In Rome's dank Palazzo della Sapienza (Palace of Wisdom), the High Court for Punishment of Fascist Crimes weighed the fate of ailing General Mario Roatta.
Through a month of bickering testimony the stocky, jut-jawed Blackshirt, who was Mussolini's Chief of Staff and Chief of SIM (secret service), had denied all charges against him. No! no! he cried, he had not ordered the murder of Carlo and Nello Roselli, famed anti-Fascist refugees in France. That crime had been done while he was busy in Spain's civil war, in which he led the Italian flight from Guadalajara. But the prosecution brushed aside his protests,...
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