Of all Second World War documents, ‘Ciano’s Diary’ is the most interesting and will … prove the most useful to historians.. – Malcolm Muggeridge. Mussolini’s Foreign Minister, and son in law, Count Ciano kept one of the most important and influential diaries to come out of World War II. These are those diaries. Covering events from 1939 until 1943, finishing days before his own execution by a firing squad for conspiring against his father in law. With an original introduction by Malcolm Muggeridge and a new foreword by Denis Mack Smith.Ciano, Mussolini s son-in-law and Foreign Minister kept a fascinatingly detailed and intimate diary from the start of the war until the eve of his execution (on his father-in-law’s orders) in December 1943. WORLD WAR II