The Stay-Behind Networks

From 1948 to 1990, NATO countries maintained secret armies across Western Europe. The operation was known by many names — Gladio in Italy, P26 in Switzerland, SDRA8 in Belgium — but the architecture was the same: weapons caches, radio networks, and stay-behind cells intended to resist Soviet occupation. What the files actually reveal is more complicated, more institutional, and more troubling than the conspiracy theories that later surrounded it.

The stay-behind networks represent one of the most extensively documented covert operations of the Cold War — and one of the most poorly understood. What began as a legitimate military contingency plan evolved, in several countries, into something closer to a parallel security structure with ambiguous accountability and troubling connections to domestic political violence.

This episode does not claim that Gladio was responsible for every act of political violence in Italy during the Years of Lead. The record does not support that conclusion. What the record does support — what parliamentary inquiries in Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland have confirmed — is that secret armies existed, that they were armed and trained, and that in at least one case (Italy) elements within the structure became involved in domestic operations that had nothing to do with resisting Soviet invasion.

We proceed slowly, because the file demands it.