ARTICLE FROM TIME MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY 8, 1982. TERRORISM. 'POLICE! MARVELOUS!'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00788R000100270002-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 17, 1998
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: February 8, 1982
• Content Type: NSPR

World
"Police! Marvelous!"
In a dramatic raid, Italian commandos free a kidnaped U.S. general
;,gI 82
At precisely 11:28 a.m. last T Tars- ment the leatherheads first entered the that he would be unable to identify his
dav, an unmarked van carrying building, barely 90 seconds had elapsed. surroundings.
ten special agents of Italy's Cen- Thus ended the 42-day captivity of But Dozier, deputy chief of staff for lo-
tral Operative Security Nucleus, U.S. Brigadier General James L. Dozier, gistics and administration and the highest
a tough antiterrorist squad known collo- 50, as well as the largest man hunt in Ital- ranking U.S. officer at NATO's Southern
quially as the "leatherheads" for the tight- ian history. A dramatic and unexpected Europe land forces headquarters in Vero-
fitting leather hoods worn during special triumph, it was only the second time in na, recovered with remarkable speed. At
operations, pulled up behind a modern the Red Brigades' decade-long reign of Padua police headquarters, the Florida-
eight-story apartment building in Padua. terror that one of the group's kidnaping born career soldier insisted, "I'm fine,"
Police had quietly cordoned off VITTORIANO RASTELLI and called his wife Judith in
the Via Pindemonte, the normally Frankfurt, where she was visiting
busy street out front, and shoppers her daughter Cheryl, 24, an Air
in the supermarket on the ground Force second lieutenant. Then he
floor were startled to find them- called his boss, Admiral William
selves locked inside - for their J. Crowe, commander of NATO's
own safety. Then the commandos Southern Region. Speaking by
rushed inside the building, carry- telephone to U.S. Ambassador
ing machine guns and dressed in Maxwell Rabb in Rome, Dozier
blue jeans, bulletproof vests and recounted the final seconds before
masks to prevent identification by he was freed. Said he: "At the mo-
terrorists. ment I was rescued,. a gun was
As police outside started up a pointed at me and I didn't know
bulldozer to cover the sounds of whether that was my last mo-
what was to come,. the squad ment. You must realize my feeling
rushed quickly to the second- of relief when I was taken in, hand
floor apartment of Emanuela Fra- by Italian authorities."
University of Venice.and a Red Dozier was then taken to
Brigades terrorist. One comman- the U.S. military hospital
do opened the steel-reinforced at Vicenza, where he was
door of the apartment with a skel- declared in good health.
eton key, and his colleagues burst With a six-week growth of beard
inside. In the hallway they en- and shaggy, tousled hair, the
countered Giovanni Ciucci, 32, a normally crew-cut general made
Red Brigades member, who had several special requests to hospital
heard the key -turn in the lock and personnel. The first: a haircut.
was rushing, pistol in hand, to in- The second: a cheeseburger,
vestigate. Before he had a chance French fries and a Coke. He got
to fire, one of the leatherheads both wishes, but not before he was
knocked him flat with a karate tearfully reunited with his wife
chop, and the others scrambled and daughter, who had by then
down the hallway. Dozier happily embraces Wife Judith after meeting the press flown in to meet him. Declared
In a room on the right they "On the receiving end of prayers, you sure as hell can feel it. " Judith Dozier: "We want to say
found the leader of the terrorist thanks to all the people in the
cell, Antonio Savasta, 27, standing next to victims had been rescued by police.* Said world for their love and their prayers."
a pup tent pitched in the middle of the a somewhat shaken Dozier to his Italian The general echoed that sentiment at
room. Inside the tent, chained to a cot, liberators: "Police! Marvelous!" a no-questions press conference the next
was a shoeless, bearded man in a dark Indeed it was. Dozier, who had been afternoon. He praised the Italian police
blue jogging suit. Savasta was holding a abducted on Dec. 17 from his Verona effort for its "speed and precision," then
silencer-equipped pistol to the man's apartment by I"Mrigades members dis- added, "When you are on the receiving
head. Before Savasta could pull the trig- guised as plumbers, seemed to be in a con- end of prayers, you sure as hell can feel
ger, however, a commando hit him from dition that was one part shock and two it." He also presented Judith with a belat-
behind with the butt of his machine gun parts euphoria immediately after he was ed Christmas gift: a gold chain with a pen-
and knocked him to the floor. rescued. That was understandable. For dant of the Lion of St. Mark, his head-
The rest of the squad continued to the six weeks he had been held hostage in the quarters emblem.
rear of the five-room apartment, where Padua apartment, apparently never leav- News of Dozier's rescue spread rapid-
they found the three remaining terrorists: ing. He was often blindfolded, and his ly. President Reagan was awakened by
Frascella, Savasta's girlfriend Emilia Li- ears were stuffed with wax to ensure National Security Adviser William Clark
bera, 26, and Cesare di Lenardo, 22. The at 6:50 a.m. Thursday, 40 minutes before
three put their hands up immediately. 'on wane 5,1975, Malian Industrialist Vittorio Gan- he normally rises. Said the President later
p cia was freed by y police during a raid on a Red Bri-
Not a shot had been fired. From the mo- gades hideout near Turin. that day: "The same courage and resolve
36 E. FEBRUARY 8, 1982
 For Release 2000/08/07 : CIA-RDP96-00788R000100270002-1
Felled by a karate chop, Terrorist Giovanni Ciuccl
Iles In hallway of the Padua apartment as the
.that James Dozier demonstrated on the
battlefield in wartime have seen him
through- this new test with flying colors.'!.
