dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_brotherhoodss25.htm

To understand P2, however, we must have some idea of the history of Freemasonry in Italy.

The brotherhood has had a controversial history ever since it reached Italy in the early 1730's (see Chapter 8), but its political ascendancy was ended in 1925 when it was outlawed by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

Twenty years later it was legalized again, but only after the US Office of Strategic Services (the forerunner of the CIA) had pressured Italy's weak and impoverished government. The OSS planned to use Freemasonry just as it used the Mafia: to prop up a sickly democracy threatened by Soviet-inspired destabilization and the prospect of a communist election victory.

The OSS/CIA backed Italy's strongest Masonic faction, the Grand Orient, which today has some 15,000 members.

From 1961 until 1970 its Grand Master was Giordano Gamberini who (whether for the CIA or his own ends) sought to influence Italian elections by canvassing for candidates who were Freemasons and giving them money. At the time he was desperate to win recognition from the United Grand Lodge of England, which most 'regular' Masons in the world regard as the sole source of legitimacy.

If England could be persuaded to recognize the Grand Orient, all other Grand Lodges would follow suit. England had always refused, largely because of Italian Freemasonry's historic involvement in politics. This offends the Basic Principles on which England's Grand Lodge decides whether to recognize any other.

Principal 7 states:

'The discussion of politics and religion within the Lodge shall be strictly prohibited.'

By meddling in politics Gamberini was breaching this principal, so the Grand Lodge of England should have shunned him like the plague. Instead it acted as if in totally favor - or blissful ignorance - of his political game.

In the 1960s Grand Lodge was more distracted by the fact that the Grand Orient (also known as 'Palazzo Giustiani') was one of two Italian Grand Lodges clamoring for recognition. There was also the Palazzo del Gesu, with some 5,000 members.

James Stubbs, then England's Grand Secretary, described the dilemma in his 1985 biography, Freemasonry in my Life:

It was… well known in Italy that we were not prepared to plump for one, leaving the other out, or even to recognize them both; eventually the moment came when at last the cracks were papered over and the Palazzo Giustiniani seemed to be in control. We felt justified in recognizing Italy.

The man who had master-minded the unification of the Grand Orient and Palazzo del Gesu, paving the way for recognition by England, was none other than the subsequently notorious Licio Gelli.

He had entered Freemasonry only in 1965, yet he was instantly recommended to Grand Master Gamberini as someone 'able to make a great contribution to the institution in terms of recruiting qualified people'; in other words, to draw into Masonry men dedicated to right-wing goals.

If we remember the OSS's fierce anti-communist intent in resurrecting Freemasonry after World War II, and Gamerini's 1960s electioneering, it is clear that the political meddling of modern Italian Freemasonry did not start with Licio Gelli. He merely increased its effectiveness.

In 1970 a Florence doctor named Lino Salvini became Grand Master. This freed Gamberini to act as the Grand Orient's roving ambassador in the search for international recognition. At the same time he sought to develop Propaganda Massonica Lodge (P2) as a nexus for the Italian Right to seize control of Italian society, if ever the need arose. The lodge had been founded in 1877 to meet the needs of provincial Masons living temporarily in Rome and thus unable to attend their home lodges. It soon evolved into a 'reserved' or secret lodge whose members were known only to the Grand Secretary, allegedly to protect them from Papal wrath.

In the mid-1960s P2 had only fourteen members, but in 1970 Salvini asked Gelli to 'restructure' the lodge…