indigenous actors and their objectives. Todo so, the methodologies of Cold War History, particularly newly-availableforeign records and alternative frameworks, provide important tools.

As such, moving beyond the useful myths surrounding 1948 requirestraditional analyses of US foreign relations alongside greater attention to therole of Italian actors. The interlocking nature of the American governmentensures that archival records are available for studying covert action, whileadvances in oral history projects provide alternative resources. Meanwhile,new records and scholarship from foreign countries reveal the dynamics ofUS intervention by uncovering the agency of local partners. Since covertaction always requires some level of local backing, the negotiation betweenindigenous elites and US officials created an ‘architecture for intervention’.More appropriate than notions of an ‘Empire by Invitation’, the approach isconsistent with the ‘consensual hegemony’ seen with American involvementin the economic and military sphere of post-war Europe.31 Combining newand old paradigms fosters a fresh conceptual approach that reassesses theItalian case, while placing CIA efforts in the broader picture. With localactors in the frame of inquiry and a more nuanced consideration of theAgency, covert action should be considered as a case of American

29Christopher Andrew and David Dilks (eds.), The Missing Dimension: Governments andIntelligence Communities in the Twentieth Century (London: MacMillan 1984) pp.2–5.30Peter Jackson, ‘Introduction: Enquiries into the ‘‘Secret State’’’, in R.G. Hughes, P. Jacksonand L. Scott (eds.) Exploring Intelligence Archives: Inquiries into the Secret State (London:Routledge 2008) pp.2–9.31Karabell, Architects of Intervention, p.5–12; Geir Lundestad, ‘Empire by Invitation? TheUnited States and Western Europe, 1945–1952’, Journal of Peace Research 23/2 (1986)pp.263–77; Charles Maier, ‘Alliance and Autonomy: European Identity and US ForeignPolicy Objectives in the Truman Years’, in M. Lacey (ed.) The Truman Presidency(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1989) pp.276, 283–98.

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intervention and Italian efforts to simultaneously promote and temper it. Inso doing, useful myths are challenged and exposed.

Widening the Frame: The American Intervention

The departmentalization of the US government provides ample primaryresources for analyses of foreign policy planning and execution. The officesof the State Department ensure a trove of archival materials that aresignificant on both a micro and macro level: in highlighting the discussionswithin the bureaucracy and emphasizing Foggy Bottom’s traditional role asthe lead agency for foreign relations. Its function during the Italian operationwas of even greater importance given the vast restructuring of theWashington infrastructure through the new National Security State in July1947. Beyond the changing bureaucratic situation, the epoch also fosteredconceptual ambiguity – for policymakers but also historians – given theblurring of the definitive line between ‘war’ and ‘peace’ in the post-warenvironment. A ‘Cold’ War struggle against Soviet communism, and itssupposed acolyte in Italy, required both an organizational and conceptualreappraisal.32

Amid this fluid environment, the State Department played the vital role inleading US policy toward the Italian case. Regional desk offices and unitslike the Policy Planning Staff (PPS), led by George Kennan, were most active.Officials specializing in Western Europe frequently moved betweenWashington offices and Embassy postings, with the practical US approachled by officials like Walter Dowling, James Dunn, and John Hickerson.33

Kennan’s PPS occupied a particularly vital space in Washington by draftingpapers for NSC meetings, which frequently evolved into directives.34 TheNSC 1 series – the first orders issued by the Council – originated as PPSpapers. NSC 1/1, began with instructions at a Staff meeting, while NSC 1/3was drafted by PPS and the Division of Southern European Affairs.35

32Anders Stephanson, ‘War and Diplomatic History’, Diplomatic History 25/3 (2001)pp.393–403; Scott Lucas and Kaeten Mistry, ‘Illusions of Coherence: George F. Kennan, USStrategy and Political Warfare in the Early Cold War, 1946–1950’, Diplomatic History 33/1(2009) pp.47–50. The best exposition of the complex relationship between Moscow and thePCI is: Silvio Pons, L’impossibile egemonia: l’USSR, il PCI e le origini della guerra fredda,1943–48 (Roma: Carocci 1999).33J.W. Jones, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Lauinger Library, Georgetown University[henceforth FAOHP]; J.W. Jones, Oral History, HSTL; Kaeten Mistry, ‘Le dinamiche dellerelazioni italo-statunitensi nel dopoguerra, l’interventismo americano e il ruolo di James C.Dunn’, Ricerche di Storia Politica 12/2 (2009) pp.204–7.34Wilson Miscamble, George Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, 1947–50(Princeton: Princeton University Press 1992) pp.76–77; Anna Kasten Nelson, ‘PresidentTruman and the Evolution of the National Security Council’, Journal of American History72/2 (1985) pp.368–70.35Minutes of PPS Meeting, 18 September 1947; Butler to Lovett & Marshall, 9 March 1948.Box 18, Lot64D563; PPS, ‘Draft of NSC 1/3’, 26 February 1948. Box 17. Lot61D167, RG59,NARA.