Added Reagan, describing his own brief'
phone conversation with Dozier: "He
sounded as if he'd just gone down to the
corner for five minutes." Defense Secre-'
tary Caspar Weinberger received a call, from his Italian counterpart, Lelio La-
gorio, who speaks little English. Weinber-
ger, who speaks little Italian, broke the
language barrier with an exultant "Mag-
nifico!" Answered Lagorio happily: "SI!
Si!" In Dozier's home town, Arcadia, Fla.,
(pop. 6,047), townspeople draped century-
old oaks with yellow ribbons and declared
a day of celebration in honor of their na-
tive son.
The Italians were especially jubilant
at having cracked the case. Exulted Prime
Minister Giovanni Spadolini: "General
Dozier has been liberated. The soldier of a
friendly nation has been returned to his
loved ones." In Rome, Pope John Paul II
expressed "relief and satisfaction" at the
rescue. Spontaneous cheers echoed during
a session of Parliament in Rome. Excited
Italians dialed the emergency police num-
ber, 113, just to offer congratulations. The
outcry put to rest a growing impression
abroad that the Italian public had become
inured to the country's seemingly perpet-
ual terrorism. Summed up Oscar Mammi,
a member of Parliament: "The liberation
of Dozier represents an outstanding suc-
cess in the fight against terrorism and re-
inforces the prestige of our nation."
The Itali MW&Wd
TIME. FEBRUARY 8. 1982
In the living room, Red Brigades Cell Leader Antonio Savasta hears the commo-
tion and trains his pistol on the general, but Is clobbered from behind by a mem-
congratulation. After years of impotent
anguish, watching helplessly as terrorists
kidnaped and killed prominent business
and political leaders almost at will, the
government had finally won a major vic-
tory against terrorism. There had been
too many losses. In 1978 former Prime
Minister Aldo Moro was found shot to
death in a car trunk after nearly two
months of imprisonment by the Red Bri-
gades. Industrialist -Giuseppe Taliercio
was brutally murdered last year after his
brigatisti captors had held him for 47
days. In all, three Red Brigades abduc-
tions have ended in death and a dozen or
so in the victims' release.
This time, after a series of police ar-
rests over the past year had de-
pleted their front ranks, the mili-
tant Brigades faction apparently
decided to reassert its strength with an es-
pecially bold gesture. For the first time,
they kidnaped a non-Italian. It proved to
be a mistake. Prodded by the U.S.,.the
Italian government threw some 2,000 in-
vestigators on the case. The dragnet was a
success. Besides freeing Dozier, the police
netted between 60 and 70 suspected ter-
rorists, discovered 16 of their hideaways
and unearthed key documents and plans
for future guerrilla actions. In its broad
sweep, the police search managed an un-
precedented penetration of the Red Bri-
gades, an organization of a few hundred
hard-core activists and several times that
many sympathizers.
078R04y%2P0OQa#duction,
37
 Approved For Release 2000/08/07 WrRFP96-00788R000100270002-1
police roadblocks and searches began
producing arrests of both confirmed and
suspected terrorists. Leads and clues pro-
liferated, among them an unfortunate
number of bogus tips and hoaxes. Four
weeks ago, for instance, an anonymous
call prompted police to drain a lake about
30 miles from Pescara on the Adriatic
coast, where Dozier's body was supposed
to have been dumped. But while Dozier
endured the taunting leftist rhetoric of his
captors, the case began to break open.
On Jan. 4, two suspected terrorists,
Stefano Petrella and Ennio di Rocco,
were arrested near Rome's famed Spanish
Steps. Those arrests led to raids on three
Rome apartments, where police turned
up Brigades documents and weapons and
ten more Red Brigades members, includ-
ing Giovanni Senzani, a former criminol-
ogist who became leader of
the Brigades' Rome column.
Less than two weeks later, af-
ter a bank robbery in Siena,
police arrested two members
of an ultramilitant Red Bri-
gades splinter group called
Prima Linea, or Front Line.
the discovery of a secret
Rome hideout, which, re-
markably, was used as a
medical facility where ter-
rorists wounded in police
shootouts could come for
emergency care. Soon after-
ward, police discovered an-
other rich lode of Prima Li-
nea documents and photos in
a Naples safe house.
The national police, in
conjunction with local anti-
terrorist task forces and the
Interior Ministry, sensed that
antiterrorist force took up their positions
in the street, ready to intervene in case of
trouble. Moments later, the truck carry-
ing the ten leatherheads pulled up behind
the building, and the raid was on.
