Late in 1942, Bella Italia was firmly in the grip of Mussolini’s Fascism. The OSS (U.S. Office of Strategic Services, precursor to the CIA), received an incredible proposal from Vatican City out of the blue. (The City at that time was a diplomatic enclave not an independent country).

A high official of the Papal Secretariat offered to furnish the Americans with first-hand information on strategic bombing targets in Japan. These were obtained by representatives of the Holy See in Tokyo. OSS jumped on the info and a complex espionage network was born.

This invaluable Intel began a circuitous but short journey to OSS’s HQ in Washington. From the Japanese capitol, it was sent to a contact at the Vatican, then relayed to the Irish Embassy in Rome.

With the secret approval of the Irish Premier Eamon De Valera, the info passed by diplomatic pouch to Dublin. It was collected by Richardo Mazzerini, an anti-fascist émigré who represented The Italian Secret Service (SI).

It was transmitted in a special naval code to OSS’s HQ in Washington, D.C. There it was analyzed by an ex-colonel of Mussolini’s air force, an air attaché at the Italian Embassy in Tokyo before his defection to the U.S. It provided Washington with vital Japanese Intel in early 1943.

The masterminds behind Vessell were two very different men. The Vatican agent was a thin, intense cleric, Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, later to gain fame as Pope Paul VI. His fellow OSS conspirator was Earl Brennan, a Catholic State Department veteran and a Republican member of the New Hampshire legislature who held down the SI desk in Washington. Brennan had been educated in Italy as a boy and had returned to join the American embassy in Rome.

He befriended powerful high-ranking fascists in Mussolini’s regime, including IL Duce himself. On a diplomatic mission to Canada, he met members of the Italian Mafia, sent into exile by Mussolini.

Three months later, Operation Torch (Allied invasion of North Africa) was launched. Brennan recruited several Italian-Americans for service in Algiers to plan espionage and infiltrations into Sicily and Italy, which obviously would be the next targets.

A mysterious arrangement with the American Mafia was concocted. The mob agreed to co-operate with clandestine operations in Sicily. In return, the U.S. would grant parole of the U.S. Mafia’s “Capo de tutti Capo,” Charles Salvatore Lucania, better known as “Lucky” Luciano.

The “deal” was arranged by Assistant New York D.A. Murray Gurfein, who went on to become an OSS colonel in Europe. It wouldn’t be the last time when the U.S. got “in bed with the devil” to further the war effort.