Ford halts $4.8 million secret operation in Italy
By Harlan Pryce ·
House committee leaks and the fall of Premier Moro stopped a $4.8 million operation that Bill Colby denied had spent a cent, though details of the program's stages stay blacked out.
Washington, February 9, 1976. Brent Scowcroft, the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, sent a memorandum to President Gerald Ford with a clear, urgent request: suspend the covert action program in Italy.
The operation had been set in motion just two months prior. On December 4, 1975, Ford had signed a Presidential Finding under Section 662 of the Foreign Assistance Act. In the world of clandestine operations, the Finding is the essential legal anchor; it is the formal determination by the President that a specific operation is important to national security. Without it, the agency is operating in a vacuum of authority. This particular program was designed as a three-stage effort with a budget of $4.8 million, though the specific details of those stages remain redacted in the record.
Section 662
Once the Finding was signed, the machinery of oversight began to turn. The Director of Central Intelligence, Bill Colby, was instructed to brief the six required congressional committees. These briefings took place between December 8 and December 16. In a disciplined operation, the circle of knowledge remains tight, but the December briefings for the House and Senate proved porous.
By late December, the program was no longer a secret. Leaks began to surface, some appearing to stem from the final draft report of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. The committee was already focused on past covert actions in Italy, and the new program provided fresh fuel for the fire. The resulting publicity was not merely a nuisance; it was a precise strike against the operation's viability. The record notes a second redaction immediately following the mention of these leaks, leaving a gap in the account of how the information escaped the committee rooms.
Bill Colby's Denial
As the leaks intensified, the narrative in the press shifted from the existence of a plan to the execution of payments. Allegations emerged that the CIA had already funneled at least $6 million in secret payments to Italian politicians since the December 8 briefings. This figure exceeded the entire approved budget of $4.8 million, suggesting either a massive failure in financial discipline or, more likely, a misunderstanding of the program's scope by those leaking the information.
Bill Colby responded with a blunt denial, declaring that "not one cent had been spent."
For a case officer, a denial from the DCI is a necessary stopgap, but it rarely kills the "aura of suspicion" once it has taken root in a foreign capital. When the target population—in this case, the Italian political establishment—believes they are being bought or manipulated by a foreign power, the environment becomes toxic. The tradecraft required to move money or influence policy depends on a certain level of discretion. Once the House Select Committee had effectively signaled the program's existence, the operational window slammed shut.
Premier Moro and the June Elections
While the leaks created a strategic crisis in Washington, a tactical crisis was unfolding in Rome. The Italian political scene underwent a "dramatic change" during the winter of 1975 and 1976. The Socialists withdrew from the governing coalition, a move that destabilized the administration and forced the resignation of Premier Aldo Moro.
With Moro gone and the government in flux, the timetable Scowcroft and the 40 Committee had envisioned for the $4.8 million program was no longer applicable. The memorandum notes that national elections by June were a possibility. In the eyes of the National Security Council, the combination of adverse publicity and political volatility rendered the operation unfeasible.
The 40 Committee—the interagency group responsible for reviewing and approving covert actions—met on February 3 to assess the damage. Their conclusion was pragmatic: defer the program. They did not recommend a permanent cancellation, but rather a suspension. A working group was tasked to monitor the situation and recommend a resumption of activity only if it became "feasible and desirable" to support overt U.S. activities in the region.
The memorandum concludes with the necessary administrative sign-off. Ford initialed his approval of Scowcroft’s recommendation on February 9. The record leaves the status of the "working group" and any subsequent attempts to restart the Italian program unresolved.