A parliamentary inquiry later concluded that its true aim was to “intervene secretly in the political life of the country.”
At its height, P2’s membership approached one thousand and included senior figures from Italy’s intelligence services, armed forces, police, civil service, and business elite, among them Silvio Berlusconi and the editor of Corriere della Sera. The lodge was suspected of serving as a shadow government structure and a potential base for an authoritarian coup should the Communist Party come to power. The exposure of P2’s membership list in 1981 triggered one of the largest political scandals in post-war Italy, revealing the extent to which Gelli’s network had infiltrated state institutions and blurred the boundaries between legitimate power and covert manipulation.
Judicial investigations later found that Gelli and several P2 affiliates had played a role in the aborted Golpe Borghese of 1970, a failed attempt to overthrow the government, and the lodge’s name surfaced repeatedly in inquiries into the kidnapping and assassination of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978, as many generals and officials involved in the investigations were members, though their exact role remained unproven.
Beyond Italy, P2 maintained extensive ties in Latin America, particularly with military regimes in Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, where Gelli cultivated close relations with senior officers involved in the 1976 Argentine coup. These transnational links reinforced P2’s image as a nexus of authoritarian coordination during the Cold War, bridging European reactionary networks with the anti-communist dictatorships of the Southern Cone.
The exposure of P2’s secret membership list in 1981, during investigations into financial scandals involving Banco Ambrosiano, provoked one of the most serious political crises in post-war Italy. It revealed the depth of Gelli’s influence and the extent to which P2 had blurred the line between official institutions and clandestine power.
