THE SPYING GAME – AMLETO VESPA´S CHINESE AFFAIR (1920 – 1944)
Amleto Vespa, (L’Aquila 1884 - Shanghai 1941), spent most of his life in Siberia, Manchuria and China; first as a spy for the Japanese and as an arms dealer, later as a spy for the Chinese, and again as a spy for the Japanese, during Japan’s occupation of China; finally, in 1938, he was linked to the Americans.
Some of the secret missions and duties he was assigned as a secret agent were eventually detailed in the book "Secret Agent of Japan", published in London in 1938, and in the U.S. one year later, where he heavily denounced the Japanese occupation of China.
He died mysteriously and was likely killed by the Japanese in the Philippines, in 1941. Soon after, his wife and children surfaced in the United States where they disappeared from public view.
The reenactment of his biography (Vespa wrote very little about himself) was based on documents sourced from the Historical Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Italian Republic and family letters sent to Italy.
Amleto Vespa’s exploits were retraced in their historical contexts: the end of World War I in Siberia, the Italian recruits who built the Trans-Siberian Railway, the Russian Revolution, the fall of the Chinese Empire, the Warlord Era in China, the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, and the Shanghai spy war of the 1930s.
The book ends with his mysterious demise and the wall of silence that surrounded his book after the end of World War II.