Lea Schiavi

Lea Schiavi, also known as Lea Schiavi Burdett, (March 2, 1907 – April 24, 1942), an Italian dissident journalist writing for left-wing journals in opposition to the Italian fascist government led by Benito Mussolini. Her husband Winston Burdett believed Schiavi was assassinated by either the Russians, Italian anti-fascists, or Persians while traveling through Iran.

Personal Lea Schiavi was born in Borgosesia, Province of Vercelli, in the Piedmont region, Italy in 1907. Schiavi was educated in the fine arts at the Conservatoire de Paris.

She became a writer and journalist and met Winston Burdett, an American CBS News correspondent, in 1940 while they were both reporting from Belgrad, Yugoslavia. The couple was married while both were reporting from East Europe during World War II.

Career Lea Schiavi was an Italian dissident, anti-fascist and possibly a communist.

While the murder was never solved it is believed to be, based on the testimony of Burdett, that the murder was directly related to Burdett's no longer spying for the Soviet Union due to his ongoing disillusionment with Communism. The story Burdett told at the Congressional hearing was that his wife was working in South Persia, reporting from Kurdistan. When her vehicle was stopped by a truck full of Russian soldiers, they immediately started specifically asking if she was in the car. When they found out she was, she was killed instantly. Burdett believed she was killed because she had uncovered links between military training camps in Iran and an upcoming communist coup in Yugoslavia.

Context Iran in the early 1940s has been described as a "crossroads" for spies as it was strategically important.