The truth shall possibly make you free but don't expect the whole truth from LA Times Review of Books:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jesus_Angleton

BY 1947, WELL-PLACED AMERICANS in Italy were saying, sotte voce, that young Jim Angleton had great sources in the Vatican. Some went so far as to say he was meeting on a weekly basis with Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, the Vatican’s undersecretary of state for Italian affairs.126 Angleton did not boast of such connections. It was his job to know what was going on in Italian politics, and he made sure he did.

"The relationship between the monsignor and the American spy was more transactional than spiritual. Baptized as a Catholic and raised as an Episcopalian, Angleton acknowledged Jesus Christ as his Savior. His meetings with Montini concerned more earthly matters.

Montini was a dark, slim, self-effacing man, the son of a lawyer. One U.S. intelligence report described him as “the most authoritative person in the Vatican,” not the least because of his daily personal contact with Pope Pius XII.128 The lessons Angleton learned when he met with Monsignor Montini taught him certain timeless truths about the management of power.

Yesterday’s war criminal was today’s asset. If the world was indifferent to the fate of the Jews, the Jews would return the favor. On the grounds of the Vatican, Angleton learned the religion of realism. He refused to rank ideologies of America’s adversaries in terms of morality.

The sense that Italy was on the brink of civil war was pervasive in the American press. “Italy Faces Her Worst Crisis,” proclaimed Look magazine. “The Communist Party is extending its gains every day as poverty and hunger grip the nation. The opposition to communism is also stiffening, with the promise of American aid. But the resistance may not be strong enough.”

In his quest to make sure the Partito Comunista Italiano, or PCI, did not come to power, Angleton knit together friends, allies, and agents into a formidable action network. He could call on the Italian security forces, the Vatican, his father’s associates in the business world, fraternal allies in the Knights of Malta, as well as contacts in the British and French secret services.
To stem the Communist tide, Angleton proposed raising $300,000 in private funds for radio and newspaper advertising and for the “personal expenses” of anti-Communist candidates. It wasn’t enough. His bosses in Washington authorized tapping of the captured assets of the defeated Axis powers to pay for political action in Italy. Ten million dollars was put into an account for CIA use.

ANGLETON’S IMAGINATION HAD AN artistic dimension. As the story later circulated, he interrupted one embassy meeting in Rome in early 1948 to ask Ambassador James Dunn if he might offer an idea.

“I thought,” he began mischievously, “we might take advantage of one of America’s great natural resources: Greta Garbo.”
The name of the Swedish actress invoked images of her sultry style. “I realize she once belonged to another country,” Angleton said, “but I believe by now we’re justified in claiming her as our own. So I suggest we import one of her best pictures.” He paused. “I’d like to expose the Italians to Ninotchka.”

Ninotchka, released in 1939, was a comedy in which Garbo spoofed Stalinist Russia. The ambassador ratified Angleton’s proposal on the spot. Actually, Angleton wasn’t the only wise guy with this idea. The Hollywood studios had printed extra copies of Ninotchka and made special arrangements to show the film in Italy as a way of contrasting golden America with ravaged Russia. At the end of the meeting, Angleton supposedly quipped, “Miss Garbo will prove a most lethal secret weapon."

And so she did. The Christian Democrats emerged from the election of April 1948 with 48 percent of the vote and an absolute majority in parliament. In this rather open and extensive intervention by the United States, Angleton had played a decisive role. His enemies, the Communists, would never gain control of the government in Rome, and his allies would mostly prosper. Within twenty years, Monsignor Montini would become Pope Paul VI.

source: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=135064