Authors: Philip Willan
The invasion of the Falklands on 2 April 1982 posed an awkward dilemma for the common allies of Britain and Argentina, foremost among them the United States. The White House and State Department feared the conflict would undermine their anti-communist policy in Latin America and the US government only swung itself fully behind Britain some four to five weeks after the invasion. The Argentine president, General Leopoldo Galtieri, was convinced that the Americans would end up by backing the Argentine cause. President Reagan was obsessed by the threat from the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, fearing that the Central American country would become a second Cuba, and Argentina had offered to do something about it. Reagan was attempting to organize an intervention in Nicaragua by a multinational Latin American force and Galtieri had been the first leader to offer troops. The Argentinians were already training death squads in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and had previously backed the Somoza regime with arms. When the chips were down, however, Britain’s role as an ally against the main enemy in Moscow meant the United States had little choice but to side with its democratic ally and the victim of aggression rather than with the dictatorial aggressor.
The conflict posed a quandary for Italy as well, where public opinion was divided between sympathy for a European ally and blood ties to a significant portion of the Argentine population. On 9 April the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community (EEC) agreed to impose economic
sanctions on Argentina. The sanctions were to be renewed weekly on a voluntary basis and Italy and neutral Ireland soon opted out. The Italian Socialist party appeared particularly sensitive to the pressure from Argentina. A possible explanation is offered by a SISMI report dated 4 August 1982, which relates information supplied by ‘Source Franz’, later identified as Walter Beneforti, an Italian ex-policeman. ‘The position assumed by the PSI on the question of the Falkland Islands was imposed by Gelli via Pazienza,’ the report said. ‘The former head of P2, in fact, threatened to reveal documentation on the $21 million given to the PSI via Bafisud bank of Montevideo (run by Ortolani’s son) if the PSI didn’t take a clear position in favour of the Argentines.’ The document added a curious note of colour: ‘In this context Gelli recalled his old friendship with the Socialists, recalling that he had dedicated, years ago, a “line” of his men’s clothes (Claude Martel) to the deputy secretary of the PSI, Claudio Martelli.’
In the immediate aftermath of Calvi’s death SISMI sent one of its most experienced officers to London to investigate. Francesco Delfino, then Lieutenant Colonel, was a Calabrian-born Carabiniere officer who was destined for a brilliant but controversial career. He would later play a significant role in the capture of the mafia’s ‘boss of bosses’ Salvatore Riina, but be convicted of fraud in the context of a high-profile kidnapping case. He was based in Brussels at the time of Calvi’s death and had been actively engaged on investigations into the P2 scandal. One of Delfino’s best sources, the ex-policeman Walter Beneforti (‘Franz’), would play an important role in the dénouement of the Calvi affair by providing the SISMI officer with information on the whereabouts of Flavio Carboni. Furnished to him within a matter of hours from the request, the information enabled Swiss police to arrest Carboni, his brother Andrea, and Manuela Kleinszig near the villa where
they were hiding in the Villaggio del Sole near Lake Origlio in the Italian-speaking province of Ticino on 30 July 1982.
Walter Beneforti was both well-informed and well-connected. His long-standing connections to American intelligence make him of particular interest for this story. He first came in contact with US and British intelligence while working as a police officer in Trieste after the Second World War, when the north-eastern city was claimed by Yugoslavia and under the administration of the western allies. An Italian intelligence report on him from that time describes him as ‘rather venal and sensitive to gifts’, and as working directly for British intelligence. Beneforti also worked with the Americans, however, putting their sophisticated bugging equipment to good use and organizing a fleet of fake taxis as mobile listening posts. Beneforti was later moved to a senior position in Milan but his police career went into decline when the interior minister objected to the interest he and some of his colleagues had been showing in a suspected sexual relationship between the popular actress Silvia Koscina and . . . the then interior minister.
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In later years Beneforti would go into private practice, becoming embroiled in the early 1970s in an illegal phone-tapping scandal. A partner in his Milan private detective agency was a certain Carlo Rocchi, the CIA informant who had shown such interest in the knowledge and intentions of the imprisoned Michele Sindona.
