Ricardo Moretti is an Argentine journalist and lodge man, a passenger of flight AR-648 from boarding, who belongs to the P2 and the Anael Lodge and was shot at the lighthouse of Claromecó, falling into a coma.
| Type | Character |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Affiliations | P2; Anael Lodge; Nile lodge |
| Era | 1966 |
| Spanish entry | Ricardo Moretti |
Description
He was one of five names waiting at the port — Dulce Holler, Irene Kowalski, Mariana Kola, Antonio Portet and Ricardo Moretti — and the only one of them who, within the esoteric circle, “seems to call the shots”. An adult man, “a strange guy”, he was already “acting strange on the plane”. His age, height, dress and voice are not recorded.
Roles
- Journalist: the profession gives him cover to move; he “has 50 million things”.
- Contact: he “did have some dealings with the English”, and was the only one of the five to exchange a password and countersign.
- Ritual: his double membership in the P2 and the Anael Lodge ties him to structures far beyond the plane’s group; within the Nile lodge he is a decision-maker. He did the symbolic work on the ground.
He carries no firearm but a sword cane; at the lighthouse he kept the blade in hand and left the cane behind. His most charged item is a cockade, used not as a patriotic badge but as an instrument.
The monument of the ribs
At the monument of four giant whale ribs, accompanied by an islander with a “more Scottish accent” — an odd Englishman he had prior dealings with, who authorized the visit — Moretti touched one of the four ribs with the cockade, an act of possible occult meaning. The monument, the islander and the password formed one circuit of recognition and consecration that he carried out alone. He stayed at the same hotel as the company in Claromecó, “among the gulls”.
The lighthouse
He was shot at the Claromecó lighthouse; who fired, and why, is not established. He was left with a bullet hole in his body and the bullet in his hand; his skin turned pale gray from blood loss, his face “ashes and diamonds”. Taken to hospital, he survived unconscious, in a coma. While he breathes, a channel stays open between the group, the P2, the Anael Lodge and the esoteric circle: “We don’t look for him, he looks for us.” Records also name him as the occultist of the briefcase and link him to López Rega’s circle; the briefcase and its contents are not described.
Open questions
- What the Anael Lodge is, and how it relates to the Nile lodge and the P2.
- The content of the password, and with whom it was exchanged.
- Why he touched that rib, and whether as consecration, mark or signal.
- Whether the Scottish islander represents the English or acts on his own.
- His final state: one account says he “survives after investigations”.