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Analyses of State Department offices are also relevant, as will be noted, tothe covert funding effort. Some of these records are available and those thatremain classified can be requested through the Freedom of Information Act.This approach has been used to particular good effect in other scholarshipon the early Cold War. Facing similar challenges over heavily ‘redacted’ ornon-existent records, scholars have drawn on US and foreign resources inproducing important works on futile ‘rollback’ operations inside the Sovietbloc and the broad scope of the Cultural Cold War.36 Primary records havebeen complemented by a growing number of oral histories featuring officialsstaffing such units. Many were mid-level officers with intimate knowledge ofpolicymaking, institutional processes, and operations. Offering more thanmere juicy quotes, this enriches primary records by gaining insights into theideology underpinning policies and the lessons drawn. Presidential librariescontain numerous oral history projects, many of which are available online,while a growing number of university libraries hold oral history collectionspertinent to foreign relations.37

Such resources illuminate the election in the correct light. Rather than asimple tale of CIA meddling, the episode is emphasized as an Americanintervention. The case can even be made that the episode is recast in aninternational context given the efforts of Britain, France, Ireland, and theVatican.38 Scholars have highlighted propaganda initiatives such as the‘letters to Italy’ campaign that relied on private Italian–American groups, aswell as the efforts of US labour to fund anti-communist groups. Tradeunions would develop intimate ties with the CIA in subsequent yearsalthough the two were not closely involved during the 1948 campaign.39

36Peter Grose, Operation Rollback: America’s Secret War Behind the Iron Curtain (Boston:Houghton Mifflin 2000); Gregory Mitrovich, Undermining the Kremlin: America’s Strategyto Subvert the Soviet Bloc, 1947–1956 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2000); Scott Lucas,Freedom’s War: The US Crusade Against the Soviet Union, 1945–56 (Manchester:Manchester University Press 1999); Frances Stoner Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? TheCIA and the Cultural Cold War (London: Granta 1999); Giles Scott-Smith and HansKrabbendam (eds.), The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe, 1945–1960 (London: FrankCass 2003); Hugh Wilford, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America(Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2008).37Jonathan Soffer, ‘Oral History and the History of American Foreign Relations’, Journal ofAmerican History 82/2 (1995) pp.607–16; Richard Aldrich, ‘‘‘Grow Your Own’’: Cold WarIntelligence and History Supermarkets’, Intelligence and National Security 17/1 (2002)pp.135–52.38Antonio Varsori, ‘La Gran Bretagna e le elezioni politiche italiane del 18 aprile 1948’,Storia contemporanea 13/1 (1982) pp.5–70; John Young, France, the Cold War and theWestern Alliance, 1944–49: French Foreign Policy and Post-war Europe (Leicester: LeicesterUniversity Press 1990) pp.186–87; Dermot Keogh, ‘Ireland, the Vatican and the Cold War:The Case of Italy, 1948’, Historical Journal 34/4 (1991) pp.931–52; Luigi Gedda, 18 aprile1948: memorie inedite dell’artefice della sconfitta del Fronte popolare (Milano: Mondadori1998); J. Graham Parsons, Oral History, HSTL.39Ellwood, ‘The 1948 Elections in Italy’, pp.19–33; Wendy Wall, ‘America’s ‘‘BestPropagandists’’: Italian Americans and the 1948 ‘‘Letters to Italy’’ Campaign’, in C. Appy

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Broadening the frame places US efforts in the international context andbetter defines the campaign. In particular, it reveals the vital role of theRome Embassy to guide policy on the ground. Led by James Dunn, a seniorForeign Service official with vast diplomatic experience, the Embassy definedthe Italian situation for policymakers in Washington. Dunn’s Embassyoutlined a psychological–political threat from leftist forces that demandedAmerican support for Italian Prime Minister and DC leader Alcide DeGasperi. The Rome mission may not have been fully cognisant of the localscene, but they were nonetheless key interlocutors between De Gasperi andWashington. Moreover, they played a crucial role in executing Americanpolicy on the ground.40

