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James Jesus Angleton
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==World War II== In 1943, Angleton joined the U.S. Army. During [[World War II]], Angleton served in the [[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS) and led its Italian branch.<ref name=EncColdWar/> He also served in London under [[Norman Holmes Pearson]] in the [[X-2 Counter Espionage Branch]] of the OSS. By February 1944, he was chief of the Italy desk for X-2 in London. While in London, Angleton met the famous [[double agent]] [[Kim Philby]]. In November 1944, Angleton was transferred to Italy as commander of Secret Counterintelligence Unit Z, which handled [[Ultra (cryptography)|Ultra]] intelligence based on the British intercepts of German radio communications.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}} By the end of the war, Angleton was head of X-2 for all of Italy. In this position, Angleton helped prevent the execution of Italian naval commander [[Junio Valerio Borghese]], whose elite unit [[Decima MAS]] had collaborated with the [[Schutzstaffel]] during the war.<ref>Tunander, Ola, ''The Secret War Against Sweden: US and British Submarine Deception in the 1980s''. Routledge, 2004, p. 275</ref> Angleton was interested in the defense of installations such as ports and bridges and offered Borghese a fair trial in return for his collaboration.<ref>Jack Greene & Alessandro Massignani, ''The Black Prince and the Sea Devils: The Story of Valerio Borghese and the Elite Units of the Decima Mas.'' Da Capo Press, 2009 pp. 183 ff.</ref> He dressed him up in an American uniform and drove him from Milan to Rome for interrogation by the Allies. Borghese was then tried and convicted by an Italian court of collaboration with the Nazi invaders but not of war crimes.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}} Angleton remained in Italy after the war, establishing connections with other intelligence services and playing a major role in the [[1948 Italian general election]]. The election was won by the US-backed [[Christian Democratic Party]] over the Soviet-backed [[Italian Communist Party]].<ref name=":0" /> Angleton's tour in Italy as an intelligence officer is regarded by biographer [[Jefferson Morley]] as a critical turn not only in his professional life. His personal liaisons with [[Italian Mafia]] figures helped the CIA in the immediate postwar period.
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