Delfino told the Calvi murder trial that he had travelled to London on 20 June for a meeting with colleagues at MI5 headquarters. He had met senior officers and the MI5 lawyer and been taken to lunch at a London club by a British colleague with a keen interest in Roman antiquities. The lawyer had explained that the security service could not provide him with information since the investigation was in the hands of the police. More usefully, a colleague had been delegated to show him round London, taking him to see the scaffolding under Blackfriars Bridge and then to the nearby building site where,
Delfino was told, the bricks in Calvi’s pockets had come from. He returned to Rome to brief the prime minister, Giovanni Spadolini, that ‘Calvi had been suicided.’ When SISMI director Ninetto Lugaresi rebuked him for his eccentric use of the Italian language, Spadolini intervened: ‘No, that corresponds [to the facts].’ Delfino’s at times confusing testimony shed little light on the matters before the court. Presiding Judge Mario D’Andria seemed unconvinced that Delfino had actually visited the scene of Calvi’s death, suggesting he might even have been taken to the wrong bridge by his British colleagues.
A SISMI report that appears to correspond to Delfino’s visit, although the date of the meeting is incompatible with the officer’s recollection, casts an intriguing light on relations between the two countries’ intelligence services. Contacts with his English counterparts were characterized by ‘evident signs of admiration and moral debt towards our service’, the anonymous author wrote in his undated report. The report opens with a description that appears to correspond to Delfino’s morning meeting at MI5 HQ, dated now at 28 June. Those present were John Parker, described as the head of operational contacts for the whole of the United Kingdom, Trevor Pidgeon, the head of European affairs, and Nigel Morley, who was tasked with taking care of the Italian visitor. Parker was the head of MI5’s S Branch at the time, while his two colleagues appear to have been from MI6, the service with which SISMI would liaise most naturally. His hosts emphasized their willingness to respond to the Italians’ requests ‘but pointed out the risks of their involvement given that the news would immediately be reported in the press.’ The Italian domestic intelligence service SISDE had made a similar request and been told by the City of London Police to contact the Italian police for information. ‘An attempt by the corresponding English service to at least obtain the file number of the Calvi case from Special Branch did not receive a response but requests for an explanation of the reasons for the request.’
In the afternoon the officer met with MI6 director Colin Figures, who also expressed his regret that he could not be of help for the moment because of the risks, despite his desire to repay at least in part ‘the debt of collaboration that he personally has towards the director of SISMI’. Figures intended to send his Italian counterpart a personal, confidential message the following day, the report said. The tenor of the report somehow doesn’t give the impression that the various intelligence services were motivated by a desire to clarify the facts and see justice done, perhaps the opposite.
Delfino, now a retired general, described his impressions of the visit to me over lunch in a Rome restaurant. ‘It wasn’t for me to ask for explanations. My assumption is that it [the debt of gratitude] concerned the Falklands war. I think it might have concerned the exact position of a ship that was later sunk,’ he said, a possible reference to the sinking of the
Belgrano
at the start of the conflict. ‘I wasn’t of a rank to be received by the director. I am convinced it was a sign of their gratitude.’ Delfino said he felt the British police were treating the case like the death of a tramp, but insisted that criticism did not apply to the intelligence services, which hadn’t underestimated the importance of the case. Calvi’s financial problems and flight from Italy could not have failed to attract the attention of MI6 in Rome, he said. And his intelligence service guide had imparted an important item of information that appeared to come from MI6’s own sources: it suggested that the last known person to see Calvi alive was Flavio Carboni.
Delfino, like many others, placed the Calvi affair in the context of the Cold War. ‘We need to rewrite the history of Italy in the years from the Second World War to the 1980s, in which Italy was a colony of several countries, but in particular of the United States,’ he said. ‘The espionage services of the US, the USSR and Israel were all active and their interests often coincided. One of the most important was preventing the Communist party from achieving power. In that context
all sorts of things happened in this country. P2 was nothing less than an emanation of the United States intended to prevent political change in Italy. There were billions of dollars in US subsidies and billions of dollars from the Russians to support the PCI, because both sides had such large territorial organizations that local funds were insufficient to maintain them. This is where the
Tangentopoli
corruption scandal was born. This Calvi affair can only be placed in an international context.’
