Radio War Nerd EP #139 — Years Of Lead, Part 3: Ustica, Bologna Massacre & the Radical Implosion (Patreon)

Guest: Annibale, Italian War Nerd

Recorded June 27, 2018

In this third and final part in our "Years Of Lead" series, Annibale walks us through the strange and bloody final period (1977-early 1980s). We start the episode off with a bunch of questions we've been wanting to ask Annibale  —then pick up around the time of Aldo Moro's mysterious kidnapping-murder by the Red Brigades, through the final self-destructive violence of Italy's radical revolutionary leftists. Annibale then tells us about the darkest  mystery in that era—the Ustica crash, when an Italian passenger plane was shot down by a missile killing everyone aboard, and the deadly coverups that followed the Ustica crash to this day. We also learn about how the links between the Bologna Massacre, when a train station bomb killed 85 people, and the Ustica crash mystery. And there's plenty of strange Italian grotesque, like the famous  child actor-turned-neofascist terrorist, Valerio Fioravanti, implicated in the Bologna massacre. A very, very strange and dark finale to a strange and dark period that we knew far too little about. . . . 

* Map of Ustica crash showing positions of various NATO jets & bases (in Italian)

* Child actor neofascist terrorist Valerio Fioravanti & his neofascist partner Francesca Mambro, convicted in Bologna massacre

Total time: 2:49:55

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here