The hunt for Dozier unveils deadly secrets of the Red Brigades
The discoveries astounded Italian police. Documents seized on Jan. 9 in raids on three Red Brigades hideouts in Rome revealed a frightening agenda for terror: a rocket assault on Christian Democratic Party headquarters, the assassination of a leading Roman judge, the kidnaping of a Fiat executive, bomb attacks on police stations and a mass breakout by jailed left-wing terrorists. Amid the weaponry confiscated in the raids were three Soviet-made antitank grenades with launchers, two French-made air-to-ground missiles and a collection of small arms and plastic explosives.
The police operation was one of the most effective blows against Italian terrorism since it first raised its head a decade ago. The authorities also stumbled upon a possible link with the abduction by brigatisti of U.S. Brigadier General James Dozier in Verona on Dec. 17. Even as police were still sifting through the newly discovered evidence, a Brigades courier turned up at one of the raided apartments to deliver a message to Giovanni Senzani, 39, a Brigades mastermind, who had been arrested during the swoop. The note requested Senzani's advice on how to handle the Dozier kidnaping. Investigators concluded that the letter came from Dozier's captors and hoped to trace the courier's trail back to their hideaway.
The material discovered in Senzani's apartment provided new insight into the fissures dividing the Brigades. Since the killing of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978, the group has split into two factions: the "militarists" who espouse the killing and kidnaping of all perceived enemies, and the "propagandists" who contend that terrorist tactics—including killing—must actually undermine state institutions. The dichotomy is believed to run through the five major Brigades columns, in Rome, Turin, Milan, Genoa and the Veneto area.
Police suspect that Dozier was captured by the Veneto militarist wing. A clumsy interrogation of the general published in a communique on Dec. 27 displayed neither ideological sophistication nor skill at questioning. According to evidence found in his apartment, Senzani, the leader of the Rome column's propagandists, opposed the Dozier kidnaping, believing it to be irrelevant to the Brigades' true aims. Police theorize that the arrested courier was carrying the kidnapers' invitation to Senzani, who once studied at the University of California in Berkeley and speaks English, to assist in future interrogations of Dozier. In previous kidnapings—of Rome Magistrate Giovanni D'Urso and Christian Democratic Politician Ciro Cirillo—Senzani had served as the grand inquisitor.
Despite the fresh discoveries about the Brigades, there were no signs last week that the authorities were closing in on Dozier's captors. Thousands of police searched Verona; indeed, the Italian government claimed that it had mobilized more forces in the Dozier manhunt than in the Moro case. Still, the security forces were hampered by a lack of coordination among different police and security services that were decentralized after World War II to thwart the chances of a power seizure in the style of Benito Mussolini. Says an American official: "The lessons of fascism have required the system to be decentralized and amorphous."