“General De Lorenzo was busy

a a ee

drawing up his little blacklist

By PHYLLIS ROSNER

ROME

OBODY denies any more
that in July 1964, during a
lengthy and difficult govern-
ment crisis, plans were afoot for
a military coup somewhat sim-
ilar to that of the Greek colonels.

There are. other ‘similarities,
The Italian generals, like their
Greek counterparts, were cer-
tainly not acting entirely off
their own bats. They enjoyed
the support, or at least the ac-
quiescence, of more powerful
forces and figures in their own
countries and elsewhere.

Here in Italy, details of the
coup plot are falling into place
like pieces of a huge jig-saw
puzzle whose completion, how-
ever, is still far off.

The left is demanding that the
whole truth of ‘this alarming
scandal be made known and that
a Parliamentary inquiry commis-
sion be set up. The Government
is doing everything to prevent
the formation of such a commis-
sion, despite affirmations of its
determination to “get to the bot-
tom of the matter.”

The whole affair exploded in
spring 1967, when the Radical
weekly L’Espresso accused Gen.
Giovanni De Lorenzo of having
actively plotted a military coup
in July 1964.

Now Gen. De Lorenzo is no

ordinary military man. From
1956 until 1962 he was chief of
the military intelligence agency
SIFAR and, as we shall see, re-
tained his ties with friends in
that organization.

In 1962, he was made Com-
mander of the Carabinieri, whose
task is that of maintaining pub-
lic order and combating=crime,
but for whom the general seem-
ed to have other tasks in mind.

In 1965, De Lorenzo was pro-
moted to be chief of the General
Staff of the country’s armed
forces. In April 1967 he was dis-
missed from this post without
any explanation ever being
made.

The general had been in the
public eye a few months previ-
ously to the coup plot allega-
tions. It was the same paper,
L’Espresso, that had published
charges that during the time he
had been its chief SIFAR had
spied on Italian politicians, in-
dustrialists, religious men, etc.,
and compiled dossiers on their
private life.

e.

Such a stink was created by
these revelations that the gov-
ernment set up a commission of
inquiry. Its findings confirmed
SIFAR’s illegal activities, as De-
fense Minister Tremelloni re-

ported to the Italian Parliament.
On this occasion Tremelloni

PIC BO

gave assurances that everything
was now under control and no
such deviations would again be
practiced by SIFAR.

Far from satisfied with this,
the Left kept up its call for a
full Parliamentary inquiry into
SIFAR and later, when the sec-
ond L’Espresso article was pub-
lished, into charges about the
planned coup.

The government prevaricated
and the matter was rather like
a saucepan of milk simmering.

And then General De Lorenzo
turned up the gas and the milk
boiled over. He sued two jour-
nalists from L’Espresso for what _
they had written about him in
connection with the coup.

And on December 23 the first
phase of this sensational trial
ended with the public prosecutor
declaring that the accusations
against De Lorenzo had been
proved.

@

Hearings in the De Lorenzo
case have lifted a curtain on
some very remarkable and dis-
turbing events. A number of
generals and other high-ranking
officers on active service, former
Premier Senator Ferruccio Parri
and a number of former Under
State Secretaries have testified
as follows:

1. SIFAR prepared blacklists
of people (the number, accord-

LTHOUGH it has dropped
out of the headlines, the
proposed Olympic boycott

by black athletes is still the
biggest sports story around the
United States. The campaign to
get Negroes to boycott the U.S.
team is picking up support for
the six demands drawn up by
Dr. Harry Edwards, assistant
professor of sociology at San
Jose State College, and leader
of the boycott movement.

The demands of the movement
call for the restoration of Mu-
hammad Ali’s heavyweight box-
ing crown, the addition of a
Negro to the U.S. Olympic
committee, the placing of a sec-
ond Negro coach on: the U.S.
Olympic staff, the barring of
South Africa and Southern Rho-
desia from the Olympic Games
and an end to the racist mem-
bership policies of the New
York Athletic Club.

Edwards: said the ouster of

Avery Brundage, chairman of
the International Olympic Com-
mittee and Chicago millionaire,
is the sixth demand because
“Mr. Brundage has been dis-
covered as a result of our in-
vestigation ta be a devout anti-
Semitic and anti-Negro persona-
lity.”

