There is often a discussion about whether politicians and government officials introduce policy changes that end up being damaging to the well-being of the people are ignorant or wilful. It is sometimes hard to discern what the agendas are and who knows or understands what. The release of the US Central Intelligence Agency’s declassified report – Economic Intelligence Weekly Review 9 November 1978 – tells us a lot about the deliberate deception that goes on where the citizens are kept in the dark and the politicians deliberately make decisions that they know are not in the best interests of the nation. The questions then are why do they do that and what can citizens do about it? In the case of Italy – and the decision to enter the European Monetary System (EMS) in 1978, which was the precursor to the Eurozone, the motivations are fairly apparent. They knew that the EMS would not be in the best interests of Italy from an economic standpoint but were lured by the ‘European dream’. This is the idea that ‘Europe’ (by which we mean the formal European Union) is a representation of political stability and sophistication. The southern European states never felt part of ‘Europe’ and considered that their own political stability and oversight of corrupt politicians would improve if they went along with any idea proposed by the European Union. Italy had been a foundation state but still doubted their own legitimacy. The neo-liberals that were taking over the European integration process by the late 1970s sold this line to subtlety coerce these nations into joining up. It worked. But the polity and the technocrats knew all along that entry into the EMS and later the Eurozone was not in Italy’s best economic interests.