Puppetmasters

The Political Use of Terrorism in Italy

Philip P. Willan

Constable (London, 1991)
ISBN 0 09 470590 9

Puppetmasters reveals how US intelligence services exploited the P2 masonic lodge to prop up friendly Christian Democrat-dominated governments and counter the growing political influence of the Italian Communist Party. It was a ruthless strategy involving coup plots, right wing terrorist bombings and the manipulation of the Red Brigades. And gave Italy one of the bloodiest and most protracted periods of terrorist violence ever seen in a modern, industrialised society.