Promptly after his election last March Pope Pius XII tossed a lifeline to a sinking friend, once-honored General Umberto Nobile. Mussolini had busted Airman Nobile out of the service when his 1928 Polar expedition ended with the crack-up of the dirigible Italia which killed eight crew members, ended Italy's lighter-than-aircraft dreams. In his small flat near the Tiber, where few friends dared visit him, Umberto Nobile silently endured the usual fate of Fascism's failures—ostracism. Only honor left was his membership in the Pontifical Academy of Science, conferred by the late Pius XL
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