Propaganda Due

Propaganda Due (Italian pronunciation: [propaˈɡanda ˈduːe]; P2) was a Masonic lodge, founded in 1877, within the tradition of Continental Freemasonry and under the authority of Grand Orient of Italy. Its Masonic charter was withdrawn in 1976, and it was transformed by Worshipful Master Licio Gelli into an international, illegal, clandestine, anti-communist, anti-Soviet, anti-Marxist, and radical right criminal organization and secret society operating in contravention of Article 18 of the Constitution of Italy that banned all such secret associations. Licio Gelli continued to operate the unaffiliated lodge from 1976 to 1984. P2 was implicated in numerous Italian crimes and mysteries, including the collapse of the Holy See-affiliated Banco Ambrosiano, the contract killings of journalist Carmine Pecorelli and mobbed up bank president Roberto Calvi, and political corruption cases within the nationwide Tangentopoli bribery scandal. P2 came to light through the investigations into the collapse of Michele Sindona's financial empire.

P2 was sometimes referred to as a "state within a state" or a "shadow government". The lodge had among its members prominent journalists, members of the Italian parliament, industrialists, and senior Italian military officers —including Silvio Berlusconi, who later became Prime Minister of Italy; the House of Savoy pretender to the Italian throne Prince Victor Emmanuel; and the heads of all three Italian foreign intelligence services (at the time SISDE, SISMI, and CESIS). When searching Gelli's villa in 1982, police found a document which he had entitled "Plan for Democratic Rebirth", which called for a coup d'etat, the consolidation of the media, the suppression of Italian labor unions, and the rewriting of the Italian constitution.

Outside of Italy, P2 had many active lodges in Venezuela, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. Among its Argentine members were Raúl Alberto Lastiri, who was briefly interim president of the country after the end of the self-styled "Argentine Revolution" dictatorship (1966–1973); Emilio Massera, who was part of the military junta led by Jorge Rafael Videla during Argentina's last civil-military dictatorship (1976–1983); the Peronist orthodox José López Rega, who was Minister of Social Welfare (1973–1975) and founder of the paramilitary organisation Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (AAA); and former Argentine Army General, Dirty War perpetrator, and convicted murderer Guillermo Suárez Mason.