Edwards placed the sixth de-
mand when he appeared in a
press conference with Dr. Martin
Luther King of the Southern
Christian Leadership Confer-
ence and Floyd MckKissick, na-
tional director of the Congress
of Racial Equality (CORE).

“This is a protest and a
struggle against racism and in-
justice,” Dr. King said. “I would
like to commend the athletes
who have said they would not
participate in the Olympics.”

McKissick — also - saluted - the
six‘demands: ©") “*' ywrersad

“CORE would urge everyone
to realize that an athlete is
only on the field two or three
hours then becomes a black man
again and is subject to discri-
mination,” McKissick said.

Jackie Robinson, the first

: Lyuda Turischeva,
cin the Youth Country
Teams’ for'the USSR’ in’ gymnastics.’
ONS MAN i eae a ge

Negro to break into major lea-
gue baseball has also thrown his
support to the proposed boy-
cot:

“I love my country, but it’s
high time America says that it
loves me. It’s a two way street.”

ROTA T IS

IS TOELEM OES.

ing to Il Popolo, official Chris-
tian Democratic Party paper,
was around 1,800 to 2,000) to
be arrested immediately in June-
July 1964 as soon as the word
was received.

Arrests were to be effected at
night. So detailed were these
preparations—according to court
testimony—that SIFAR had seen
to it that skeleton keys of the
apartment houses of those on
the blacklists were available in
order that the whole scheme
could run smoothly.

Those arrested were to be
taken to nearby airfields and/or
ports for transportaion to con-
centration camps on the island
of Sardinia. :

2. These blacklists were dis-
tributed to Carabinieri chiefs in
Northern, Central and Southern
Italy in June-July 1964 (at a
period when Gen. de Lorenzo
was in command of the Carabi-
nieri).

3. Though for its official tasks
(maintaining public order and
combating crime) the Carabi-
nieri needs no heavy weapons
or tanks during the early sum-

in teeth

mer of 1964 it had been supplied
with precisely this type of arms.
Moreover, Senator Parri has de-
clared, it was a more powerful
striking force than the army, it
had been so disciplined and
trained.

4, De Lorenzo’s_ second-in-
command, Gen. Manes, was
kept in the dark about all this.

The report Gen. Manes was

.asked to prepare for the Minist-

er of Defense when the scandal
blew up in May 1967 was al-
legely “censored” by the head of
the Carabinieri, Gen. Ciglieri.
As a result, Minister Tremelloni
is said to have received only an
emasculated version of the re-
port on the coup plans; he has
now ordered a second inquiry.
But public opinion is some-
what disturbed. The example of
Greece and the tragic fate of its
people has not passed unnoticed
by the Italian people. The call is
growing for a Parliamentary in-
quiry to give the country the
facts about operation Emer-
genza Speciale (special emer-
gency) Plan.
(Reprinted from
The Morning Star)

A paper appears

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Avghi has reappeared clan-
destinely in Athens. In its edi-
torial the paper recalls that dur-
ring almost 15 years Avghi was
the organ of the Union of the
Democratic Left (EDA). It is not
renouncing today its role that
was thus fixed and writes that
it will continue to express the
voice of the workers and their
fight against the dictatorship.

Avghi indicates that the need
of the militants on the left is to
fight, to organize the basis of
the patriotic. front by forming
groups of three people not to
give a handle for repression. It
calls for the coordination of the
fight with other resistance
groupings for the restoration of
a true democracy. It addresses
itself equally to workers, intel-
lectuals, and to the military.

-

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Avghi published a resolution
of the national council of the
Patriotic Front printed in num-
ber 11 of the bulletin of that

organization,

It announced the appearance
of the third issue of Athens
Unsubdued, edited by the organ-
ization of the Communist Party
of Greece in the capital. This
newspaper, according to Avghi,
has published information on
the activities of the communists
of Athens as well as news items
on the resistance throughout
the country. Finally, Athens Un-
subdued underlines the import-
ance of a campaign to be led
against the declaration of loy-
alty to the junta which this
body forces prisoners to sign by

all kinds of tortures.

The 10th International Week of Documentaries and _
Short Films held at Leipzig (GOR) under the traditional

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