"At the same time, the Office of Naval Intelligence undertook its own efforts, including one of the most famous (or infamous) aspects of the covert war in Italy: the release of Mafia chieftain Lucky Luciano from a Stateside prison to conduct advance work in Sicily. This effectively shut out Corvo who, knowing the Mafia well from his childhood, refused to work with gangsters. Corvo would later be replaced by James Jesus Angleton, destined to become a major figure in the postwar Central Intelligence Agency. Angleton, a hardline anti-Communist even then, wished to avoid dealing with the Left a difficult task in a country that had the largest Communist Party of any non-Communist country in Europe. Instead, Angleton ended up working with Masons, syndicalists (non-Communist leftists associated with anarchism), and disaffected Fascists."
World War II, The Surrender of the Italian Army | Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security | Find Articles at BNET.com