Michele Metta Permindex docs in Excellent Translation

[Anthony Thorne]

Also of tangential interest - this oral history with FSO Peter Bridges. From page 13, he makes a note of his department head at Middlebury College in 1953.

http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Bridges,%2...0S.toc.pdf

The Dartmouth Russian department was headed by a Russian-American with the name of Dmitri von Mohrenschildt, who came from a family of Baltic Germans in pre-1917 St. Petersburg. I told him that I wanted to go on to graduate studies in Russian at Harvard. He had gotten his Ph.D. at Columbia and he convinced me that Columbia was somehow more serious and a better place to study than Harvard. So I went to Columbia in the fall of 1953 and was working ultimately toward a Ph.D. in Slavic languages and Russian literature, but I was also a student in what was then the Russian Institute, and is now called the Harriman Institute thanks to Averell Harriman's gift of several million dollars. So while I took courses in Russian literature and Slavic languages, I also took courses through the Russian Institute in other fields having to do with Russia and the Soviet Union - law, history, economics and so forth.

Bridges later served at various embassies, and was the Ambassador to Somalia from 1984 to 1986. He also worked for some oil companies on the side. All fair enough. Then Wikileaks published this leaked embassy cable a few years ago. It implicated Bridges in the Gladio activities that were ongoing in Italy through the early 70's. Though he isn't mentioned in the below cable, Borghese popped up in and around the Gladio story in Italy, and the aborted Golpe Borghese government coup of December 1970 was named after him. The domestic investigations into Gladio conducted years after the event all made a point of acknowledging the role that NATO and US intelligence played in stirring things up through the period.

https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1...261_b.html

ISSUE OF SENSATIONAL WEEKLY NEWS JOURNAL QUOTE PANORAMA UNQUOTE CARRIED SCURRILOUS COVER STORY ENTITLED QUOTE THE FASCIST POISON UNQUOTE LINKING THE RIGHT-WING MSI, THE CIA, AND FSO PETER BRIDGES (ASSIGNED ROME 1966 TO 1971) IN PLOT ALLEGED TO INCLUDE 1969 PIAZZA FONTANA (MILAN) BANK BOMBING WHICH TOOK 16 LIVES AND INJURED 88 OTHERS. STORY ALLEGES PLOT AND BOMBING INTENDED TO SPARK SWING TO RIGHT IN PUBLIC OPINION TO PERMIT RIGHT-WING "CHANGE OF COURSE." CHANNELS OF FUNDS TO SUPPORT MSI IN GENERAL, AND THEREFORE CONSPIRACY ALSO, WERE NAMED AS ROME OFFICES OF FEED GRAINS COUNCIL, MERRILL LYNCH, AND CONTINENTAL ILLINOIS BANK OF CHICAGO (LINKED IN STORY TO MICHELE SINDONA). ARTICLE IS BEING TRANSLATED AND WILL BE POUCHED TO ADDEES ASAP.

2. FEED GRAINS COUNCIL HAS INFORMED US THEY CONSIDERING LEGALACTION AND HAVE ASKED ADVICE. EMBASSY IS RESPONDING WITH ADVICE NOT TO DIGNIFY AND ENCOURAGE REPLAY OF ARTICLE BY ANY VOLUNTEERED REBUTTAL OR LEGAL ACTION, BUT TO CATEGORICALLY AND EMPHATICALLY DENY STORY (UNDERSCORE) IF ASKED (END UNDERSCORE). FCC WILL BE TOLD EMBASSY WILL SAY NOTHING PUBLICLY BUT IF ASKED WILL REPLY TO ANY PRESS QUERY WITH STATEMENT THAT STORY IS QUOTE TOTALLY WITHOUT FOUNDATION AND NOT WORTHY OF REPLY UNQUOTE. TO QUESTIONS BY OTHERS THAN PRESS, EMB OFFS WILL LABEL ARTICLE AN OUTRAGEOUS LIE.

So I found it funny that Bridges went from hanging out with George de Mohrenschildt's brother, to being implicated in the anti-communist bombings that had been pushed by guys like William Harvey and Vernon Walters. Small world I guess. Bridges is on LinkedIn. If I was feeling lucky, I'd ask him about it.