'Spain Was Right':
MOWRER, RICHARD
Franco's regime, emboldened by American aid, now claims foresight in helping Hitler 'fight Communism' 'SPAIN WAS RIGHT' By Richard Mowrer MADRID A YEAR AGO last September, the United States...
...We undertook to develop Spain's military and economic potential in exchange for the use of air and naval bases...
...The award of the Legion of Merit to the Spanish general went over big...
...It was the Messerschmitt fighters, he added, that bore the brunt of the air struggle "during the difficult times experienced by the German people...
...The economic and military buildup is proceeding, but its effects will not be noticeable for some time...
...Franco's regime, emboldened by American aid, now claims foresight in helping Hitler 'fight Communism' 'SPAIN WAS RIGHT' By Richard Mowrer MADRID A YEAR AGO last September, the United States signed the Madrid agreements and got a new ally...
...As far as the physical aspects of the deal with Spain are concerned, there is very little to see...
...We have abandoned none of our fundamental concepts...
...The bilateral agreement with America is valued, but there is also a strong conviction that the time has come for Spain to branch out and take part more directly in Western Europe's defense structure...
...By "Spain" is meant Franco, for, according to another much-stressed catch-phrase...
...As if to prove the point, the Spanish Government on October 25 presented the Grand Cross of Aeronautical Merit to Professor Willy Messerschmitt, one of Hitler's top designers of combat planes and today a resident of Spain...
...On the ideological level, however, it's another story...
...Here reassertion and justification of the regime's policies, past and present, is in full swing...
...Espana tenia razon...
...Sixth Fleet for a day to observe combat exercises planned especially for him...
...In the coming years, the political regime of Spain will evolve or not depending on the wishes of the Spanish people and their Caudillo, never merely to suit the convenience of foreign powers...
...Today, revival has progressed so swiftly that highly-placed officials are laying claim to Spanish moral leadership of the free world...
...An essential piece in the European pattern is missing when Spain is excluded...
...A year ago, the alliance with America marked, for Franco Spain, the transition point from survival to revival...
...On October 22, Ya carried this headline over a Washington dispatch: "Munoz Grandes sees Eisenhower and MacArthur--The President suspends electoral campaign to receive Spanish minister--This truly extraordinary demonstration of courtesy is attributed to the North American generals' personal feelings of friendliness toward the Caudillo...
...Spain is Franco and Franco is Spain...
...Another was the invitation to General Munoz Grandes, Minister of the Army and former Blue Division commander, to visit military installations in the United States...
...Espana tenia razon"--Spain was right--is a slogan much in vogue at the moment...
...And what people mean when they say that Spain was right is that Franco was right in overthrowing the Republic in 1936-39 and right in sending the Spanish Blue Division to the Russian front in 1941 to help the Germans...
...The pact with the United States does not represent a change of line in either our foreign or our internal policy," Foreign Minister Martin Artajo told the approving Cortes, none of whose members are selected by popular elections...
...Air Minister General Gonzales Gallarza told Messerschmitt as be made the presentation...
...One such was the cordial reception extended to Franco on October 10 when he joined the U.S...
...It was no stain on America's honor to admit that Spain was right...
...Everybody makes mistakes...
...Offense at the European democracies' coolness has been more than compensated, however, by a series of American demonstrations of esteem...
...Conversely, the Allies were wrong, after defeating Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, to penalize Franco Spain by imposing an economic and political boycott on the country...
...Your compatriots shed their blood in the Spain of Franco, and the [Blue Division] volunteers of the great general Munoz Grandes shed theirs alongside the Germans...
...It is probable that the past century's disequilibrium was caused by the absence of Spain in [world] gatherings and alliances...
...Along with the feeling of moral superiority that has taken hold here is a growing desire to achieve greater participation in international get-togethers...
...The ceremony, fully reported in the Spanish press, was the occasion for sentimental references to Spanish-German collaboration during the Civil War and World War II...
...Otto of Hapsburg, son of Austria-Hungary's ex-Empress Zita and a long-time resident here, accurately expressed official sentiment when he wrote in the Madrid daily, Ya: "It is not shameful to admit one's errors...
...The West would stand to gain much if it obtained the participation of Madrid in a defense pact...
...There were no political strings attached...
...Nobody beyond the Pyrenees having taken notice of these overtures, the press has reacted accordingly, criticizing the London accords for their "exclusiveness" and describing the European democracies' lack of interest in Spain as "incomprehensible...
...Europe cannot exist without Spain," wrote the newspaper ABC recently...
Vol. 37 • November 1954 • No. 47
