La Vista Report

The nature of the allegations against the Vatican were so damning that it caused some controversy when it re-emerged in 1984 An investigation, codenamed Operation Circle, was launched by the American Army's Counter Intelligence Corps. They forwarded their findings to Vincent La Vista, a senior Rome officer of the Division of Foreign Activity Correlation. La Vista had been involved in a number of post-war intelligence operations, investigating Fascist espionage cells in America and commercial, financial and industrial dealings between Italy and Germany.

La Vista investigated and forwarded his report to Washington in May 1947. Since its release in 1984, it has become known simply as the ‘La Vista Report'. Although the findings are thought to contain some significant errors, it is a fairly comprehensive analysis of illegal emigration through Italy. One of the conclusions was that the Vatican was helping the escape of fugitive Nazi war criminals.

In the interests of maintaining good bilateral relations between the USA and the Vatican, the report's findings were never acted upon.

Provenance unknown