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Delfino’s British colleagues were much less keen to talk when I attempted to contact them. ‘It was a long time ago. I honestly don’t think I can offer anything,’ Trevor Pidgeon told me when I succeeded in contacting him by phone. ‘Any documentation must be either now in the Foreign Office or the archives of the Metropolitan Police. Delfino must have gone away a rather disappointed man from any discussions here. I would have thought he should have gone to the police. It was the mafia wasn’t it, because he’d embezzled money?’ This was the height of loquacity compared to his colleagues, who declined to respond to my letters. Mr Pidgeon agreed to consider whether he might have anything more to say but before I could contact him again I was called by someone from the FCO press office to inform me that Mr Pidgeon – a ‘retired diplomat’ – did not wish to speak to me and that I should call the press office before pursuing further contact with him. The tone of the message left on my answerphone made it clear that the intention was not to facilitate my research. I called back and left a message on another answerphone and heard no more from the Foreign Office ‘facilitators’. Well-informed friends appeared to consider the Calvi case a highly sensitive matter, for the British as well as for the Italians, and despite the long passage of time since the events took place. The unwillingness of informed British sources to discuss it only seemed to confirm that impression.
Roberto Calvi realized that matters were coming to a head when Luigi Mennini threw him out of the IOR after he turned up half a day early for a delicate meeting with Vatican bank officials on 31 May 1982. Archbishop Marcinkus was away at the time, accompanying Pope John Paul II on a delicate diplomatic mission to London, but he confirmed Mennini’s hard line by telephone on his return. The pope was taking his message of peace to the two countries then embroiled in war in the South Atlantic. Two weeks later he would be in Argentina, its people gripped by war fever and just days away from defeat.
Calvi, whose role as a secret conduit for the financial lifeblood of conflict may have led to his death, was beginning to think of flight. He needed to find a quiet place outside Italy where he could finalize negotiations for the rescue of the Banco Ambrosiano, somewhere he could not be reached by his enemies and where, if absolutely necessary, he could release his damaging information to the press with maximum effect. Logistics for his escape would be handled by the faithful Flavio Carboni, with assistance from some of his friends. The role of those friends, and their interesting international connections, has never been examined in detail before. It offers some intriguing surprises.
Carboni’s diaries for the month of June show the emergence of a team of heterogeneous helpers clustering round in
preparation for Calvi’s departure. An entry in his personal diary for 1 June shows he is expecting the visit from Livorno of a certain Hans Kunz. A Swiss businessman with extensive experience of the international oil business and alleged links to Licio Gelli and the arms trade, Kunz will play a crucial role in Calvi’s travel arrangements. Carboni’s office diary shows numerous calls from the Vatican power-broker Monsignor Hilary Franco, still engaged on the desperate bid to rescue the Banco Ambrosiano, and from Ernesto Diotallevi, the Rome businessman with alleged ties to the Magliana Band.
On Friday 4 June Calvi returned to Milan in an agitated state after a wearing week in Rome. He and his daughter must both urgently leave Italy, he told Anna, and the two of them began packing their suitcases the following morning. The crisis came to a head the next Monday, when a meeting of the Ambrosiano board was convened to discuss the latest correspondence between Calvi and an anxious Bank of Italy. Calvi read out the contents of a letter of 31 May from the Bank that identified a $1.4 billion risk in the Ambrosiano’s foreign affiliates. It was chilling news for his already unhappy colleagues and for the first time in his 11 years at the helm they banded together to vote against their chairman. The issue was minor: the directors insisted they must be allowed to take the official documentation home with them rather than being obliged to study it only in the secure surroundings of Banco Ambrosiano headquarters. But for Calvi the writing was on the wall: the absolute control he had exercised for so long was slipping from his grasp. And there would be more bad news that evening when Carboni visited Calvi and his daughter at their Milan home. ‘The IOR has been closed. The situation is catastrophic,’ was the Sardinian’s alarmist message. The next day, 8 June, Carboni passed by the Via Frua flat to collect the Ambrosiano chairman’s suitcases. Hotel and flight information shows Carboni was travelling often to Switzerland at this time, spending a night in a hotel
in Lugano on 3 June and taking a private flight to Geneva and Zurich on the 8th.