Belgian Stay-behind Network - History

History

The history of the Belgian branch of the Gladio network starts in 1948 when Prime Minister Paul-Henri Spaak and Minister of Justice Paul Struye gave the Staatsveiligheid (State Security Service) permission to discuss with allied intelligence services the organization of a clandestine stay-behind network. These negotiations mainly happened with Sir Stewart Menzies of the British SIS and representatives of the then freshly founded CIA. The explicit objectives of this collaboration were outlined in a top-secret letter from Menzies to Spaak:

The amount of influence at this early stage, accredited to the CIA varies from source to source. CIA did not yet have full authority over the Office of Policy Coordination, which directed U.S. covert action until 1952. During the initial negotiations Menzies proposed to keep the US out of the organization, but Spaak objected a further developments not being in a tripartite (Belgium–Great-Britain–United States) or multilateral setting. In the final report of the parliamentary inquiry there is little mention of CIA involvement, but investigative journalist Walter de Bock points, based on Pentagon documents, at the CIA's significant early organizational role and de facto control until 1968. Similarly, Colonel Margot complains in an internal note, dated April 8, 1959, about the influence of the US intelligence services on the Belgian branch of the Gladio-network.

These initial negotiations led to closer collaboration between the three countries' secret services under the name Tripartite Meeting Belgium. Following this meeting, the Belgian stay-behind network became operational, but it was not until January 4, 1952 that the first formal instructions for stay-behind operations were issued to Ludovicus Caeymaex (Staatsveiligheid) and General Etienne Baele.

Growing polarization between East and West and awareness of the need for continental collaboration led to the foundation in 1949 of the Comité Clandestin de l'Union Occidentale (C.C.U.O.), which contained Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and Great-Britain. The C.C.U.O. laid the base for the formation of the NATO and coordinated the various stay-behind networks in the five member countries. Its functions were transferred to the Clandestine Planning Committee (C.P.C.), another NATO-organization in 1951, which was renamed in to Coordination and Planning Committee in 1959. The C.P.C. elaborated a plan for installing two taskgroups, one for communications and one for secret networks, a structure reflected in the Allied Coordination Committee (A.C.C.) founded in 1958 to relieve the C.P.C. of some of its tasks.

The A.C.C. consisted of the members of the C.C.U.O. plus the US and coordinated the stay-behind activities, as was stipulated on its first meeting in April 1959 under French supervision:

The A.C.C. is a six-power regional committee for providing mutual consultation and developing policy guidance on matters of common interest regarding stay behind matters in the Western European countries concerned. |30px|30px|Declaration of principles, April 29–30, 1959

These interlocking coordination organizations, like the C.P.C. and A.C.C, were initially headquartered in Paris, but moved along with SHAPE, NATO's central headquarters, to Mons in Belgium after the French withdrawal from NATO's unified command structure in 1966. After the initial six counties, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Norway became members of the A.C.C.. Though all of the counties were members of NATO, an official link between the A.C.C and NATO was denied. The parliamentary committee noted "... one can not do away with the impression that in practice closer and closer relations did come to exist".

The following decades the stay-behind activities were mainly coordinated through A.C.C.-meetings. These activities consisted officially of (multinational) training activities like infiltration, parachute jumping and long range communications, of which numerous were held at least between 1972 and 1989. Due to the secretive nature of the network, the milieu of various operatives involved and the Cold War setting, allegations were raised that the stay-behind network was during this time also at least indirect involved with clandestine actions on Belgian soil. The last documented meeting of the A.C.C took place on 23 and 24 October 1990 under supervision of General Van Calster, where the participants discussed a.o. a scaling-back of the stay-behind network in light of changing international relations.

This was the meeting Andreotti was referring to following the October 24, 1990 revelation of the existence of Gladio in Italy, a revelations several others governments' spokespersons reacted to by claiming that any stay-behind in their own country was history. This only exasperated Andreotti, who declared to the press that the last stay-behind meeting had taken place in Belgium a few days ago. After the exposure of the Italian branch and inquiries by Italian officials to their Belgian counterparts, Defense minister Guy Coëme and Prime Minister Wilfried Martens made the existence of the Belgian section of the Gladio-network public in a press meeting on November 7, 1990.

The government decided on November 23, 1990, a few days after the proposition for a parliamentary investigation to officially disband the network.