Word: deviling
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...years untouched by allegations of wartime crimes. Most conspicuous of these was hard-drinking, high-living Deputy Francesco Moranino, who was only 24 when he commanded the 12th Garibaldi Division of Red Partisans in Italy's northern hills and styled himself, in the local dialect, Gemisto-the Devil. The Communists hailed him as a patriotic hero; the country was in a mood to accept their estimate, and De Gasperi made him an under secretary in his 1947 Cabinet...
Safe Conduct. At that time few knew the story of how five non-Communist partisans led by one Emanuele Strasserra had disappeared in the Devil's territory late in the war. Moranino insisted that he had had them guided to safety in Switzerland. Then in 1947 the bodies were discovered buried by a mountain road near Moranino's headquarters- and far short of the Swiss border. Moranino changed his tale, said they had been executed as Fascist spies, and shrugged off accusations from the safety of his parliamentary immunity. But the relatives of the murdered men persisted...
...Trained by the OSS at Bari, he and an aide were slipped into Genoa in mid-1944 to report German troop movements and to establish liaison with resistance groups. When he lost his radio in a Gestapo raid, he and his companion lit out for the hills. He found Devil Moranino, and assuming him to be a fellow patriot and partisan, asked Moranino to get him to Switzerland, where he would be able to re-establish contact with the Allies...
...Spotting them, Strasserra cried: "We're friends. We are going to Switzerland." He was still waving his safe-conduct pass and talking when bullets cut him short. Destroying the evidence, the Reds buried their victims hastily beside the road, took their money and papers back to Moranino. The Devil gave the killers 300 lire (then about $3) each. One of them testified: "We realized the killings were not very clean, but we had our own lives to worry about...
Died. John Arnold Heydler, 86, old-time sportswriter, chairman of the board and longtime (1918-34) president of baseball's National League; after long illness; in San Diego. Heydler began his career as a printer's devil, once carried a proof of a Government document to the White House, where he recited Casey at the Bat for President Cleveland. He helped to install baseball's first commissioner, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, and was a pioneer in establishing the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown...