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---
category: "World War II & Nazi Era"
title: Junio Valerio Borghese
aliases:
- Junio Valerio Borghese
- Valerio Borghese
- Black Prince
- Il Principe Nero
created: 2026-05-17
updated: 2026-05-17
category: "Intelligence & Government"
tags:
- Person
- WW2
- Nazi
summary: "Junio Valerio Borghese, known as the Black Prince of Borghese, was an Italian aristocrat descended from the Borghese family of the Italian black nobility."
- Italy
- Gladio
- Neofascism
- OSS
- CIA
- StrategyOfTension
- WWII
- 1940s
- 1970s
born: 1906-06-06
died: 1974-08-26
location: "Artena, Province of Rome, Italy"
location: "Rome, Italy"
summary: "Junio Valerio Borghese was the Italian naval commander of the Decima Mas commando unit, sheltered from war crimes prosecution by OSS officer James Angleton in 1945, who became the leading figure of Italian postwar neofascism and organized the December 7-8, 1970 Borghese coup attempt against the Italian government before dying in exile in Spain."
---
Junio Valerio Borghese was born on June 6, 1906, in Rome into one of Italy's most prominent aristocratic families - a descendant of the family of Pope Paul V. A career naval officer, he commanded the Decima Flottiglia MAS (Tenth Assault Vehicle Flotilla, or Decima Mas) during World War II, directing naval commando operations that achieved significant tactical successes. After the war he became the central figure of Italian neofascism, organized a coup attempt in December 1970, and died in exile in Cádiz, Spain, on August 26, 1974.[^1]
Junio Valerio Borghese, known as the Black Prince of Borghese, was an Italian aristocrat descended from the Borghese family of the Italian black nobility. Borghese commanded the Decima Flottiglia MAS, a former regiment of the Italian Navy, which fought as a prominent piece of the army under the Nazi puppet state known as the [[Republic of Salo]] in Northern Italy during World War II. The regiment continued to fight the Allies in the northern territories under the Republic's administration right up until the end of the war.[^1]
### Wartime Command and OSS Protection
Unlike some fascist collaborators strung up beside Mussolini in the Piazzale Loreto, Borghese was chaperoned to the sanctuary of [[Vatican City]] by OSS spook James Angleton. Borghese then became the primary OSS and later CIA asset in establishing the Italian branch of [[Operation Gladio]]'s stay-behind network, designed to suppress left-leaning political movements in Italy. The Black Prince lived on to become a figurehead of Italy's post-war fascist movement. Trieste, part of the former [[Republic of Salo]], had a strong left-leaning labor union movement after the war, making it one of the first targets of [[Operation Gladio]] using former Decima Flottiglia MAS operatives under Borghese's direction in 1953.[^1]
The Decima Mas under Borghese conducted frogman and human torpedo attacks on Allied shipping in the Mediterranean, sinking or damaging numerous vessels including two British battleships in Alexandria harbor in December 1941. After the Italian armistice in September 1943, Borghese aligned the Decima Mas with the German-backed Italian Social Republic (RSI, or Salò Republic) rather than the Allied-aligned government in the south. In this capacity his unit conducted not only naval operations but anti-partisan operations in northern Italy in which war crimes were committed.[^1]
### Golpe Borghese
At the liberation of Italy in April 1945, Borghese faced trial and execution. He was instead sheltered, transported from Milan to Rome dressed in a U.S. Army uniform, and protected from Italian partisan justice by [[James Angleton]], then an [[OSS]] officer and future head of CIA counterintelligence. The precise rationale Angleton offered for this intervention was never officially documented; subsequent analysis has attributed it to Angleton's judgment that Borghese's intelligence networks and anti-communist commitments made him an asset worth protecting for postwar operations. Borghese was subsequently tried by Italian courts, convicted of collaboration with the Nazis, and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment - of which he served approximately four, with the remainder suspended.[^1]
[[Pier Paolo Pasolini]] made the film Salo in response to an Italian fascist coup attempt in 1970 orchestrated by Borghese and carried out in his name, known as the [[Golpe Borghese]]. After the coup failed, Borghese fled to Spain where he died in 1974, possibly poisoned. The [[Golpe Borghese]] was linked to the [[Propaganda 2|P2 (Propaganda 2)]] secret society uncovered a decade later.[^1]
### Postwar Neofascism
After his release Borghese became the dominant figure of Italian neofascism. He led the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) for a period before concluding that electoral politics was an insufficient vehicle for his objectives. In 1969 he founded the Fronte Nazionale, a more explicitly extra-parliamentary organization that attracted former Salò Republic military officers, Decima Mas veterans, and elements of the violent neofascist fringe.
Borghese maintained connections with figures who were simultaneously involved in [[Propaganda Due|P2]] and with elements of Italian military intelligence (SID). His access to former military networks - and the protection those networks provided - was a direct legacy of the OSS/CIA decision in 1945 to shelter him from justice rather than prosecute him.[^2]
### The Golpe Borghese
On the night of December 7-8, 1970, a Borghese-organized conspiracy involving several hundred armed men was set in motion. The plan called for seizure of the Interior Ministry, the state television and radio building (RAI), and the armories of the Corpo Forestale dello Stato (forest service) in Rome. Armed groups actually entered and partially occupied some facilities before the operation was abruptly called off in the middle of the night.
The reasons for the abort were never definitively established. Borghese reportedly called off the coup by telephone, with various accounts attributing the cancellation to the failure of promised external support to materialize, the appearance of carabinieri, or a last-minute decision by Borghese himself. The conspirators dispersed; Borghese fled to Spain within weeks, where he remained until his death.[^2]
Italian judicial investigation of the coup attempt, which continued for years, produced indictments of numerous participants but convictions of only a small number, with many charges dismissed on procedural or evidentiary grounds. The investigation uncovered that the coup network had expected support from elements of Italian military intelligence and possibly from external actors - a finding consistent with the [[Operation Gladio|Gladio]]-linked strategy of tension apparatus documented by subsequent inquiries.[^2]
### Death and Legacy
Borghese died in Cádiz on August 26, 1974, under circumstances that were not fully explained. An Italian autopsy performed years later suggested he may have been poisoned, though no prosecution resulted. His death preceded by several years the parliamentary and judicial investigations that would have placed him at the center of the emerging picture of the strategy of tension, P2, and the Gladio stay-behind network.
His legacy in Italian history is the most explicit demonstration of how the OSS/CIA decision to shelter and deploy former Fascist military officers in the early Cold War created operational networks that were used for domestic political purposes decades later - Angleton's 1945 intervention producing the 1970 coup attempt and the full elaboration of the strategy of tension that followed.[^1]
### Footnotes
[^1]: Dovey, S. (2023). *Eye of the Chickenhawk*. United States: Thehotstar.
[^1]: Colby, William. *Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA.* Simon & Schuster, 1978. Ganser, Daniele. *NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe.* Frank Cass, 2005, Chapters 4-5.
[^2]: Willan, Philip. *Puppetmasters: The Political Use of Terrorism in Italy.* Constable, 1991. de Lutiis, Giuseppe. *Storia dei servizi segreti in Italia.* Editori Riuniti, 1984. Flamini, Gianni. *Il Partito del Golpe.* Bovolenta, 1982-1985.