FROM THE ASHES OF DISGRACE

By a man who remained in key positions throughout Mussolini's regime and up to the present time with no loss of integrity, this is a candid, critical autobiography of a country ""which took a wrong turn"", paid for its indolence and indifference with defeat and disaster. Recognizing the price that Fascism has exacted, he also sees what Fascism has accomplished for Italy. He traces Italy's naval war from 1940 on, while he was director of Naval Intelligence. He sees the pivotal point reached with the abandonment of Malta, Italy defeated, and himself assigned to be personal escort of Mussolini to his island exile. Then the invasion- ""mud, muddling and makeshift""; his role in the under ground where he organized the Intelligence; finally, after the German collapse, his appointment as Chief of General Staff of the Italian Navy, with the full approval of the Allied High Command. The story of a man who has commanded admiration, this has political and personal interest, even in these days when the war lacks ""reader appeal"".