The Golden Voice of Mussolini and Roosevelt: Radio Journalist Lisa Sergio

On the evening of May 9, 1936, a slim, elegant woman stood in Rome’s Piazza Venezia and - in perfect English - broadcast Mussolini’s famous speech on the conquest of Ethiopia. Her name was Lisa Sergio (1905-1989), her nickname ＂the golden voice＂ of Mussolini. A Florentine journalist, with American parents, she was fired from her job at the Propaganda Ministry the following summer, most likely for gossiping about a brief affair with her boss, Mussolini’s son in law, Galeazzo Ciano.

Aided by Nobel-winning Guglielmo Marconi, she established herself in the US and resumed broadcasting, now as a liberal commentator, surrounding herself with a network of luminaries, including Eleanor Roosevelt. After the war, she was accused by the FBI of Communist sympathies and in the McCarthy years banished from the radio. Tired of this situation, in 1960, she moved to Washington, where she re-invented herself as a travelling lecturer in current affairs. She remained in the US for the rest of her life.

Sandro Gerbi was born in Peru in 1943 and since 1948 he has lived in Milan, where he earned a Law degree in 1967. A couple of years later, he started a career in financial journalism, switching only in 1990 to contemporary history. Until 2010, he contributed to the cultural pages of the main Italian newspapers (La Stampa, Corriere della Sera, Il Sole 24 Ore). In 1999, he published his first book (Tempi di malafede, Einaudi), which one year later won the important ＂Comisso Prize＂. Furthermore, his subsequent books (mainly biographies) have received eminent literary prizes. One of his last works - Reluctant Jews - has been translated into English by the Centro Primo Levi Editions, New York.