This proved crucial given that NSC directives were often inappropriate asa response to the emergency situation developing in Italy. Subject to reviewby military authorities, weeks would pass until directives were finalized andauthorized by the president. On the eve of the Italian vote the NSCretrospectively sanctioned activities that Embassy officials – in collaborationwith private business and labour figures – had fostered since early 1948.Indeed, US government support for letter-writing campaigns, the ‘FriendshipTrain’, and ‘Hollywood razzmatazz’ was not a slickly orchestrated campaignby Washington, but an ad hoc arrangement between state and private actorswho shared a common objective of preventing a PCI ascent to power. State–private alliances were predicated on a mutual goal – defeating the left –rather than a long-term agenda for a non-communist Italy.41

Particularly significant was the Embassy drive to organize covert funds forthe DC and anti-communist Socialist Workers Party (PSLI). The impetuscame from a series of fund raising missions to the United States by Italianofficials in early 1948, after which Dunn suggested Washington assist thegroups through the Italian–American business and labour communities.Embassy Economic Advisor Paul Bonner eventually established ‘two avenuesfor getting these funds into the right hands, both of which avoid the use ofanyone in the Embassy and should be fairly secure’.42 The Rome missionwas directly involved in the clandestine funding of Italian parties, but alsolooked to ensure ‘plausible deniability’ in case of any disclosure. Incollaboration with the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, Dunn’s

(ed.) Cold War Constructions: The Political Culture of United States Imperialism, 1945–1966 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press 2000) pp.99–109; Ronald Filippelli,American Labor and Postwar Italy, 1943–1953: A Study of Cold War Politics (Stanford:Stanford University Press 1989); Federico Romero, The United States & the European TradeUnion Movement, 1944–1951 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1992);Anthony Carew, ‘The American Labor Movement in Fizzland: the Free Trade UnionCommittee and the CIA’, Labor History 39/1 (1998) pp.25–42.40Mistry, ‘Le dinamiche delle relazioni italo-statunitensi’, pp.200–17; McFadden (RomeEmbassy) to State Department, 10 February 1948. 800: Italy-Elections, Box 29, CF RG84,NARA; Joseph Greene & Chester Opal. FAOHP.41Mistry, ‘The Case for Political Warfare’, pp.310–15.42Dunn to Marshall, 30 January 1948. 865.00/1–3048; Bonner to Lovett, 12 February 1948.865.00/2–1248; Dunn to Marshall, 19 February 1948. 865.00/2–1948. RG59, NARA.

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Embassy arranged for the transfer of sums of $25,000 to De Gasperi on theeve of the vote, with rumours that provisions 20 times greater wereforthcoming.43

American diplomatic officials were driving the initiative on the ground.While telling in and of itself, the effort was also entirely independent ofcovert funding schemes attributed to the CIA. The NSC 4 series of December1947 had authorized overt and covert ‘psychological’ activities to be carriedout by the State Department and Agency respectively, with Foggy Bottomleading the project. However Secretary of State George Marshall wasconcerned that close association with covert warfare compromised theDepartment’s official ‘peacetime function’, while DCI Roscoe Hillenkoetterwas similarly hesitant and sought to downplay clandestine operations.Marshall and Hillenkoetter need not have been overly concerned given thatthe new unit established within the CIA to conduct ‘covert psychologicalactivities,’ the Special Procedures Group (SPG), was slow in setting up andled by ineffective figures outside the loop in terms of policy and objectives.The Agency’s Office of Special Operations (OSO) – a safe house forclandestine and espionage functions salvaged from the disbanded OSS –would oversee SPG activities. CIA involvement in Italy was formally throughSPG, yet the group was seeking operational guidance a month before Italianswent to the polls.44 Concerned by the slow American response to thecommunist challenge, an ad hoc committee comprising James Forrestal,Robert Patterson, and Allen Dulles cultivated private funds for the secretfunding of propaganda, newsprint, and radio and TV campaigns.45

It is in this context that the claims of CIA covert funding need to bereassessed. The work by Rome Embassy and mid-level State Departmentofficials, coupled with private efforts by the likes of Forrestal and Dulles,demonstrate the true nature of money laundering attempts. Ad hoc and latein the day, it was an improvised American effort that was not the exclusiveterrain of the Agency. While various uncertainties remain, one thing can bestated with certainty: covert funding did not occur through the CIA workinginside the National Security State. The Agency was likely used to channelfunds, but it was not leading covert operations as opponents or apologistswould have one believe.

