Giovanni Allavena
 Giovanni Allavena    (spook) | ||||||||||||||
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| Born | 1917 | |||||||||||||
| Died | September 1991 (Age 73) | |||||||||||||
| Nationality | Italian | |||||||||||||
| Member of | Propaganda Due/Member | |||||||||||||
| Interests | • Piano Solo • Gladio • Enrico Mattei • P2 | |||||||||||||
Head of Italian intelligence service SIFAR, connected to "some the darkest events that took place in Italy after the war". Removed after files scandal in 1966. Member of P2.
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General Giovanni Allavena was the last director of the military intelligence service Sifar, and connected to "some the darkest events that took place in Italy after the war".
Career
A 1991 obituary said:
General of the carabinieri Giovanni Allavena, and commander of the military secret service when he was called Sifar, died in Rome. Very well known in the Sixties, Allavena came back to talk with the explosion of the Gladio case and especially, in January of this year, with the publication of the redacted material of the so-called "Piano Solo", the planned coup of 1964.
Before that, Allavena's name had reappeared in the newspapers in March 1981, with the publication of Licio Gelli's P2 lists. But the juxtaposition of his name to some of the darkest events that took place in Italy after the war, dates back to the activity he carried out since 1956 when from Ancona (where he headed the local counterintelligence center) he was called to Rome by De Lorenzo, just become head of Sifar.
It was the beginning of a lightning career, supported in every way by his superior. Having the rank of major, Allavena could not have headed the grouping of counterintelligence centers in Rome. The problem was overcome by downgrading the Roman grouping to "group". A similar event happened in 1965 when the problem arose of replacing General Egidio Viggiani in command of the Sifar. De Lorenzo, meanwhile, had gone to command the carabinieri. Colonel Allavena was promoted to general "for exceptional merits" and, thus, he was able to go to command the secret service. It was June 5, 1965.
A little over a year later, he had to resign following the explosion of the Sifar files scandal. Before leaving, he took possession of a series of files that ended up in the archives of Gelli. The resignation from the command of the Sifar was, in fact, a removal. But General Allavena obtained from the government a prestigious post: Councilor of State. He had to leave in April 1967, after the resignation of General De Lorenzo as chief of staff of the Army.
The last public appearances at the end of last year. On November 21, in Venice, where he was questioned for about four hours by Judge Mastelloni in the investigation of Argo 16. On 4 December at the opening ceremony of the academic year of the carabinieri where he received a warm greeting from the head of State and, in the afternoon of the same day, in San Macuto to be heard on the Gladio case by the control committee of the secret services.[1]
The death of Enrico Mattei
Around the wreck of the exploded plane of Enrico Mattei in 1962, "there was a swarm of law enforcement men, Eni staff and plainclothes agents of the Sifar, the military secret service of the time, at the head of which the Prime Minister, Amintore Fanfani, had appointed two weeks earlier General Giovanni Allavena, whose name will appear many years later in the lists of the secret masonic lodge P2."[2]
