A Grand Master's Conspiracy

By George Russell

The government falls over an astonishing Masonic cabal

Postwar Italian governments have fallen apart-for almost every conceivable reason, from failed budget votes (1964) to squabbles over abortion reform (1976) to Communist bids for power (1978). Even so, the most inventive Italian citizen would be hard pressed to dream up the bizarre scandal that rocked the country last week and toppled the four-party coalition government of Prime Minister Arnaldo Forlani. Some of the leading, members of a secret Masonic group--which allegedly involved nearly 1,000 respected figures of the Italian Establishment, including members of Forlani's own Cabinet--were accused by the judiciary of such offenses as espionage, tax fraud, illegal currency dealings and even of planning to undermine the country's parliamentary system and form "a state within a state."

Though the accusations were still unproved and could be the result of some monstrous hoax, the effects were devastating. They began with the abrupt resignation of Justice Minister Adolfo Sarti after he was said to be associated with the secret group, and concluded three days later with Forlani handing in his own resignation to President Sandro Pertini at the Quirinal Palace. It left Pertini with the task of either finding a potential Prime Minister capable of forming a new government--the 41st since 1946--or calling unwanted early elections.

Rumors of the scandal finally prompted Forlani himself to detonate the explosion. He released a card file listing the names of 963 members in the secret Masonic lodge designated "P2" (the P standing for "Propaganda"). The list had been found at the Arezzo villa of Licio Gelli, 62, a seemingly innocuous Tuscan-born businessman. Police carted out more than 1,000 letters, documents, diaries and ledgers in a dawn raid. Among the papers were confidential police intelligence reports from the 1960s that the government had ordered destroyed in 1974. Said an investigator: "The documents have a potential for blackmail in political, economic and journalistic circles. Licio Gelli had his hand in everything."

The list of alleged P2 members read like an honor roll of Italy. Justice Minister Sarti was listed only as a candidate for lodge membership, but two other Cabinet members--Labor Minister Franco Foschi and Foreign Trade Minister Enrico Manca--were listed as full members. So were such military figures as Admiral Giovanni Torrisi, the Defense Chief of Staff; General Giulio Grassini, chief of the Interior Ministry's secret intelligence service; and General Giuseppe Santovito, head of the Military Information and Security Service. Financiers included a top official of the Banco di Roma, Italy's third largest bank, and a former director-general of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, the country's largest.

Most of the individuals named indignantly denied any connection with P2. Of the 30 parliamentarians on the list, only Fabrizio Cicchitto, a director of the Socialist Party, admitted his membership.

It has been illegal since 1947 for citizens to be members of any secret organization. What makes the P2 affair especially explosive, however, is the specter of the vast conspiracy raised in an investigating magistrates' report that also was divulged by Forlani. The scandal originally came to light during an investigation by Milan judicial officials into the affairs of Sicilian Financier Michele Sindona, an accused P2 member currently serving a 25-year prison sentence in the U.S. for fraud in connection with the 1974 collapse of the Franklin National Bank. Investigating magistrates claimed to have found evidence that lodge members had helped Sindona skip bail in New York in 1979 by faking his kidnaping and hiding him near Palermo. Another alleged lodge brother was the former commander of Italy's Finance Police, General Rafaele Giudice, who has been implicated in an oil-import scandal involving as much as $2.2 billion in tax frauds.

Atop the organization, according to the investigators, was Venerable Grand Master Gelli, who is believed to have fled the country. A onetime mattress manufacturer, Gelli had been a diehard fascist during World War II. He lived for years in South America and used to boast about his connections with the late Argentine Dictator Juan Domingo Peron. Gelli apparently took over an ordinary Masonic lodge and then recruited members primarily on the basis of wealth and station.

The initiates were sworn to secrecy and, according to the oath, "to aid, comfort and defend my brothers in the order, even at the risk of my life." Former lodge members have said that while some may have joined the group for reasons of self-aggrandizement, others may have hoped to form an alternate power structure capable of deterring any future Communist participation in Italy's government.

Gelli made no bones about his right-wing beliefs. Says one Italian journalist:

"In Arezzo he was king and Pope. Many hated him for his bad character and fascist past, but no one dared cross him." Ermenegildo Benedetti, a onetime P2 member, recalls that in 1972 "Gelli lamented the fact that Italy did not have a dictatorship analogous to that of Greece at the time." Concluded the investigators' report: "Lodge P2 is a secret sect that has combined business and politics with the intention of destroying the constitutional order of the country." Gelli testified in a Bologna court in 1976 that "I am convinced of the need for a constitutional restructuring that would change Italy from a parliamentary republic to a presidential republic."

Ironically, the chief beneficiary of the whole Masonic affair may be the Communist Party. It was the only major political party untainted by alleged P2 memberships. No sooner had the Forlani government collapsed than Communist Party Leader Enrico Berlinguer was once more demanding a direct share in any new government.

The party with more realistic hopes of gaining from the scandal, however, is the Socialist. Its ebullient leader, Bettino Craxi, who tried and failed in 1979 to form a government, is hoping that President Pertini, also a Socialist, will give him another chance to try to end the Christian Democrats' 35-year monopoly on the premiership. The country's political fate thus depends on the President, who, at 84, is one of the few politicians in Italy who enjoys general trust and respect. After last week's stunning revelations, it was no wonder that one Italian weekly headlined its editorial: ST. PERTINI, SAVE US.

--By George Russell.

Reported by Wilton Wynn/Rome

With reporting by Wilton Wynn/Rome

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