Yet the expansion of covert operations following the Italian vote suggeststhe CIA was anything but marginal. A significant clue lies in the immediate

43Thorp to Rome Embassy, 19 March 1948. 865.00/3–1948; Dunn to Marshall, 26 March1948. 865.00/3–2648; Dunn to Lovett, 6 April 1948. 865.00/4–648. RG59, NARA.44Lucas and Mistry, ‘Illusions of Coherence’, pp.46–47; David Rudgers, Creating the SecretState: The Origins of the Central Intelligence Agency, 1943–1947 (Lawrence: University Pressof Kansas 2000) pp.169–170; Memo by the Chief of SPG (Thomas Cassady), undated[approx 1 May 1948]. FRUS, ‘Emergence of Intelligence Establishment’: Doc.268, 5http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/intel/260_269.html4 (accessed 11 February 2009).45Hersh, The Old Boys, pp.231–32; Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles(Amherst: Houghton Mifflin 1995) pp.284–85; Pisani, The CIA and the Marshall Plan,pp.66–67.

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aftermath of the campaign as the dissatisfaction of Forrestal and Kennangrew increasingly explicit. Concerned by the improvised nature of the Italianoperation, the PPS argued ‘we cannot afford in the future . . . to scrambleinto impromptu covert operations as we did at the time of the Italianelections.’ The allegation was the latest act in an ongoing battle over theorganization and direction of clandestine warfare. Kennan had consideredthe topic from his days lecturing at the National War College and the issuenow permeated national security debates. The Italian campaign came amidthese discussions and provided momentum for advocates of politicalwarfare – defined as the employment of ‘all means short of war’ to satisfynational objectives. The Italian election was chalked up as a ‘success’ withthe warning that similar ad hoc campaigns must be avoided.46

The post-election debate pit Kennan, Forrestal, and Allen Dulles –nominally a private citizen but involved in a review of the Agency – againstthe increasingly marginalized Hillenkoetter. The resolution, NSC 10/2, sawthe CIA’s limited covert capability surpassed by the creation of a new group,the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). The first permanent covert actionagency in American peacetime history, the OPC’s founding statementensured that it was not subject to CIA control. Even though it was housedinside the Agency, OPC reported to a group of advisors led by Kennan’sPPS.47 It could be suggested that the outcome was merely the product ofinstitutional turf wars. Yet it was an indicative gesture that the CIA waseffectively circumvented as the pivotal covert operations agency in theaftermath of its first ‘successful’ foreign intervention. Future DCI WalterBedell Smith eventually united the two covert operations units in 1952. Inthe meantime, the OPC constituted the Truman administration’s keyclandestine operations group. In other words, Italy 1948 may have heraldedan expansion of covert action but it represented a defeat for CIA control ofsuch operations.

Widening the Frame: The Italian Connection

Such resources offer a more nuanced understanding of the CIA in Italy. YetUS records only tell us so much about the case. The most significantadvances in archival materials have come with the opening of foreigndepositories. Seen most prominently with former-communist countries,archival openings have also accelerated in Cold War ally states. This hasbeen complemented by a growing secondary literature on the policies ofpartners between the superpowers. With an emphasis on multi-archivalinternational research, it offers a polycentric view of the Cold War thatmoves beyond a Washington–Moscow axis. The importance of the ‘GlobalCold War’ is seen through established journals, dedicated book series inpublisher catalogues, and resources such as the Cold War International

46Lucas and Mistry, ‘Illusions of Coherence’, pp.49–52.47Ibid.; Michael Warner, ‘The CIA’s Office of Policy Coordination: From NSC 10/2 to NSC68’, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 11/2 (1998) pp.211–20.

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History Project. Advancing the historiography of American foreignrelations, New Cold War History has become a key standard for thefield and offers opportunities for the study of intelligence and covertaction.48

The approach does, of course, present a number of challenges. First andforemost is that of language and translation, while even fine linguisticdexterity can be undermined without an appreciation for foreign culturesand traditions. Levels of access are not on par with those of US and UKholdings, which hampers comparative and international studies.49 Never-theless, the approach has been pivotal in moving historiographical debates tonew vistas and offers to widen intelligence scholarship beyond the Anglo-American sphere. Indeed, recent works have noted the opening of WesternEuropean archives and the emergence of continental intelligence ‘schools’,particularly in France.50 Although Italy is not among the vanguard of thismovement, access to government and foreign affairs documents hasimproved.51

