page_title: Golpe Borghese
section_title: Trials
hierarchical_section_title: Golpe Borghese / Trials
caption_attribution_description: English: Italian fascist politician, Junio Valerio Borghese (1906-1974)
context_page_description: The Golpe Borghese was a failed Italian coup d'état allegedly planned for the night of 7 or 8 December 1970. It was named after Junio Valerio Borghese, an Italian World War II commander of the Xª MAS unit, convicted of fighting with Nazi Germany but not of war crimes, but still a hero in the eyes of many post-War Italian fascists. The coup attempt became publicly known when the left-wing journal Paese Sera ran the headline on the evening of 18 March 1971: Subversive plan against the Republic: far-right plot discovered.
  The secret operation was code-named Operation Tora Tora after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The plan of the coup in its final phase envisaged the involvement of US and NATO warships which were on alert in the Mediterranean Sea. However, only a few marginalized sectors of the US Central Intelligence Agency were in favour of the coup, while the main response was not to allow major changes in the geo-political balance in the Mediterranean.
context_section_description: Three trials were started for conspiracy against the Italian state. In 1978, Miceli was acquitted of trying to cover up a coup attempt. Saccucci, Orlandini, Rosa, and others were convicted of political conspiracy, which also included Chiaie, whose specific role is unclear. According to a 1987 UPI news cable, he had already fled Italy to Spain on 25 July 1970. However, according to other sources, Chiaie led the commando team which occupied the premises of the Interior Ministry. At the appeal trial in November 1984, all 46 defendants were acquitted because the "fact did not happen" (il fatto non sussiste) and only existed in "a private meeting between four or five sixty-years-olds". The Supreme Court confirmed the appeal judgment in March 1986.
  The final trial connected with the Golpe Borghese began in 1991, after it was discovered that evidence involving prominent persons (Licio Gelli and admiral Giovanni Torrisi) had been destroyed by the secret service before the first trial. Andreotti, minister of defence at the time the evidence was destroyed, declared in 1997 that names had been deleted so that the charges would be easier to understand. This last trial ended without convictions because the period of prescription for destruction of evidence had passed.
  According to the journalist René Monzat, investigations lasted seven years, during which it was alleged that the Golpe Borghese had benefited from military accomplices, as well as from political support not only from the National Front and from MSI deputy Sandro Saccucci, but also from other political personalities belonging to the DC and to the Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI). According to Monzat, investigations also discovered that the military attaché at the US embassy was closely connected to the coup organizers and that one of the main accused declared to the magistrate that US President Richard Nixon had followed the preparations for the coup, of which he was personally informed by two CIA officers. These facts were confirmed through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in December 2004. However, only a few marginalized sectors of the CIA were in favour of the coup, while the main response was not to allow major changes in the geopolitical balance in the Mediterranean.
caption: Junio Valerio Borghese in 1970.
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