Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-R^^fgf88R0001 00270003-0
TERRORISM
Fat Man, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
How the U.S. and Italy got the Mafia to helpfind General Dozier
O
n the evening of Dec.
17, 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
Italian 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:
i
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
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-
tache 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
Mafia associations, Lombino fled to the
U.S. inJuly 1981 when Italian authorities
suddenly seized his passport, a signal that
they were preparing to indict him. The
Italian
military
attachd
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
and
then Armando
Sportelli,
chief of
SlSMl’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.
Attache Campione
quickly
agreed.
Over the Christmas holiday he developed
a plan to sneak Lombino out of the U.S.
and into Italy so that Lombino could talk
with Restelli. Since Lombino was
still a
fugitive with no passport, the Italian offi-
cial had to concoct a new identity for him.
With the Fat Man’s
aid, Lombino
ac-
quired the Social Security number of an
unwijting 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
out the area. They quickly spotted too
many men wearing trench coats and
reading newspapers. Sensing a trap,
Lombino ran down the up escalators
to the street andjumped 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 Ital-
ian Mafia associate living illegally in
New York was trying
to obtain a
false
passport
to
return
to
Italy.
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
U.S.
j
protection as well as a pledge that he
)
could legally return to the U.S. if he
j
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-
ton,
D.C.,
area
to meet
with
CIA
1'’
'
agents.
For unknown reasons, Lombino’s trip
to Italy was delayed. According to Italian
,
in telligence 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
ofAndrew 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 to a hotel a block from the U.S. em-
bassy. Twice during the next day, he met
with Franca Musi, a Red Brigades courier
who had been captured two weeks earlier*
i
in Rome. The Italians thought that Musi,
j
TIME, FEBRUARY 28, 1983
Approved For Release 2000/08/07
: CIA-RDP96-00788R0001 00270003-0
AGENZIA D-DAY
The jubilant and still unshaven victim after his rescue
Triumphs and bunglesfrom Brooklyn to Milan.