Moreover, the opening of Italian state and party archives has led to worksdetailing how government coalition members negotiated their position withinternational powers. Christian Democrats, Catholic Socialists, the anti-communist left, and economic liberals were far from pawns of thesuperpowers, developing independent visions for post-war Italian recon-struction.52 In particular, De Gasperi looked to assert his autonomy overdomestic and foreign policy decisions. On the one hand – the economicsphere and makeup of government coalitions – it proved effective, while onthe other – on military affairs and stressing a neutral international position –it was futile. The key interlocutor for the Americans was not alwayssuccessful in staking a sovereign path, although regularly attempted

48See the extraordinary prize-winning work of Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War:Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress 2005). For a general overview: Jonathan Haslam, ‘Collecting and Assembling Pieces ofthe Jigsaw: Coping with Cold War Archives’, Cold War History 4/3 (2004) pp.140–52.49For important qualifications see: Fredrik Logevall, ‘Politics and Foreign Relations’, Journalof American History 95/4 (2009) pp.1075–76; Mario Del Pero, ‘On the Limit’s of ThomasZeiler’s Historiographical Triumphalism’, Journal of American History 95/4 (2009), p.1081.50Piers Ludlow, ‘No Longer a Closed Shop: Post–1945 Research in the French Archives’,Cold War History 2/1 (2001) pp.158–63; Peter Jackson, ‘Intelligence and the State: AnEmerging ‘‘French School’’ of Intelligence Studies’, Intelligence and National Security 21/6(2006) pp.1061–65; David Kahn, ‘Intelligence Studies on the Continent’, Intelligence andNational Security 23/2 (2008) pp.249–75.51Leopoldo Nuti, ‘Sources for the Study of Italian Foreign Policy’, Cold War History 2/3(2002) pp.93–110.52The party archives of the DC and PCI have been particularly useful in this regard, and haveled to important works such as: Guido Formigoni, La Democrazia Cristiana e l’alleanzaoccidentale, 1943–1953 (Bologna: Il Mulino 1996); Roberto Gualtieri, L’Italia dal 1943 al1992: DC e PCI nella storia della Repubblica (Roma: Carocci 2006).

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to do so.53 De Gasperi looked to Washington, primarily through Dunn, toprovide political, economic, and military assistance to realize his pro-gramme. Requests for assistance were thus predicated on Italian terms.Attempts to simultaneously encourage and moderate American assistanceproved problematic, especially in the run up to the election. Nonetheless,acknowledging such schemes provides essential context for the 1948episode.

The key concern for post-war Italian leaders was to ensure domesticstability to realize reconstruction programmes. This curtailed the appeal ofthe left, which supposedly thrived in depraved financial and civil conditions.Economic upheaval represented a core preoccupation and yielded a handfulof small US assistance schemes. While far from adequate in Italian eyes, suchaid – coupled with the anticipation for the Marshall Plan – ensured that thecountry did not fall into financial ruin prior to the election.54 DC anxietywas paramount with respect to civil stability and protecting against acommunist insurgency. Alarmed by growing international tensions, DeGasperi was concerned in late 1947 at the prospect of full-blown war.55

Fears surrounding the withdrawal of US and British troops from the Italianpeninsula were shared by the Rome Embassy and prompted a request forAmerican forces to remain in the Mediterranean.56 The appeal buttressedthe more striking request by De Gasperi who claimed, ‘Italian force[s were]well directed’ and ‘sufficient’ to overcome domestic unrest, although it was‘urgent that these forces should receive a strengthening of their arms andequipment’. Moreover, he probed the United States to make a pledge to‘interve[e] whenever the territorial integrity of Italy might be in danger or thedemocratic form of government of the country might be threatened.’Marshall was quick to point out the contradiction in De Gasperi’s assertionof Italian strength and simultaneous desire for an intervention declaration.57

The prime minister did not consider it incoherent as he was attempting toassert DC hegemony within the Italian body politic, maintain the autonomyof Italian policy choices, and ensure US protection against a left-wing revolt.

