Propaganda Due

The Grand Orient of Italy officially expelled Gelli and the P2 Lodge in 1976.[13] In 1974 it was proposed that P2 be erased from the list of lodges by the Grand Orient of Italy, and the motion carried overwhelmingly. The following year a warrant was issued by the Grand Master for a new P2 lodge. It seems the Grand Orient in 1976 had only suspended, and not actually expelled, the lodge on Gelli's request. Gelli was found to be active in the Grand Orient's national affairs two years later, financing the election of a new Grand Master. In 1981 a Masonic tribunal decided that the 1974 vote did mean the lodge had factually ceased to exist and that Gelli's lodge had therefore been (Masonically and politically) illegal since that time.[10]

In 1977 the P2 took control of the Corriere della Sera newspaper, a leading paper in Italy. At the time, the paper had encountered financial trouble and was unable to raise bank loans because its then editor, Piero Ottone, was considered hostile to the ruling Christian Democrats. Corriere's owners, the publishing house Rizzoli, struck a deal with Gelli. He provided the money with funds from the Vatican Bank directed by archbishop Paul Marcinkus. Ottone was fired and the paper's editorial line shifted to the right.[11][18]

The paper published a long interview with Gelli in 1980. The interview was carried out by the television talk show host Maurizio Costanzo, who would also be exposed as a member of P2.[19] Gelli said he was in favour of rewriting the Italian constitution towards a Gaullist presidential system. When asked what he always wanted to be, he replied: "A puppet master".[11][20]

P2 members Gelli and the head of the secret service Pietro Musumeci were condemned for attempting to mislead the police investigation of the Bologna massacre on 2 August 1980, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 200.[21]

P2 became the target of considerable attention in the wake of the collapse of Banco Ambrosiano (one of Milan's principal banks, owned in part by the Vatican Bank), and the suspicious 1982 death of its president Roberto Calvi in London, initially ruled a suicide but later prosecuted as a murder. It was suspected by investigative journalists that some of the plundered funds went to P2 or to its members.

One of the documents found in 1981 was about a numbered bank account, the so-called "Protezione account," at the Union Bank of Switzerland in Lugano (Switzerland). It detailed the payment of US$7 million by the president of ENI, Florio Fiorini through Roberto Calvi to the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) leader Claudio Martelli on behalf of Bettino Craxi, the socialist Prime Minister from 1983–1987.

The full extent of the payment became clear only twelve years later, in 1993, during the mani pulite (Italian for "clean hands") investigations into political corruption. The money was allegedly a kickback on a loan which the Socialist leaders had organised to help bail out the ailing Banco Ambrosiano. Rumours that the Minister of Justice, Martelli, was connected with the account had been circulating since investigations began into the P2 plot. He always flatly denied them. Learning that formal investigations were opened, he resigned as minister.[22]

The Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry, headed by Anselmi, concluded that the P2 lodge was a secret criminal organization. Allegations of surreptitious international relationships, mainly with Argentina (Gelli repeatedly suggested that he was a close friend of Juan Perón) and with some people suspected of affiliation with the American Central Intelligence Agency were also partly confirmed. Soon a political debate overtook the legal level of the analysis.[23] The majority report said that P2 action resulted in "… the pollution of the public life of a nation. It aimed to alter, often in decisive fashion, the correct functioning of the institutions of the country, according to a project which … intended to undermine our democracy." A minority report by Massimo Teodori concluded that P2 was not just an abnormal outgrowth from an essentially healthy system, as upheld by the majority report, but an inherent part of the system itself.[11]

Even though outlawed by Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in 1925, Masonic institutions have been tolerated in Italy since the end of World War II and have been quite open about their activities and membership. A special law was issued that prohibited secret lodges, i.e. those whose locations and dates of meeting are secret, like Gelli's pseudo-Masonic association. The Grande Oriente d'Italia, after taking disciplinary action against members with P2 connections, distanced itself from Gelli's lodge. Other laws introduced a prohibition on membership in allegedly secret organizations for some categories of state officials (especially military officers). These laws have been recently questioned by the European Court of Human Rights. Following an action brought by a serving British naval officer, the European Court has established as precedent the illegality of any member nation attempting to ban Masonic membership for military officers, as a breach of their human rights.[24]

