Anglo-American reports on the operation of OZNA in the Venezia Giulia and Italian cities in the period between the end of World War II and 1947

The article presents the Anglo-American views and information on the operations of OZNA (Department for the Protection of People) in Italy, where agents had been sent by the organization's predecessors as early as 1943. The author analyzed the files of the British ministry of defence, focusing on counter-intelligence data of the supreme headquarters of the allied forces. From the end of the war through 1947, OZNA developed an efficient intelligence network in all larger Italian towns, in particular in the region of Venezia Giulia and the town of Trieste. Its operations were mostly concealed within numerous organizations, institutions, and associations, while its main aim was to prevent the intelligence gathering and interventionist operations of Yugoslav dissidents and western intelligence operations in Italy trying to undermine the new Yugoslav regime. The majority of suspected agents were said to be posing as traders, entrepreneurs, students, union workers, and secondary school teachers. In Venezia Giulia and Trieste the intense operations involved all OZNA sections, while its organizational structure was the equivalent of that in Yugoslavia. The Anglo-Americans divided the operations of OZNA in Italy into the northern, central, and southern areas, where mostly agents of the first section were active. The information of the allies was frequently based on scarce data and misguided perceptions of OZNA operations. The Anglo-American reports came to the conclusion that the operations of OZNA in Italy, with the exception of those in Venezia Giulia, did not pose a threat to their influence.