I knew little of what had gone on in Italy after the end of the War. I knew the parliamentary system had broken down; I knew there had been two years of guerrilla warfare after the Peace Conference, a period in which it was nip and tuck whether the next ruler of Italy would be Communist or Fascist. The Fascists under their leader Mussolini had won out. I had been amazed, and had never ceased to be amazed, that the dramatic march on Rome which ended in changing a parliamentary form of government into a dictatorship had been carried out without bloodshed. An astonished world had seen tens of thousands of unorganized and in part unarmed men march from every point in Italy to Rome, call for Mussolini, get him by order of the King and then march home again—not a brick thrown, not a head broken. It was the most amazing transfer of government I had known of. But I had never given much attention to what had followed. I had never asked myself if it was inevitable that a dictator should arise in Italy. I had never asked who was this man Mussolini or what was this corporate state which was emerging. Uneasy as I was over the way things were going in the United States, I vaguely felt when I was asked to go look all this up that possibly there were lessons there. Possibly I might learn something from Italy’s experience about the process by which manacles are put on free government. However, the real reason I went to Italy was because I was offered so large a sum that I thought I could not afford to refuse. My friends did their best to discourage my going. Down in Washington a worried undersecretary who gave me my passport and letters of introduction told me pessimistically that I probably should be arrested. “But why?” I asked. “Well, that is what is happening now to all our Americans. They drink too much, talk too much. The chief reason, as far as we can make out, is that they have to arrest them because they are attacking the government. We do the same thing here now and then, you know.” In Paris my best friends, among them Mr. Jaccaci, so much of an Italian that he talked the dialects of several provinces, told me with all seriousness that I should be searched. I must not carry letters to members of the opposition, nor books hostile to Mussolini. Now I was armed with things of that sort, collected in Washington, New York, and Paris. I did not propose to give them up without a struggle. I was told I should find no newspapers excepting those sympathetic to the regime—a serious handicap, as I always count largely on newspapers. I must always use the Fascist salute. I took this so seriously that I practiced it in my Paris bedroom. I must not speak French. I was counting on that, as I speak no Italian. That is, I started off to Italy with a large collection of “don’ts” coming from people I considered informed. If I had not had a natural dislike of giving up an undertaking I never would have carried out my assignment.