Receipt for membership of Silvio Berlusconi to the P2 masonic lodge

Some notable individuals include:

• Silvio Berlusconi, businessman, future founder of the Forza Italia political party and Prime Minister of Italy.[28][29]
• Michele Sindona, banker linked to the Mafia, ex-president of Banca Privata Finanziaria.[30]
• Roberto Calvi, so-called "banker of God", allegedly killed by the Mafia.[30][31]
• Umberto Ortolani, leading P2-member.[32]
• Franco Di Bella, director of Corriere della Sera.[18][29] Di Bella had commissioned a long interview with Gelli, who openly talked of his plans for a "democratic renaissance" in Italy—including control over the media. The interview was carried out by the television talk show host Maurizio Costanzo, who would also be exposed as a member of P2.[19]
• Angelo Rizzoli Jr., owner of Corriere della Sera, today cinema producer.[29]
• Bruno Tassan Din, general director of Corriere della Sera.[29]
• General Vito Miceli, chief of the SIOS (Servizio Informazioni), Italian Army Intelligence's Service from 1969 and SSISMI/SID's head from October 18, 1970 to 1974. Arrested in 1975 on charges of "conspiracy against the state" concerning investigations about Rosa dei venti, a state-infiltrated group involved in the strategy of tension, he later became an Italian Social Movement (MSI) member.[33][34]
• Federico Umberto D'Amato, leader of an intelligence cell (Ufficio affari riservati) in the Italian Minister of Interior.[35][36]
• General Giuseppe Santovito, head of the military intelligence service SISMI (1978–1981).[15][33]
• Admiral Giovanni Torrisi, Chief of the General Staff of the Army.[15][33]
• General Giulio Grassini, head of the intelligence service SISDE (1977–1981).[15][33]
• General Pietro Musumeci, deputy director of Italy's military intelligence service, SISMI.[33]
• General Franco Picchiotti.[33]
• General Giovambattista Palumbo.[33]
• General Raffaele Giudice, commander of the Guardia di Finanza (1974–1978).[33] Appointed by Giulio Andreotti, Giudice conspired with oil magnate Bruno Musselli and others in a lucrative tax fraud of as much as $2.2 billion.[15][37]
• General Orazio Giannini, commander of the Guardia di Finanza (1980–1981).[33] On the day the list was discovered Giannini phoned the official in charge of the operation, and told him (according to the official's testimony to the parliamentary commission): "You better know that you've found some lists. I'm in those lists – be careful, because so too are all the highest echelons (I understood 'of the state')"[11][38] and "... Watch out, the Force will be overwhelmed by this."[39]
• Carmine Pecorelli, a controversial journalist assassinated on 20 March 1979. He had drawn connections in a May 1978 article between the kidnapping of Aldo Moro and Operation Gladio.[40]
• Maurizio Costanzo, popular television talk show host of Mediaset programmes (Mediaset is Berlusconi's commercial television network).[19]
• Pietro Longo, secretary of the Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI).[41]
• Fabrizio Cicchitto, member of the Italian Socialist Party, who later joined Berlusconi's centre-right party Forza Italia.[15]
• Federico Carlos Barttfeld (Argentina), ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1991 to 1995,[9] under-secretary of state in Néstor Kirchner's government, relieved of his functions in 2003 following allegations of involvement in the Dirty War.[42]
• Emilio Massera (Argentina), a member of the military junta led by Jorge Rafael Videla in Buenos Aires from 1976 to 1978.[9][43]
• José López Rega (Argentina), Argentinian minister of Social Welfare in Perón's government, founder of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance ("Triple A").[9]
• Aldo Alasia, (Argentina)[44]
• Cesar De la Vega, (Argentina)[45]
• Raúl Alberto Lastiri, (Argentina) President from 13 July 1973 until 12 October 1973[43]
• Alberto Vignes, (Argentina) minister of Argentina[43]
• Carlos Alberto Corti, (Argentina) admiral from Argentina[43]
• Stefano Delle Chiaie, Italian neofascist who had ties with Operation Condor and the Bolivian regime of Luis García Meza Tejada[46]