The Empire on Which the Black Sun Never Set: The Birth of International Fascism and Anglo-American Foreign Policy

By Cynthia Chung

Rising Tide Foundation (2022)

Book Review

The main theme of this book is that fascism didn’t start with the rise of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe nor end with the surrender of Germany and Japan in 1945. Chung traces the birth of modern fascism to Cecil Rhodes’  Round Table movement, Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan-Europa Plan and the generous funding of Hitler and the Third Reich by Wall Street Banks and corporations. After World War II ended, fascism continued to thrive, thanks to elaborate fascist “stay-behind” Gladio programs run by the CIA, MI6 and NATO; intelligence-run drug trafficking; and offshore tax and money laundering operations in a chain of modern day British colonies (mainly Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man, Bermuda, Cayman Islands and Virgin Islands).

For me the best parts of the book were the first few chapters, in which Chung carefully documents the hidden history of Britain’s pre-World War II fascist movement, which secretly worked with Hitler to establish a fascist government-in-waiting pending the Nazi’s anticipated invasion of the UK.

The key leader of Britain’s prewar fascist movement was Oswald Mosley, a member of Parliament from 1918-1931 prior to founding the British Union of Fascists. High profile supporters of this movement included Lloyd George (prime minister from 1916-1922), UK prime minister from 1916-1922, King Edward VIII (forced to abdicate in December 1936), Neville Chamberlain (prime minister from 1937-1940)* and Winston Churchill. Like Wall Street, the British corporate oligarchy openly financed and armed the Third Reich in the hope that Hitler’s armies would wipe out the Soviet Union. Some time between 1939 and 1941, they soured on Hitler and pressured Churchill to sever relations with Moseley and his fascist friend. Less than two weeks after Churchill became prime minister, he had Mosley interned, along with other prominent fascists.

Although Churchill ceased to openly support fascism after 1941, Chung also makes it really clear that his fascist and anti-Soviet sympathies played a fundamental role in his refusal to support Moscow (by deceiving Roosevelt and Eisenhower about his willingness to open a front in western France during Hitler’s brutal 1941-1943 attack on the Soviet Union).

According to Chung, the fifth column fascist stay-behind movements (aka Operation Gladio) were also Churchill’s brainchild. He originally conceived of them as Vichy-style puppet governments that would serve under a Nazi Europe. When it was clear, the Soviets would prevail, he saw they could be equally useful as fifth column stay behind cells under Soviet occupation. They eventually came under the control of MI6, the CIA and NATO to prevent strong socialist and communist governments being elected in France, Italy and Greece, where left-leaning anti-Nazi resistance movements were instrumental in Hitler’s ultimate defeat.

We know the most about Italy’s Gladio movement owing to an investigation the Italian government launched in 1988. It discovered fascist networks, trained and armed by UK and US intelligence had carried out multiple false flag bombings against civilians under the guise of a fictional Red Brigade. When Italian voters continued to vote for socialist and communist candidates, in 1978 they assassinated Italy’s democratically elected prime minister Aldo Morrow after kidnapping and holding him hostage for 55 days.

Even more horrific, is the chapter concerning the British invasion of Greece in 1944 to quell a massive popular uprising against Churchill’s re-installation of the fascist Greek king George II after the Greek resistance movement successfully expelled German forces. All out civil war broke out in 1946 after British troops fired on peaceful protestors. A British request for US support resulted in the Truman Doctrine, making Greece the first country the US invaded during the Cold War/

Other Gladio movements Chung covers in detail include:

• France – in which Gladio launched 30 assassination attempts against Prime Minister Charles DeGaulle, which resulted in DeGaulle withdrawing from NATO (the primary headquarters for France’s Gladio operations) in 1966. France only rejoined NATO in 2009.
• Britain – where Gladio forces undertook train bombings and destabilization campaigns in Northern Ireland.
• Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos – where Gladio forces were working to destablize independence movements long before the CIA officially took over the French war against Vietnamese independence in 1954.
• Palestine – where Gladio operatives infiltrated Arab nationalist groups, leading to massive factional struggles to justify Britain’s call for UN partition of Palestine (into Israeli and Arab sections) in 1948.
• Egypt – where MI5, having created the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, enlisted their support in thwarting President Gamal Nasser’s independence movement until he outlawed the group in 1948.

*History is quite generous to Chamberlain in labeling him a Nazi “appeaser.” Historical evidence suggests he was an open fascist and Mosley supporter who “ordered” Czechoslovakia to capitulate to Hitler at a point they were far stronger than the German military.