Daniele Ganser

Daniele Ganser (born 29 August 1972) is a Swiss historian. His book NATO's Secret Armies (2004) addresses secret armies run by NATO, especially Operation Gladio. In 2006, he wrote a chapter in 9/11 & American Empire (ed. David Ray Griffin) scrutinizing the official story on 9/11.

Ganser was born in Lugano, Switzerland and was Senior Researcher at the ETH Zurich, Center for Security Studies (CSS). He was president (2006–2012) of the Swiss branch of the "Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas" (ASPO), and teaches History and Future of Energy Systems at the University of St. Gallen.

In 2004 Ganser published the book, NATO's Secret Armies: Ganser states that Gladio units were in close cooperation with NATO and the CIA and that Gladio in Italy was responsible for terrorist attacks against the Italian civilian population.

Peer Henrik Hansen, a scholar at Roskilde University, wrote two scathing criticisms of the book for the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence and the Journal of Intelligence History, describing Ganser's work as "a journalistic book with a big spoonful of conspiracy theories" that "fails to present proof of and an in-depth explanation of the claimed conspiracy between USA, CIA, NATO and the European countries." Hansen also criticized Ganser for basing his "claim of the big conspiracy" on the US Army Field Manual 30-31B, which members of the intelligence community claim is just a 'Cold War era hoax document.' Hayden Peake's book review Intelligence in Recent Public Literature describes: "Ganser fails to document his thesis that the CIA, MI6, and NATO and its friends turned GLADIO into a terrorist organization." Philip HJ Davies of the Brunel University Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies likewise concludes that the book is "marred by imagined conspiracies, exaggerated notions of the scale and impact of covert activities, misunderstandings of the management and coordination of operations within and between national governments, and... an almost complete failure to place the actions and decisions in question in the appropriate historical context." According to Davies, "The underlying problem is that Ganser has not really undertaken the most basic necessary research to be able to discuss covert action and special operations effectively." Olav Riste of the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, writing for the journal Intelligence and National Security, mentions several instances where his own research on the stay-behind network in Norway was twisted by Ganser and concludes that "A detailed refutation of the many unfounded allegations that Ganser accepts as historical findings would fill an entire book." In a later joint article with Leopoldo Nuti of the University of Rome, the two concluded that the book's "ambitious conclusions do not seem to be entirely corroborated by a sound evaluation of the sources available."

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