Historians have documented extensively the fascination of many American intellectuals with the Soviet Union and fascist Italy during the 1920s and 1930s (Diggins 1966; 1972; Feuer 1962; Filene 1967; Warren 1993). They have also drawn a compelling analogy between the sympathetic attitudes of American intellectuals toward Soviet Russia and the sympathy of a later generation of intellectuals towards Cuba, China and North Vietnam (Skotheim 1971: 96–106; Hollander 1981; Caute 1988). However, little effort has been made to examine whether the forgiving attitudes toward fascist Italy might also have had a historical analogue in the form of forgiving attitudes toward other, non-communist, dictatorships.