Four of the five terrorists arrested
were taken to an undisclosed location.
Ciucci was rushed to a nearby hospital in
serious condition after sustaining the ka-
rate blow in the hallway. All but Ciucci
and Frascella, whose father is a respected
Padua doctor, were well known to antiter-
rorist specialists. Indeed, Savasta and Li-
bera were recently convicted in a Cagliari
court and sentenced to prison in absentia
for several bank robberies and their in-
volvement in a 1980 shootout with police.
In the apartment, police found large num-
bers of Red Brigades documents and the
two slogan-filled posters that Dozier was
General Frederick Kroesen
miraculously escaped harm
during a grenade attack on
his car by unknown assail-
ants near Heidelberg. Since
then, two American diplo-
mats, Christian Chapman in
Paris and Ambassador Rabb
in Rome, have been targets
of apparent assassination at-
tempts. Only two weeks ago,
U.S. Military Attachd Lieut.
Colonel Charles R. Ray was
fatally gunned down outside
his Paris apartment.
Officials of the Reagan
Administration say they have
"no direct evidence" of for-
eign involvement in Dozier's
kidnaping. But they point out
that Soviet-made weapons
seized in the Jan: 9 Rome
raid bore "certain modifica-
they were getting close to After the raid, police guard entrance to the Via Pindemonte building _ tions" that suggest they were
Dozier. But ironically, their A textbook-operation: people talked and every lead was followed up. funneled to the Red Brigades
successes played only a mi- from Palestinian sources.
nor role in finally locating him. A major
drug bust in Verona, last Wednesday
seems to have yielded the final link to Do-
zier's whereabouts. Among those arrested
in the raid was Paolo Galati, 22, brother
of Michele Galati, who is currently in
prison for terrorist acts. Sources said Ga-
lati's name had been mentioned by Stefa-
no Petrella after that brigatista's arrest in
Rome. Police flew Petrella to Padua to
confront Paolo Galati. Somehow, that
meeting led police to the apartment on
Via Pindemonte. As early as Tuesday, the
U.S. embassy was informed that some sort
of action to rescue Dozier was imminent.
Police began moving in on the Via
Pindemonte building early Thurs-
day morning. A former plan for a
nighttime raid on the apartment
was rejected because streets in the partly
commercial area would be too quiet then,
and Dozier's captors might notice any un-
usual activity. At about 10 a.m., 28 police
and unmarked cars surrounded the area.
Half an hour later, members of the special
forced to hold up for photos released dur- Moreover, the Americans suspect that
ing his captivity. The Red Brigades flag "external" intelligence information was
that Dozier stood before in the photos supplied to the Red Brigades in selecting
hung in the living room. Also discovered targets.
were pistols, plastic explosives, grenades Dozier may be able to shed some light
and photocopying equipment for faked on the Brigades' international connec-
identity cards. tions once he is fully debriefed on the sub-
From the beginning the U.S. Depart- ject. Publicly, he described his captors
ment of Defense had supplied a team of only as "a bunch of dedicated people."
counterterrorist experts to aid in the For the moment, Administration officials
search for Dozier. The U.S. and Italian are assuming that U.S. Government em-
governments worked together closely, ployees in Italy are still in danger from
agreed not to negotiate with the terrorists the Red Brigades. Says one American of-
and were both faithful to a news blackout, ficial: "We don't want to get creamed by
but the Americans played only a minor the euphoric aftereffects of the rescue."
role in the operation. There is also little Though extra security has been thrown
reason to believe that the $1.6 million "re- around the U.S. embassy in anticipation
ward" put up by anonymous donors was of terrorist reprisals for last week's dra-
used to loosen the tongues of terrorist in- matic bust, U.S. officials seem philosophi-
formers. Said an admiring U.S. official of cal about living with renewed threats.
the Italian police effort: "It was a text- Among them is James Dozier, who last
book operation. They cracked the col- week told reporters that he was "proud of
umn, the people talked and they followed my assignment at NATO"-and obviously
up every single lead." Added another more than ready to get back to his office
American on the case: "It was just damn in Verona. -By Russ Hoyle. Reportedby
good police work." Barry Kalb/Vlcenzaand Wilton Wynn/Rome
Still, few in Italy believe they have
seen the last of the Red Brigades. Both
U.S. and Italian officials are concerned
that the terrorists received at least some
assistance from foreign radicals and Sovi-
et-bloc governments. Indeed, a Brigades
communiqud in December called for uni-
ty with the terrorist West German Red
Army Faction, the violence-prone Irish
Republican Army and ETA, Spain's mili-
tant Basque-separatist organization. A
188-page document issued later declared
that in capturing Dozier the Red Brigades
were making their struggle international.
The tract seemed to lend credibility to the
idea that the recent upsurge in attacks on
U.S. military and diplomatic personnel
around the world is a coordinated effort.
In fact, Dozier was the fifth American of-
ficial to fall prey to a terrorist threat since
38 Approved or Releasd P 6-00788R000100270002x4E,FEBRUARY8,1982