The emergence of protestant statecraft and the question of religious liberty in Italian-American relations, in the 1940s

The collapse of the Fascist regime in Italy in 1943 coincided with the formation in the USA of the National Association of Evangelicals (or NAE), an association formed to support evangelical Protestant interests around the world through common action in politics, social reform, and missions. This article analyses the contribution of the NAE's mission arm, EFMA (the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association) in particular through the actions of one of its most active exponents, the Calabria-born Presbyterian minister and official of the OSS, Frank Bruno Gigliotti, in pursuit of religious liberty in Italy in the period 1940-1955.