The Darkest Sides of Politics, I by Jeffrey M. Bale

Author:Jeffrey M. Bale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

The exposure and investigation of the coup

Despite the fact that the coup was successfully aborted at the last minute, rumors that some sort of rightist action had taken place on the night of 7–8 December immediately began to circulate. Most of these were undoubtedly generated by careless tongue-waggers among the conspirators and within neo-fascist circles, but more than a few may have been disseminated by factions within the security services seeking to embarrass rival factions that were deeply compromised in the operation. These rumors and leaks, which quickly took on a life of their own, prompted the police to initiate an investigation of Borghese’s organization. On 15 February 1971, the Ufficio Politico of the Rome Questura obtained permission from the Public Prosecutor’s office to tap the phones of Orlandini, Rosa, Saccucci, and Giuseppe Garibaldi, inasmuch as they were FN members suspected of committing terrorist acts. It soon became evident that key members of the Fronte were planning new illegal activities, and that a number of them possessed weapons and explosives. On 8 March, the police were issued warrants authorizing them to search the homes and offices of Borghese, Rosa, Orlandini, Saccucci, Massimo Bozzini, and Flavio Campo. In the course of these searches, material evidence was discovered that provided significant details about the “Tora Tora” operation, including Saccucci’s address book and copies of both a foreign policy position paper and the proclamation that the Black Prince intended to read over the radio after the main FN objectives had been seized. These revealed, according to Judge Fiore, that the plotters had developed a subversive plan “to attack the democratic institutions of the state.” On 18 March the Ufficio Politico prepared a report outlining the structure and goals of the FN, with particular reference to “movements” that had apparently taken place in Rome on the night of 7–8 December 1970. Arrest warrants were then issued for Borghese, Orlandini, Rosa, Saccucci, De Rosa, and Lo Vecchio, but the Black Prince took refuge in Spain before he could be taken into custody.169

The arrest of several key figures in the FN and the initial revelations about the subversive actions they carried out on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor fell like a bombshell on the contentious Italian political scene. Every political group at once sought to exploit this information for its own partisan purposes. Groups on the left, which had grown increasingly concerned about the possibility of a right-wing military coup, portrayed Borghese’s actions as evidence that their fears had been justified. This interpretation was contemptuously dismissed by both government spokesmen and rightist journalists, who characterized the Black Prince and his men as incompetent buffoons who hastened to abandon their comic opera as soon as it began to rain.170 Although several plotters provided the police with details about the operation and documents were found that supported important aspects of their testimony, the interests of the political establishment were apparently best served by minimizing the significance of the whole affair. So it was that on 25 February 1972

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