I don't know about Tarpley's version of the story. But personally I have studied the Moro story for years in the past, reading a number of books by italian researchers that tried to shed some light on a very suspicious story and its absurd official "truths".
I could go over it on this forum, summing up what I found out about it. It would require for me to take a few books off the shelf and re-read the whole thing with the knowledge I have today about fakery in the media. I don't think I'd have the time, and the matter is certainly not urgent, but it certainly would be interesting.
It must be said that although this is a story filled with absurd details, propaganda, lies and manipulation, as it is I don't believe it entirely qualifies as media fakery. I always thought and -- barring my re-reading of the whole thing today in light of media fakery -- I still think that Aldo Moro was actually kidnapped and killed by an organization that called itself the "Red Brigades" -- although it is all but demonstrated what they were really set about, and what their actual connections were.
The NATO-P2-CIA connection is of course part of the scenario, although there are more interesting elements to it.
In the 1970s Italy was one of the political forces of the Mediterranean more inclined to support Arabs and Palestinians in an age when their recognition in the world was hard to come. A few many connections of the Red Brigades with Israel have been hinted at, although naturally never proved, and it is possible to imagine that Israel, in accord with Kissinger (who in 1973 had already experimented the taking over of a modern democracy in Chile via "destabilization"), had interests to "shake up" the italian establishment that was too inclined to follow in foreign policy the influence of the Vatican*, or to behave too independently in the Mediterranean scenario.
Back in the early 70s, the Red Brigades, born as a guerrilla organization meant to support the workers' battles in the factories, was infiltrated: his former founders captured and sent to jail, while new leaders took charge (namely the shady character "Mario Moretti" whose upbringing and connections have proved to be suspicious to say the least), steering the group towards more and more violence and bloodshed.
Mario Moretti, the shady figure who allegedly headed the kidnapping of Aldo MoroFinally they decided to "strike at the heart of state" by kidnapping a top government official. The kidnapping was as unrealistic to achieve as you can imagine it, and yet everything went well for the commando that, apparently, featured among its members at least one trained shooter, never identified, who alone inflicted all the deadly shots to the bodyguards of Moro. The other peons shot randomly around and had no real weapon training. Incredible as that. Ah, also: for reasons that the members of the commando were never able to explain, during the ambush to Moro in via Fani
they were all dressed as airline pilots. The real reason to dress up as oddly as that can only be that they didn't know in advance who all the other members were, and had to have an obvious way to recognize each other during the operation.
The ambush of Via Fani, in RomeFor all visible intents and purposes, it made no sense to kidnap Moro who was, as author
Leonardo Sciascia would put it, "the less involved of them all". Moro** represented the remaining part of the italian political establishment that was not entirely corrupted and, more importantly, that still was capable of independent decisions. So to go and pick him, speaks volumes about the real intents and mindset of the Red Brigades.
Aldo Moro during the kidnapping, in front of the oddly shaped five-pointed symbol of the red brigadesDuring the 55 days of kidnapping, the whole italian political and media establishment (of left, center and right) was united in a chorus that wanted no deals with the Red Brigades. They distanced themselves from the pleas of the family of Moro and maintained that it was really the "State" (which they never respected) that was really being under attack, rather than the single person of Moro.
This rhetoric was clearly a psy-op requirement, to enact the scapegoating of Moro for everyone to see. As Moro allegedly stated in his last letter from his imprisonment, directed to all the italian politicians: "my blood will fall back on you". So as the story goes he died alone betrayed by his friends and comrades, after which, visibly in the italian political life of years to come, the former friends and comrades were more united than ever in keeping the things exactly as they were before.
It has been acknowledged in the following years that the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro was really meant
to make the political alliance between the Communist Party and the Christian Party (an alliance wanted and designed by Moro, to go past the two-blocks mentality, and disliked by both Washington and Moscow) impossible. For this reason his body was showed to be found in a car parked at equal distance between the head offices of the two parties. Yet it was never fully explained why then these two parties unanimously behaved so cowardly during the kidnapping, especially the communist party that was about to be ferried by this man into the government.
