User:Morton devonshire/Egadio

Intro

The purpose of this page is a sandbox for the issue of the bizarre conspiracy theory Operation Gladio and its equally bizarre iterations in much of Western Europe.

Ganser Relies Upon Soviet Forgery for his Research

“

Swiss researcher Daniele Ganser, who works at Zurich’s Center for Security Studies, has also been fooled by the forgery. Ganser treats the forgery as if it was a genuine document in his 2005 book on “stay behind” networks, Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe and includes it as a key document on his Web site on the book. Ganser writes, “FM 30-31B is maybe the most important Pentagon document with regard to the stay-behind armies.” He goes on to speculate that the bogus document may provide the blueprint for terrorist acts that occurred during the Cold War in Western Europe.

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Source: US State Department.

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According to an analysis made by the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (DDIS) in 1976, this field manual was part of a KGB disinformation campaign and was spread all over Europe in the late 1960’s and 1970’s with different KGB forgeries. The original American document was handed over to the Soviets in 1962 by an American sergeant, Robert Lee Johnson who in 1965 was arrested for working for the KGB. The DDIS analyzed the material and it showed a different contend than the one portrayed in the KGB disinformation campaign. The original document had indeed contained ideas and thoughts about resistance groups in Europe during a Warsaw Pact invasion but not in the disfigured form presented by the KGB. Although big efforts were made to the disclose the KGB operation the field manual surfaced again in 1979 together with several KGB forgeries – this time as part of the Soviet campaign against the renewal of the NATO nuclear forces in Europe. During the Gladio affair, the field manual was once more being presented to the public but not all were convinced. Even the Danish leftwing organization DEMOS questioned if the field manual was real. Such information about key documents must of course be presented to the reader.

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Source: The Journal of Intelligence History

Contrast those comments with Ganser's uncritical, and enthusiastic endorsement in his own work:

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Upon the fall of the dictatorship in 1976 the Spanish newspaper Triunfo published excerpts despite heavy pressures to prevent the publication, whereupon on October 27, 1978 excerpts of FM 30-31 also appeared in the Italian politcal magazine L'Europeo. When the Italian monthly Contolinformazione printed the US terror manual the issues were confiscated. After, in 1982, the cover of the secret anti-Communist P2 Freemason lodge of Licio Gelli was discovered FM 30-31 surfaced once again and the Italian parliamentary investigation into P2 courageously published it in its parliamentary report in 1987 but three years before the discovery of the secret Gladio armies. Regine Igel offers in her German translation the full text of FM 30-31B in her book on Gulio Andreotti and the US subversion of Italy (Igel, Andreotti, Appendix, pp. 345-358). Igel's source is the original English version of the FM 30-31B as contained in the collected documents of the Italian Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the US-linked P2; Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sulla loggia massonica P2. Allegati all Relazione Doc. XXIII, n. 2-quater/7/1 Serie II, Vol. VII, Tomo I, Roma 1987, pp. 287-298. The document FM 30-31B is dated March 18, 1970, Headquarters of the US Army, Washington DC, and signed by General of the US Army W. C. Westmoreland.

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The quote is complete and unedited. Source: Ganser, Daniele, NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe (Publ. Frank Cass 2005), Chp. 17, fn. 43, pg.297.

Ganser uncritically accepts the authenticity of the forged Soviet documents, and in fact, applauds a newspaper for "courageously publishing" the obviously bogus document. So much for academic objectivity. If I can spend 5 minutes on the internet finding a reliable source (i.e. the US State Department communique) that calls into doubt the authenticity of the document providing the pivotal basis for Ganser's theory that the CIA was behind a vast network of terrorist activity in Western Europe, then you have to wonder just how rigorous Ganser's work really is. The entire work is merely a re-hash of every Communist and Leftist secondary source on the continent. Türkishce Konterguerilla as a source for your PhD work? Get real.

Ganser's Work Written With Both Eyes Closed

See this book review at thinktank The Journal of Intelligence History, where the reviewer characterizes Ganser's work as "a journalistic book with a big spoonful of conspiracy theories."

Ganser Declared Unreliable by Wiki Admin

With respect to the reliability of Daniele Ganser's work as a source in Wikipedia, Lord Seabhcan of Baloney asks Admin Fred Bauder for clarification as to whether Ganser meets WP:RS requirements:

Help on WP:RS dispute

Hi, I wonder if you could lend an outsiders opinion to a dispute that has been raging on articles related to Operation Gladio. The dispute is whether a book on the subject is an WP:RS or not. The book is by Dr. Daniele Ganser of the ETH Zurich university. The book was published by them and Ganser received a PhD from that University for this work. ETH Zurich is very prestigious, having been the university where Einstein worked and having 21 Nobel prize winners on their staff. It is one of the fore-most universities in Europe.
I and others say this makes the book notable. Another group of editors say that because Ganser joined a group called 9/11 Scholars for Truth two years after the book was published, Ganser's work becomes suspect and cannot be referenced.
What do you think? I'd prefer not to go through the trouble of arbitration for such a specific issue. Thanks. Lord Seabhcán of Baloney 16:14, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[1]

Admin Fred Bauder's reply:

Help on WP:RS dispute

A source authored by a person engaged in a propaganda operation such as Scholars for 9/11 Truth would be considered unreliable. Fred Bauder 16:54, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[2]

Result: Daniele Ganser is not a reputable source on Wikipedia, and his work may be removed.

Daniele Ganser is cited in 45! Wikipedia articles. A bit overkill for a writer who blindly swallows old Soviet propaganda[3].

Acedemic works which cite Ganser

According to my library's database, Ganser's book has been cited by by Konstantina Maragkou in the journal Southeast European and Black Sea Studies (Volume 6, Issue 4 December 2006, pages 427-443); by Deborah Kisatsky in the book _The United States and the European Right_, published by Ohio State University Press in 2005; and by Linda Risso in the article "'Enlightening Public Opinion': A Study of NATO's Information Policies between 1949 and 1959 based on Recently Declassified Documents," which was published by the journal Cold War History in February 2007. Also, a Gladio-related article by Ganser was cited by Brynjar Lia in the book _Globalisation and the Future of Terrorism: Patterns and Predictions_, published by Routledge in 2005. That's four academic citations. I've ordered some of his reviews via library loan: if you're interested I can summarize them once they arrive... Katsam 10:44, 10 August 2007 (UTC)[4]