Michael Ledeen

The book explored Italian leader Benito Mussolini's efforts to create a Fascist international in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Ledeen taught at Washington University in St. Louis but left after being denied tenure.

Some faculty indicated that questions about the "quality of his scholarship" and about whether or not Ledeen had "used the work of somebody else without proper credit" were issues, although some also noted that "the 'quasi-irregularity' at issue didn't warrant the negative vote on tenure."

His doctoral dissertation eventually became Universal Fascism: The Theory and Practice of the Fascist International, 1928–1936, first published in 1972.

Michael Arthur Ledeen (born August 1, 1941) is an American historian and neoconservative foreign policy analyst.

He is a former consultant to the United States National Security Council, the United States Department of State, and the United States Department of Defense.

He held the Freedom Scholar chair at the American Enterprise Institute where he was a scholar for twenty years and now holds the similarly named chair at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

He was very close to Antonio Martino.

Ledeen holds a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he studied under the historian George Mosse.

Ledeen subsequently moved to Rome, where he was hired as the Rome correspondent for The New Republic and was named a visiting professor at the University of Rome for two years until 1977.

In Rome, Ledeen worked with Italian historian Renzo De Felice, who greatly influenced Ledeen, drawing a distinction between "fascism-regime" and "fascism-movement."

Ledeen's political views developed to stress "the urgency of combating centralized state power and the centrality of human freedom" Ledeen continued his studies in Italian Fascism with a study of the takeover of Fiume by Italian irredentist forces under Gabriele D'Annunzio, who Ledeen argued was the prototype for Mussolini.

In the 1980 lead up to the US presidential election, Ledeen, along with Arnaud de Borchgrave, wrote a series of articles published in The New Republic and elsewhere about Jimmy Carter's brother, Billy Carter's contacts with the Muammar al-Gaddafi regime in Libya.

Ledeen testified before a Senate subcommittee that he believed that Billy Carter had met with and been paid off by Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

Ledeen worked for the Italian military intelligence agency SISMI in 1980, providing "risk assessment" and consulting on extradition matters between Italy and the United States.

In the early 1980s, Ledeen appeared before the newly established Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism alongside former CIA director William Colby, author Claire Sterling, and former Newsweek editor Arnaud de Borchgrave.

Both Ledeen and de Borchgrave worked for the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University at the time.

All four testified that they believed the Soviet Union had provided material support, training and inspiration for various terrorist groupings.

Ledeen was involved in the Iran–Contra affair as a consultant to National Security Advisor Robert C. McFarlane.

Ledeen met with Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, officials of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and the CIA to arrange meetings with high-ranking Iranian officials, whereby Iranians supported by the US would be given weapons by Israel, and would proceed to negotiate with Hizbollah for the release of hostages in Lebanon.

Ledeen's own version of the events is published in his book, Perilous Statecraft.

Ledeen vouched for Iranian intermediary Manucher Ghorbanifar.

During his time in Italy, Ledeen endorsed the "Bulgarian connection" conspiracy theory concerning Grey Wolves member Mehmet Ali Ağca's 1981 attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II.

The theory has since been attacked by various authors and journalists, including Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs, who initially believed the story as well.

Five years later, in 1985, a Wall Street Journal investigation suggested that the series of Billygate articles written by Ledeen were part of a larger disinformation campaign intended to influence the outcome of that year's presidential election.

According to the reporting, Francesco Pazienza, an officer of the Italian intelligence agency SISMI, alleged that Ledeen was paid $120,000 for his work on Billygate and other projects.

Pazienza and Ledeen were very active in disinformation efforts.

At SISMI, Pazienza stated, Ledeen warranted a coded identification: Z-3.

Pazienza was later tried and convicted in absentia for using "extortion and fraud to obtain embarrassing facts about Billy Carter".

According to Adnan Khashoggi in 1985, Ghorbanifar was the head of Iranian Prime Minister Mir Hussein Mousavi's European intelligence and Ledeen was aware of this.

In one interview after the scandal broke, Ledeen stated that he initially had "profound reservations" about Ghorbanifar, but that he proved himself to be reliable by opening a channel to Iranian leaders.

In another report in which he was described as "perhaps the only person on the US side of the affair to defend Ghorbanifar", he said that he considered Ghorbanifar to be a friend.

During the summer of 2001, Alain Chouet and others with France's DGSE investigate an alleged deal known later as Nigergate in which Iraq was trying to obtain yellowcake from a country in Africa and, by May and June 2002, they investigate any connection with Niger but find that the rumors are entirely false.

Furthermore, in July 2002, the Italian SISMI and the United States CIA are informed by the French DGSE that Rocco Martino, a former Italian intelligence agent, is trying to pass fake documents about Iraq obtaining yellowcake from Niger.

However, the SISMI report that a lady, who is controlled by SISMI's Antonio Nucera, in the Niger embassy at Rome presents the fake documents in July 2002.

Later, in March 2003, George Tenet incorrectly stated that Iraq, which had large quantities of yellowcake, was obtaining yellowcake from Niger.

Colleagues Andrew McCarthy and Mark R. Levin have defended Ledeen, writing: "Up until now, the fiction recklessly spewed by disgruntled intelligence-community retirees and their media enablers—some of whom have conceded that the claim is based on zero evidence—has been that Michael had something to do with the forged Italian documents that, according to the Left's narrative, were the basis for President Bush's "lie" in the 2003 State of the Union Address that Saddam Hussein had obtained yellowcake uranium (for nuclear-weapons construction) in Africa."

According to a September 2004 article by Joshua Micah Marshall, Laura Rozen, and Paul Glastris in Washington Monthly: "The first meeting occurred in Rome in December, 2001. It included Franklin, Rhode, and another American, the neoconservative writer and operative Michael Ledeen, who organized the meeting. (According to UPI, Ledeen was then working for Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith as a consultant.) Also in attendance was Ghorbanifar and a number of other Iranians."

The theory was adopted in 2005 by the Italian Mitrokhin Commission.

According to Craig Unger, "With Ronald Reagan newly installed in the White House, the so-called Bulgarian Connection made perfect Cold War propaganda. Michael Ledeen was one of its most vocal proponents, promoting it on TV and in newspapers all over the world."