or Release 03/2QW6IAERDPI6-00788R000100240026-8 TERRORISM : Fat Man, Tailor, Soldier, Spy 0; the evening of Dec.7, 1981, Red Brigades terrorists kidnaped Briga- dier General James Dozier, 50, the high- est-ranking U.S. officer in NATO’s south- ern Europe command, from his home in Verona. The abduction triggered the larg- est man hunt in Italy’s history. Forty-two days later, Italian commandos stormed an apartment in Padua and freed the American general. It was a stunning piece of police work that won praise from around the world; it also marked the beginning of the end for the noto- rious terrorist group. But the full story of how the authorities found Dozier has never been revealed. American and Italian intelligence agencies, TIME has learned, turned to the Mafia for help in locating the general. What occurred was a remarkable tale of triumphs and bungles, of Brooklyn consiglieri and Milan Mafi- osi, of chases along New York City’s Fifth Avenue and gun-toting crimi- nals tailing intelligence agents along Ttalian autostrade. So secret was the operation that not even U.S. Ambas- sador to Italy Maxwell Rabb was aware of it until TIME Correspondent Jonathan Beaty, accompanied by Rome Correspondent Barry Kalb, questioned the diplomat two weeks ago. Beaty’s report: | t took only two days for top offi- cials at SISMI, the Italian intelli- gence agency, to decide that it might & be useful to turn to the Mafia for help in finding General Dozier. Although the Mafia had long detested the Red Brigades, SISMI knew that there would be a public outcry if it was ever discovered that an Italian govern- ment agency had contacted the Ma- fia directly. Consequently, a more How the U.S. and Italy got the Mafia to help find General Dozier US. in July 1981 when Italian authorities suddenly seized his passport, a signal that they were preparing to indict him. The Italian military attaché. told Lombino that he could make a lot of money if he would help with the Dozier case. On Dec. 22, only five days after Dozier had been abducted, Lombino phoned the Fat Man The jubilant and still unshaven victim after his rescue acenziav-vav out the area. They quickly spotted too cial had to concoct a new identity for him. With the Fat Man’s aid, Lombino ac- quired the Social Security number of an unwitting high school. driver’s education instructor from Brooklyn, while a cooper- ative priest in Manhattan provided him with false baptism records. On Dec. 27, dressed in dark glasses, Levi’s and running shoes, Lombino head- ed for the U.S. passport office on Manhat- tan’s Fifth Avenue. Though he had been assured that there would be no problems, Lombino, now joined by Campione, ner- vously showed up an hour early to check many men wearing trench coats and reading newspapers. Sensing a trap, Lombino ran down the up escalators to the street and jumped into a cab be- fore he could be captured. The star- tled Campione simply disappeared. into the crowd. The pursuers turned out to be FBI agents who had learned that an Ttal- ian Mafia associate living illegally in New York was trying to obtain a false passport to return to Ttaly. Within hours, FBI agents were grill- ing both the Fat Man and Campione, demanding to know why the Italians were helping a fugitive Mafioso like Lombino. A panicky Campione called Sportelli in Rome to find out if he should tell the FBI the truth. The SISMI foreign-intelligence boss imme- diately called “M,” the CIA agent in Rome who was serving as the agen- cy’s liaison in the Dozier case and ex- plained the entire ploy. The CIA was intrigued. It quickly called the FBI off the case and.began negotiating directly with Lombino by phone. Lombino, however, no longer trusted SISMI. He insisted on USS. protection as well as a pledge that he could legally return to the US. if he went to Italy and saw Restelli. The Justice Department approved the residency deal, and as a result, in early January 1982 Lombino made the first of two trips to the Washing- subtle plan was devised. An ap- proach would be made to Mafiosi in the U.S., who would be asked to get in touch with their counterparts in Italy. Marcello Campione, then military at- taché to the Italian mission at the United Nations, began making inquiries in New York Mafia circles. Working under a code name, “the Tailor,” Campione was led to an influential Mafia consigliere in Brook- lyn who makes his living by helping Ital- ians move to the U.S. “The Fat Man,” as the arranger is known in the underworld, agreed to put Campione in touch with a fugitive Mafioso from Italy who was hid- ing out in New York. That contact turned out to be Domi- nic Lombino, 40, a lawyer from Milan whose clients had included Franchino Restelli, the northern Italian city’s lead- ing Mafioso. Jailed briefly in 1978 for his associati bigo fled to thg Triumphs and bungles from Brooklyn to Milan. and then Armando Sportelli, chief of SISMI’s foreign operations in Rome. The word: Dozier was being held somewhere inside the triangle formed by the cities of Verona, Padua and Bologna. The next day, after more phone conversations with associates in Italy, Lombino was able to tell SISMI that the American general was definitely in Padua. Lombino did not know the precise location, but suggested that his old client Restelli, then impris- oned in Milan’s notorious San Vittore prison for Mafia activities, might be able to come up with the address. Attaché Campione quickly agreed. Over the Christmas holiday he developed a plan to sneak Lombino out of the US. and into Italy so that Lombino could talk with Restelli. Since Lombino was still a itive with n ton, D.C., area to meet with CIA agents. For unknown reasons, Lombino’s trip to Italy was delayed. According to Ttalian intelligence sources, the problem was a ri- valry between Campione and General Ninetto Lugaresi, the head of SISMI. Finally, on Jan. 23, Lombino boarded an Alitalia flight from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Rome. Accompanied by Cam- pione and wearing a wig as a disguise, he carried CIA-supplied papers in the name of Andrew Dimanso, the alias he was sup- posed to use in Italy. When the pair land- ed in Rome, they were met by the CIA’s “M” and a cadre of American and Italian intelligence agents. Lombino was hustled away toa hotel a block from the USS. em- bassy. Twice during the next day, he met with Franca Musi, a Red Brigades courier who had been captured two weeks earlier in Rome. The Italians thought that Musi, 4UU eM TOPEBRUARY 28, 1983