Salto di Quirra, the nuclear missile & Beelzebub

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Holocaust of Europe

After all, after the Soviet Union had scored the test of the first Soviet atomic bomb, the military strategists argued loudly that the threat of a holocaust in the land of Europe should be countered without half measures. Bread with bread, wine with wine. Having failed to bring together Italy, still ravaged by war, France and Germany, the Italian government of Amintore Fanfani was left with no other way than to deal directly with the US administration of President Eisenhower. The agreement was not "honorable". The Americans "decided" that the Italians would be second guardians of thirty US PGM-19 Jupiter missiles, positioned at the Gioia del Colle air base in Puglia. Calling them Italian atomic bombs was like arguing that the Colosseum was American. In reality, the Italians couldn't even see those bombs, let alone touch them.

Yankee, bye bye

Italy then asked Washington to support the experimental conversion of the cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi into a missile launcher, capable of carrying nuclear warheads at a range of about 4,000 kilometers. The Yankees, however, to relax relations with the Soviet Union, after the missile crisis in Cuba, decide to "give up" Italy's atomic ambitions. It is at that point that the idea of self-producing missile and atomic bomb burns in the palaces of Rome. Generals, warmongers and experienced politicians decide to talk to Luigi Broglio, the father engineer of the Italian astronautics, a local in the Salto di Quirra, extreme land on the boundless island of Sardinia.

State secret

The delivery is Taliban: absolute silence. Nobody has to know. The restricted conciliabolo between the Chief of Staff of Defense and the Air Force decides that in Sardinia there are the conditions of confidentiality and secrecy to fine-tune the Italian atomic mission. With Broglio, strategist of that mission to be passed off as civilian, given his scientific propensity for the launch of satellites and the like, it was decided to focus on a "medium range" missile, that is of medium range. The dimensions chosen, however, are nuclear war without a tomorrow. The project to be tested at the Capo San Lorenzo base, on the eastern coast of Sardinia, envisages a missile with a range of approximately 1,600 kilometers, capable of carrying nuclear warheads weighing one ton.

Atomic made in Italy

An all-Italian missile, to be tested and tested on the Italian military colony island, the ancient land of the Nuraghi. The lethal weapon, to be built, will be designed with two stages, one six and a half meters high, with a diameter of 1.37 meters and a weight of ten tons, including a nuclear warhead. According to Broglio's calculations he would have been able to annihilate all the capitals of the Warsaw Pact and the western part of the former Soviet Union. But not only that, the range was also capable of attacking the former Yugoslavia without a tomorrow, and subsequently, also the Libya of the riotous Mu'ammar Gaddafi.

Giulio on the pitch

This is where Giulio Andreotti himself takes the field, the Beelzebub of Italian politics, that eminence gray who wove wires and barbed wire everywhere, from the time when he dabbled as Defense Minister in government of simulated weapons and wars. His "atomic" plan is dated and dates back to the time when he led as Minister General and the Armed Forces. These are the secret and armored papers that tell him in detail, including those letters sent to him personally by unlikely "envoys" who were involved in buying enriched uranium around the world, in the name and on behalf of Giulio Andreotti.

Alpha Mission 1

It is he who, as President of the Council of Ministers, in 1972, signs the Alfa-1 operation. The order is clear: to produce one hundred, say 100, Alpha-1 missiles, those capable of loading a warhead with a thousand kilos of nuclear explosives and detonating it 1,600 kilometers away, in enemy land. In short, a war without a tomorrow. At the same time he also signs the start of the scale tests. Needless to say, everyone in Sardinia. In great secrecy, of course, without anyone being in the least suspicious of what was really happening. Yesterday as today, the thesis of civil experimentation was offered to the curious nosers. In reality, however, the most powerful ballistic missile ever produced in Italy was being tested, capable of penetrating the defensive curtain of Eastern countries with an atomic bomb on board, theoretically much more powerful than those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The chosen scenario overlooks an infinite beach, exclusive and preserved by untouched nature. In the Ogliastra proscenium, the sinuous inlet of Murtas bears witness to an experiment as surreal as it is nefarious.

The launch of Quirra

In the largest military polygon in Europe, that of Salto di Quirra, still surrounded by bold mountain goats and proud herds of deep-sea cattle, the first missile test is about to be carried out which in theory should throw the " Italian atomic bomb ". It is 5 pm on 8 September 1975. They are all there, in that secret and hidden hermitage, in that war amphitheater, marked in the nautical charts of the Sardinian sea as Capo San Lorenzo, dedicated to the martyr of shooting stars, burned over a grill. The Alpha 1 missile is in position (pictured above). The detachment from the launch base is lightning-fast: 60 seconds pass and the missile has reached 25 km of altitude, reaching 110 km of altitude, and falling back 60 kilometers from the Sardinian coast. Successful experiment with a strictly inert warhead. They try again two more times, on 23 October of the same year and on 6 April 1976 (photo below). The launch minutes record: "success". For state finances, however, it is a bloodbath: the Alfa 1 weapon system has reached a cost of six billion lire. Meanwhile, Yugoslavia on the border is abandoning its atomic plans.

Andreotti is looking for uranium

The United States presses Italy to stop nuclear escalation in the West. Andreotti deals with the yield, but at the same time deals with the purchase of uranium around the world. Beelzebub was not joking. The risk of being discovered, however, was put on paper by the Foreign Minister at the time, Arnaldo Forlani, who wrote to Giulio Andreotti, President of the Council of Ministers (letter in the photo): "I receive the letter from the President of Eni enclosed in photocopy about an ongoing uranium procurement negotiation with South Africa which is expected to close at the end of the month. As far as I am concerned - writes Forlani - I cannot fail to point out that given the South African situation, such supplies would end up involving obvious risks ». That letter, classified, like many others, stopped the "atomic" aims in the land of Sardinia forever. Last note: the secret dossier on Alfa 1 in the colony island, with the bloodiest negotiations, does not come from the Italian state archives. To find them you have to unhinge the casket of the British secret services, they had everything for a long time. In Sardinia, however, it is always forbidden to know, yesterday as today.