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

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