53Mistry, ‘Le dinamiche delle relazioni italo-statunitensi’, pp.212–15; Guido Formigoni, ‘DeGasperi e la crisi politica italiana del maggio 1947’, Ricerche di Storia Politica 6/3 (2003)pp.361–88.54Harper, America and the Reconstruction of Italy, pp.105–58; David Ellwood, ‘ThePropaganda of the Marshall Plan in Italy in a Cold War Context’, in G Scott-Smith and H.Krabbendam (eds.) The Cultural Cold War, pp.225–35; Carlo Spagnolo, La stabilizzazioneincompiuta: il Piano Marshall in Italia (Rome: Carocci 2001) pp.37–111; Federico Romero,‘Gli Stati Uniti in Italia: il Piano Marshall e il Patto Atlantico’, in F. Barbagallo (ed.) Storiadell’Italia Repubblicana, Vol.1 (Turin: Einaudi 1994) pp.241–61; Tarchiani to Sforza, 10October 1947, N.0146. Box 11, F.2; Tarchiani to Sforza, 23 December 1947. N.11395/3618.Box.13, F.1. Direzione General Affari Politici (1946–50): Stati Uniti. L’archivio StoricoDiplomatico, Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Rome [henceforth, MAE].55Formigoni, La Democrazia Cristiana e l’alleanza occidentale, p.157.56Dunn to Marshall, 28 November 1947. 865.00/11–2847, RG59, NARA.57Dunn to Marshall, 5 December 1947; Marshall to Lovett, 12 December 1947. FRUS, 1948,III, pp.736–37, 748–49.

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The concern for a PCI coup d’etat orchestrated by Moscow was prominentat a DC meeting in December 1947, during which Minister of Interior MarioScelba presented a counter-strategy to protect key party seats around thecountry. This ‘preventive measure’ involved small nuclei of former ‘white’partisans and military-trained Catholic Youth, in support of carabinieri andarmed right-wing movements. One party member subsequently motionedfor US military assistance. Broader parliamentary debates approved abeefed-up security presence on the streets in the run-up to the election, whilethe government was expanded to smaller centrist parties.58

This was the context in which De Gasperi made his request for armsand a US military guarantee – an appeal geared toward domestic securityand political ends that played on US concerns for communist gains inWestern Europe. Italian forces mobilized for 1948 independently ofWashington. Furthermore, it was an effort to boost domestic security thatpredated, and was separate from, CIA-funded networks of resistancethrough Operation ‘Gladio’.59 Yet the Italian arms request also created aflashpoint in US–DC relations on the eve of the election. It also revealedhow the CIA was again on the periphery – and reduced to a criticalvoice – over covert operations.

At the time of the Allied troop withdrawal in late 1947 US authoritiesconcluded that short-term military assistance to Italy was permissible,subject to congressional approval and Italian payment.60 The president,acting ‘within his plenary powers as Commander-in-Chief’, could circum-vent the first obstacle. However, Italians would have to purchase theequipment, which De Gasperi suggested risked provoking an already volatiledomestic situation by subjecting him to attack by the left.61 While StateDepartment officials debated the financial issue, the US Army – concerned bythe spectre of a left-wing insurgency – took matters into their own hands andorganized arms shipments to Italy. Truman retrospectively authorized theeffort, although there remained a crucial omission in that Italians had yet toconfirm their consent.62 Conscious of the dangers of a rearmament effortbefore the vote, Italian interest had now waned which had the impact of ‘acold shower’ when revealed in Washington. De Gasperi noted he still desiredarms, although doing so on the eve of the election compromised the entire

58Minutes of DC meeting, 3–5 December 1947, reproduced in E. Bernardi, ‘La Democraziacristiana e la guerra fredda: una selezione di documenti inediti (1947–1950)’, VentunesimoSecolo 10 (July 2006) pp.127–65; Minutes of Council of Ministers meeting, 6 December1947. In A.Ricci (ed.), Verbali del Consiglio dei Ministri: Vol.IX, Book 2 (Rome: IstitutoPoligrafico e Zecca dello Stato 1998) pp.1324–30.59Nuti, ‘The Italian ‘‘Stay-Behind’’ Network’, pp.959–78.60Norstad memo, 13 December 1947; Reber to Lovett, 16 December 1947. FRUS, 1948, III,pp.749–50, 750–51.61Marshall to Embassy, 12 January 1948; Dunn to Marshall, 15 January 1948; FRUS, 1948,III, pp.756–57, 757n; Lay to NSC, 9 February 1948. NSC-Meetings, Box 176, PSF, HSTL.62Royall to Marshall, 1 March 1948. FRUS, 1948, III, pp.772–73; State Department toTruman, ‘Provision of U.S. Equipment to the Italian Armed Forces’, undated. Italy: General,Box 158, PSF, HSTL.

