In spring 1948, Italian Americans were asked to write relatives overseas and tell them how to vote. Newspapers printed sample letters. Catholic parishes handed them out. By April, the New York post office was processing a million extra pieces of Italy-bound mail each week.

One letter reprinted in an American newspaper came from a young publisher writing to his brother, an engineer in Italy. “We have plenty of everything in this country”, he told him, before warning against a Communist vote. He enclosed canned food and money for a Mass for their uncle, who had died during the war. The politics was simply baggage with things a family had already sent.

Across the ocean, Italy’s April 18 election had become an early Cold War showdown. The

Communist and Socialist parties were running together as the Popular Democratic Front, and the Truman administration feared that victory would move Italy toward Moscow.

The letters looked personal, but the campaign had organizers. Columnist Drew Pearson

promoted it; Italian-American leaders, churches and public officials helped expand it.

Washington understood the advantage. A warning from the government was propaganda. The same warning from a brother in New Jersey sounded like family advice.

This was part of a larger American effort. Frank Sinatra and Joe DiMaggio made anti-Communist appeals over Voice of America. State Department records counted six million posters advertising U.S. aid and ten million prayer cards invoking Mother Cabrini. American intelligence also secretly funded anti-Communist parties.

The Christian Democrats won 48.5% of the vote, against 31% for the Popular Democratic Front.

How much did the letters matter? Researchers could not say. In one post-election survey in Elmira, New York, more than 40% of Italian-American families said someone in the household had written. What happened when those envelopes were opened in Italy could not be measured.

In hope of securing one election, a message from the American government arrived in Italy in the handwriting of a cousin.