Caudillo's Crisis

There was still an Axis-sponsored dictator left in Europe, but Generalissimo Francisco Franco's turn seemed to be coming up. The U.S., Britain and France (Soviet Russia has never recognized him) were turning the heat on the pudgy dictator.

In Washington, significantly, Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson and Dr. Juan Negrin, last Premier of the Spanish Republic, had the first official talks to be held between a high-ranking State Department officer and a high-ranking Spanish Republican in six years. The French Foreign Office sent Washington and London a note suggesting a joint revision (i.e. a possible rupture) in relations with Franco's Spain.

Franco had been warned. U.S. Ambassador Norman Armour, before he left Madrid last month, told him that the U.S. was displeased with Spain's tardy evolution toward political freedom. Later British Ambassador Sir Victor Mallet drove home the same point.

Franco's wobbly standing with the Allies had not been helped by the recent discovery, in Axis diplomatic papers, that only Nazi bungling stopped Franco from coming into the war on the Axis side in 1940. Had he received arms and food from Axis Europe in time, Spain would have made a "speedy entry" into the war with an assault on Gibraltar and French North Africa.

Growth of the Guerrillas. Obviously Franco preferred troubles abroad to troubles at home, but at home they were mounting too. In the mountains of Andalusia, the slopes northeast and northwest of Madrid, and the foothills of the Pyrenees, guerrilla forces, operating in 21 areas, had grown increasingly bold since V-E Day.

Since the end of World War II, Franco had been using in his Spanish Foreign Legion thousands of German soldiers and Gestapo personnel who fled from France after the German surrender. But the guerrillas were protected by geography and their own hard-won battle skill.

To the protesting U.S. and British envoys Franco pointed out his internal troubles, insisted that Spain was becoming more liberal. An instance of this meager liberalization is the election to be held in some 9,000 Spanish municipalities next March. The law provides that only "heads of families" will find their names on the voting lists. A third of the councilors are to be chosen by this restricted electorate. Another third will be "selected" (a process equivalent to appointment by the Government) by members of state-organized professional and industrial syndicates. The remaining third are to be chosen by the first two. Almost inevitably the result will be more Franco friends in office.

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