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campaign and offered a potential propaganda coup to the PCI.63 StateDepartment officials stated their astonishment at the about-face and urgedDe Gasperi to reconsider in no uncertain terms. Eager to placate whatappeared an unexpected response from Washington, the prime ministerquickly confirming acceptance of the shipments while reasserting ‘theabsolute need for secrecy’.64

Italian officials were less concerned about American propaganda effortsaround the election, although rearmament was a controversial plan that theylooked to moderate.65 De Gasperi’s attempt to assert Italian autonomy andsimultaneously ensure US aid both baffled and irked Washington, althoughwas geared to ensuring long-term DC governance. Ultimately, the rear-mament effort had greater psychological than practical impact. In real termsthe efficiency of Italian forces did not improve and, since arms arrived inearly April, a pre-election disclosure would have had serious ramificationsfor the DC campaign.66

Yet the most telling factor was that the US Army and private contractorswere at the forefront of this covert initiative. The CIA was not intimatelyinvolved and, moreover, registered the only voice of caution over the secretrearmament programme. With a week until the Italian vote, Hillenkoetterreported on risky incidents of transporting arms to northern Italy throughprivate firms, over which ‘it appears no effective US controls are exercisedoutside of the US in the restraint of such operations’. The Americangovernment was not in control of air transportation of covert armsshipments. He added ‘that further irresponsible activities of privately-ownedUS aircraft and US unscheduled airlines’ would undermine the objective ofdefeating the left at the polls by assisting the PCI and alienating the Trumanadministration’s Italian and international allies.67 Despite protesting to thehighest members of the Executive branch, it was symptomatic of CIAinfluence – and a sign of things to come – that the report made little impact.Once again, the Agency enjoyed a marginal covert role prior to the Italianelection.

The Broadened Frame

Drawing on the methodologies of New Cold War history, some of the usefulmyths associated with the first CIA covert campaign are exploded. The

63Alberto Tarchiani, Dieci anni tra Roma e Washington (Milan: Mondadori 1955) p.144;Dunn to Marshall, 12 March 1948. FRUS, 1948, III, p.784.64Hickerson and Dowling to Dunn, 12 March 1948; Dunn to Marshall, 18 March 1948.FRUS, 1948, III, pp.784–85, 787–88.65Tarchiani to MAE, 26 March 1948. N.2987/1184; 15 April 1948. N.3709/1438.Ambasciata Washington, MAE.66Leopoldo Nuti, L’esercito italiano nel secondo dopo guerra, 1945–1950 (Rome: StatoMaggiore Dell’Esercito Ufficio Storico 1989) pp.129–31.67Hillenkoetter to Truman, Marshall and Forrestal, ‘Clandestine Air Transport Operations inEurope’, 12 April 1948. Box 211, PSF, HSTL.

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Italian case reveals the centrifugal force to clandestine action. Furthermore,it resonates with the historiography of other prominent covert operationslike PBSUCCESS, which also developed before the era of CIA ‘openness’. Apopular early interpretation by a pair of journalists criticized Agency actionas a conspiracy tied to US business interests and the pursuit of economicimperialism. Addressing aspects of the conspiracy narrative throughavailable archival materials and testimony from protagonists, RichardImmerman upheld the argument against Moscow’s control over JacopoArbenz but moved beyond a simplistic exposure of ‘the perfidy of the CIA’.The author fleshed out US intervention and revealed that Agency activitieswere not the crucial factor in the overthrow of Arbenz. Through prodigiousresearch abroad, Piero Gleijeses further broadened the frame in animpressive study that brought in Guatemalan voices and perspectives. CIA‘openness’ promised a richer understanding of the case through thedeclassification of hundreds of documents and commission of Cullather’sstudy. While exposing the limitations and problems of the CIA operation,Cullather also noted that anticipation for greater Agency transparency had,by the late 1990s, dissolved. 68 A work that was to be a starting point turnedout to be the apogee of CIA ‘openness’. Lamenting this development is valid,yet it also detracts from the fact that the foundations of historicalunderstanding were established by Immerman and Gleijeses. The recentrelease of a FRUS volume may garner further documentation, but ‘willprobably not substantially change the basic scholarly interpretations of theCIA’s role in Guatemala’.69

All of which raises important questions about sources and historicalknowledge. While access to Agency documents would undoubtedly help vis-a-vis the Italian case, a more practical route furthers our understanding ofthe inaugural American Cold War intervention. Records may one day detailhow much money the CIA smuggled into Italy or unravel Angleton’sactivities, but are unlikely to drastically alter the argument presented herethat the Agency did not strike the crucial blow in the defeat of the Italianleft. It is one thing to uncover a secret trail of money and arms, it is quiteanother to understand how they were utilized at the other end and,furthermore, effected indigenous politics, societies and ideologies. Indeed,the case could be made that CIA documents on Italy are of limited use if theydetail who transferred money to whom. They would not, for instance,explain the ways in which Italians utilized funds in poster and audio-visualcampaigns that implored other Italians to reject communism. Records would

