Neither a work of fiction nor a run of the mill spy novel, Bokun's book, taken from his diaries, is a true story of survival in Mussolini's Rome during the holocaust years. Bokun managed to use his cover position as a staff member in the Rome Red Cross office as a small, but important stop in a 20th century underground railroad, finding hiding places for fugitives from fascism, and helping them to escape to either rejoin resistance movements or to freedom., all this at significant risk to his own life,

SPY IN THE VATICAN opens in Yugoslavia, shortly after the April, 1941 German invasion and immediately after the first of many horrible massacres of Serbs, Gypsies and Jews by the Ustashi. The Ustashis were a band of fanatic Croatian Fascists who chose Catholic fanaticism as the mainstay of their policy. Since the Ustashi had the backing of the clergy, there was a widespread belief that, if the Vatican would speak out against these massacres, they would come to a halt.

Bokun, the author of this book, was sent to Rome by the Red Cross to attempt to persuade the Vatican to speak out. One of the threads which weaves it way through the book is Bokun's attempts to get either Pope Pius XII or some other high ranking Vatican official to make such a statement. Throughout the war years, the Vatican refused to even acknowledge the existence of the massacres. One of Bokun's acquaintances asked the rhetorical question, "What is your opinion of the Vatican's silence on the subject of the Jewish persecutions?" He then answered his own question, "How extraordinary that you find that surprising. The Church was founded on silence."

Another acquaintance reminded him that this refusal to tender aid extended far beyond the Church, giving as an example the response of The United States during the early years of Hitler's rise to power when America was offered the opportunity to provide refuge to 20,000 Jewish children. A few Jewish Welfare organizations petitioned the U. S. Senate on behalf of the children. Over 4,000 families offered to adopt the children. However, a Gallup Poll published in FORTUNE MAGAZINE showed that eighty-three percent of Americans were against any increase in immigration limits, particularly if the immigrants were European Jews. The official Washington response was to tell the welfare organizations to look elsewhere. One can only assume that the majority of these children perished.

In spite of the risks involved, and the lack of any cooperationfrom the fascist or puppet governments in Spain and France, through which the fugitives had to pass on their route to freedom, Bokun and his allies continued to have small successes throughout the war years, either hiding fugitives in Rome or getting them out using numerous subterfuges.

Eventually Bokun had to engineer his own escape. Escape from the wartime fascists, and what turned out to be more difficult, from the actions and attitudes of the bureaucrats after the cessation of hostilities. The end of the book found a weary, fatigued, and disillusioned Bokun living in a third rate hotel in 1946 Paris. He got no assistance from the American, French, English, and Canadian Agencies set up to specifically provide assistance. Assistance, he discovered, had to be bought one way or another. Survive he did, however, and went on to become a successful author and journalist.

A SPY IN THE VATICAN once again provides proof that "truth, well told, is stranger than fiction."