Ordine Nuovo

aka Armed Revolutionary Nuclei (ARN)

On December 12, 1969, a bomb exploded in the Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Milan's Piazza Fontana, killing 16 and wounding 90. Authorities later determined that Ordine Nuovo, an Italian right-wing neo-fascist group, was responsible for the attack. The bombing marked the beginning of Ordine Nuovo's “strategy of tension”—a series of public bombings intended to destabilize Italy and diminish support for the Communist Party. The group's terror-bombing campaign would continue for more than a decade.

The origins of Ordine Nuovo are still in dispute. Among of the fiercest advocates for fascism in Italy, Ordine Nuovo was organized around 1960 by a journalist named Pino Rauti; it was long mired in controversy over an alleged connection to the CIA. Informants have testified that Rauti and many other Italian fascists were actually “rehabilitated” Nazi collaborators tapped by the CIA for a North Atlantic Treaty Organization “stay ...