The Pinochet Regime and the Trans-nationalization of Italian Neo-fascism

Operation Condor was a Latin American organization—the relationship between General Augusto Pinochet and the Italian Neo-Fascists also provides a fascinating and unique picture of Fascism’s transnational features. Firstly, it demonstrates the persistence of transnational relations between Fascists and Fascist sympathizers over decades. The influence of Fascism on Chilean nationalist movements and the link between Pinochet and Junio Valerio Borghese, who represented a myth for different Fascist generations, is illustrative. This feature ensured the survival of the Fascist transnational network, which originated from the relations that revolved around the spreading of Fascism at a transnational level, throughout several decades. A further factor fostering the survival of the network was the logistic support provided by friendly regimes to the network’s members. Former Nazi and Fascist militants wanted for war crimes as well as Italian Neo-Fascists seeking to avoid judicial prosecution in Italy were all welcomed by sympathetic regimes such as Spain, Chile and Argentina. The opportunity of finding a safe refuge in those countries also promoted regular exchanges between the interwar Fascist generation and the post-war one. This chapter examines the dynamic transnational trajectories of Fascist militants and ideas and the resilience of relations within the transnational network. The collaboration between Pinochet and Italian Neo-Fascists was mutually beneficial—in 1975, they cooperated in the attempted murder of Bernardo Leighton in Rome. In 1976, thanks to the transnational links between Latin American Juntas, Fernandez Larios and Pinochet’s agent Michael Townley obtained fake Paraguayan passports which they used to enter the US and assassinate Orlando Letelier.