But another, less visible element is here to consider:
the street where Moro's body was found, via Caetani in Rome, also happens to be at the heart of the old jewish ghetto, where, as it has been later suggested, Moro had probably been held the whole time, while the police looked for him all over italy.
Moro's body showed to everyone in Italy as found in a parked R4 red car in via Caetani in Rome. Note the symbol of the (scape)goat on the wall right thereSo within the first message by the red brigades (we have stricken at heart of the state) was buried a second message (Yalta does not want this alliance to happen) - and within that message there might have been another one:
Israel doesn't appreciate your middle-east policy. In any case, all parts were warned. The zionification of italy continued, the communist-christian alliance never did happened, the Communist Party conveniently never asked for it and remained at the opposition for the following decades until its dismantling also in the 90s.
The Moro episode was the culmination of years of apparent bloodshed and terrorist acts that had achieved many results, the more important being to prepare a very politically-minded nation, as Italy had been since the 50s, to a
shift into a new age of carefree thinking and mindless interests that was about to come: the "Reganian" years, the Berlusconi years, with the change in culture and way of thinking and values that they meant. Many adults citizens that had been involved with politics for years were so disgusted by the Moro tragedy (among many other tragedies) that left politics for good. It wasn't worth to try and change the world. And the younger ones at that point were too cynical to even care...
As to the media fakery, I can't say to what extent it was used in this case. There are certain elements to this story that in fact have the look of fakery as we know it. For example the so-called "false document of Lago della Duchessa", a proved forgery of a Red Brigades "bulletin" that was distributed to the media during the last days of the kidnapping, announcing that Moro had been "suicided", and that his body was to be found in the Duchessa lake in the Lazio region.
The media got into a frenzy, newspapers and television for two days showed rescuers trying to find the body in a half-frozen lake, the country was in shock. It has been later proved that the document came by a known forgerer who worked part-time for the italian secret service. It has been said that the reason for the fake bulletin was to push the "divided" Red Brigades into the decision to kill Moro, meanwhile preparing the nation to the hype and shock that was a requirement for the whole story to work... Or maybe it was just an alternative storyline that went wrong.
Looking for the body that isn't thereEven more fakery could probably be showed in the many letters that allegedly Moro wrote during his kidnapping, and that the Red Brigades delivered to family, politicians, clergy and newspapers - behaving like the perfect little postmen in a militarized Rome. Many of the letters have been proved to have been tampered with or to be complete forgeries; others are just really odd letters. The letters, filled as they are with names of politicians and of organizations, are the element that make me think that not only the citizens of the nation were under assault, but the political establishment (certain, I'm not saying honest, but stubbornly independent, parts of it) was under assault to.
Last astonishing element of the story for now: all the members of the commando that allegedly kidnapped and killed Moro are today, after having spent some time in jail, free. Including the leader Mario Moretti.
* we are not talking about present-day Vatican, all aligned with global forces, and whose new popes just as they are elected must hint at the tragedy of the holocaust as an homage to the real "values" in charge: it was a Vatican possibly not yet completely infiltrated and not completely detached from the italian political life, a detachment that was accomplished completely in the 90s right before Berlusconi's arrival, when upon big political scandals the historical christian party "Democrazia Cristiana", that had stayed in power for 60 years, was dismantled in a matter of months. Although as to the Vatican involvement with the story, it must be noted that pope Paul VI behaved quite horribly during the kidnapping of Moro, limiting himself to asking to the kidnappers to release the hostage without conditions.
** As this is always a source of confusion, it must be said that Aldo Moro was not Prime Minister or President of the Republic. At the moment of the kidnapping he was the President of "Democrazia Cristiana", the christian party that had been in power since WWII. He was very influential because of his long history of work for the party, and because of his ability to open bridges and dialogue with the opposition. He had been P.M. and minister before though. During a famous dinner with Kissinger, back in the states, years before the kidnapping, Moro had disappointed everyone by stating the need of Italy to behave independently when it came to decide which political alliances were best for its own governance. Some said that it was then when his fate was sealed.
