Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance Between the Vatican, the Cia, and the Mafia

by Paul L. Williams

Thanks to the infiltration, which occurred in 1973, the Brigades began to work closely with the Hyperion Language School in Paris, with most brigadiers unaware that it had been founded by the CIA. Hyperion opened an office in Italy shortly before the kidnapping and closed it a few months later. An Italian police report singles out Hyperion as “the most important CIA office in Europe.”49 Founded by Corrado Simioni, a CIA operative who worked with Radio Free Europe; Duccio Berio, an informant to the P2-controlled Italian military intelligence; and Mario Moretti, the CIA operative who was later convicted of killing Aldo Moro, the “school” acted as an intermediary for meetings between Italian and foreign terrorist groups, including the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Red Army Faction of Germany, and Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (the Basque revolutionary army).