 As a youth, he attended the Ginnasio Liceo Torquato Tasso.He went to the United States fleeing the anti-Jewish laws of the Benito Mussolini regime and later served with the American armed forces in the Pacific theater from 1943 to 1945.After World War II, he settled in New York City, where he became an American citizen in 1944 and earned his B.A.