by Pierluigi Franco

   (ANSA) - TRIESTE - It is maybe the most charming part of the Old Yugoslavia. Even before it was known as 'province of Trieste', Habsburg for centuries and then Italian. Istria, a land contended for long time, is today Croatian and Slovenian, fully in the European Union. However, its history in the twentieth century has been also formed by brutal fights, of Nazi massacres, revenges from the men of Titus, and, at last, of the escape of the Italian exiles still known as 'Istrians'. It is right in this land, difficult and fascinating, that takes place the story of Sergio Cionci, today ninety three years old, born and grown in Pola since the exodus of the Italians , began after the Treaty of Paris in 1947.

   Cionci passed from cadet of the Direct aviation to partisan in the Istrian anti-fascist formations, and was recruited from the Italian secret Services for which he performed activities as agent between Trieste and Istria, since 1947 until 1952. To tell his story, in the only book about the Italian espionage during the 'Cold War', is Andrea Romoli, journalist of Rai. He collected the evidence of Cionci succeding to produce the story, narrated by the main character, as a charming tale that develops with a simple and linear style.
    Cionci in one one of the 28 thousand Italians constricted to leave the native Pola. The recruitment in the secret Services occurs after the exodus and it is the easiest reaction to the wrongs suffered from the Istrian Italians. Today, after so many years away, the ex agent decided to make known that part of history remained behind the scenes. With an incredible memory, despite the years, Cionci reveals to the reader an unpublished slice of the Eastern border at the beginning of the Cold War.
    Everything passes through the mysterious Mario Casale, director of the Corresponding office of the 'Venezie'. An inexistent press agency with a single unknown address: Casella postale Gorizia 72. This is the cover with which Cionci builds, and keeps up for five years, an informatics net which will frequently attack the powerful apparatus of the secret Yugoslavian Police. Agents, exiles double agents, infiltrated and courageous women are the checkers through which Cionci works. Today they relive in the pages of 'The Last Witness' with unpublished events and back stages often surprising. (ANSA)