68Stephen Schlesinger and Stephen Kinzer, Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the AmericanCoup in Guatemala (New York: Doubleday 1982); Immerman, The CIA in Guatemala, p.ix;Piero Gleijeses, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954 (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1991); Cullather, Secret History, pp.vii–xv, 105–23.69Stephen Rabe, ‘The U.S. Intervention in Guatemala: The Documentary Record’, DiplomaticHistory 28/5 (2004) p.787.

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help to dismiss the useful myths around the election, yet, as this articleshows, the effort can already begin.

The scholarly task is to nuance understanding of the CIA in the widercontext of American intervention. A fixation on Agency records detractsfrom this objective and implies a ‘hidden truth’ that lurks inside a dusty boxon some far-flung archival shelf. It is unlikely that a declassificationprogramme will uncover all the materials behind a covert action. In fact, acloser examination of the process confirms the key issue at stake. The releaseof records is a drawn out affair that is not a sole CIA decision; instead, theprocess is reliant on the NSC that ‘owns’ the covert operation. It isultimately a presidential decision and Executive authorities dictate whatinformation is disclosed.70 Placing the issue in a broader frame emphasizesthat the CIA was not, and is not, the central protagonist with regard toauthorization of covert operations.

The argument could of course be made that CIA efforts were not decisivebut contributed to the ultimate objective of preventing a communist Italiangovernment. It is not an entirely invalid point. Yet as with any attempt tounderstand how a populace votes, even the most systematic and scientificapproach cannot explain how and why. What can be concluded, however, isthat the perception of covert tactics as an effective tool saturated Americanthinking. It has also proved a useful myth for critics and apologistsrecounting Agency action. Yet such interpretations are narrow and miss thecrucial point: the episode represented a case of American efforts to covertlyinfluence abroad. Claims that CIA actions were crucial may fuel notions of a‘rogue elephant’, although the Agency’s efforts were consistent with thegeneral objectives of the Truman administration. Furthermore, it ignores therole and objectives of indigenous actors. Italians did much to encourage USinvolvement while simultaneously attempting to assuage the more excessivetactics. This was neither straightforward nor entirely successful, althoughdemonstrates how the US–DC relationship represented a ‘marriage ofconvenience’ wherein both sides possessed independent goals. Subsequentdecades would expose the full extent of the divide.71

Academics have sought a middle ground in interpretations of the Italianoperation. Yet discussions of the CIA role have been brief and forced into anarrative of expanding covert operations. Agency activities were improvisedand far from pivotal amid the American mobilization. Incongruent withcovert funding efforts by American diplomats on the ground and out of theloop over clandestine arms shipments, the CIA did not lead the campaigninside the National Security State. The Italian operation did prove significantin the subsequent evolution of the Agency, although not in the mannercommonly understood. Noting the impromptu nature of CIA efforts,advocates of political warfare effectively circumvented the Agency’s covertmandate through the creation of a more powerful group in the shape of theOPC. Italy 1948 may have been a springboard for covert action, but not for

70Jervis, ‘The CIA and Declassification’, pp.10–12.71Mistry, ‘The Case for Political Warfare’, pp.318–19.

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CIA control of such operations. Indeed, the episode emphasizes theimportance of a broader analysis when discussing the conceptualization,planning, and implementation of clandestine warfare. The decision tointervene abroad requires leadership and guidance at the top of theExecutive branch prior to execution on the ground.72 Entrusting covertaction to the OPC was designed to meet such ends in the early Cold War.Indeed, bureaucratic juggling up until the Church Committee investigations –from Truman’s Psychological Strategy Board, Eisenhower’s 5412 Commit-tee, Kennedy’s Special Group (Augmented), Johnson’s 303 Committee, toNixon’s 40 Committee – reveal the weight given to elite agencies that canaccurately implement Executive-mandated covert operations.

Acknowledgment

For insightful comments that helped improve this work, thanks to Mario DelPero, Richard Immerman, Federico Romero, David Ryan, Bevan Sewell,Michael Warner, and Marilyn Young. And for financial support of theresearch I am grateful to the Leverhulme Trust.

72See also: Prados, Presidents’ Secret Wars, pp.471–75; William J. Daugherty, ExecutiveSecrets: Covert Action and the Presidency (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky 2006).

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