Golpe Borghese

Golpe Borghese
Part of the Years of lead and Neo-fascist activity in Italy
Front page of the newspaper Paese Sera on the failed neo-fascist coup
Date	7–8 December 1970
Location	Rome
Goals	Overthrow of centre-left national government
Methods	Coup d'etat
Resulted in	Coup suspended

The Golpe Borghese (English: Borghese Coup) was a failed Italian coup d'état allegedly planned for the night of 7 or 8 December 1970. It was named after Junio Valerio Borghese, wartime commander of the Decima Flottiglia MAS and a hero in the eyes of many post-War Italian fascists. The coup attempt became publicly known when the left-wing journal Paese Sera ran the headline on the evening of 18 March 1971: Subversive plan against the Republic: far-right plot discovered.

The secret operation was code-named Operation Tora Tora after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.^[1] The plan of the coup in its final phase envisaged the involvement of US and NATO warships which were on alert in the Mediterranean Sea. The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reportedly followed the coup, with President Richard Nixon being personally informed of it. Yet in leaked documents, the US ambassador to Rome is quoted saying "The last thing we need right now is a half-cooked coup d’état … We wouldn’t support it."^[2]