Spain Neutralizes Lagaillarde and Company:
MOWRER, RICHARD SCOTT
Spain Neutralizes Lagaillarde and Company By Richard Scott Movorer Madrid The bearded tenant on the 22nd floor of Spain's tallest building, the 33-story Tower of Madrid, is not exactly a...
...Spain's disappointment now has turned to anger with the news that international Left-wingers are planning to hold a two-day congress at the posh Continental Hotel in Paris later this month to press for "a Franco amnesty for Spanish political prisoners and exiles...
...He might try again for a more positive reason...
...Some of Franco's lieutenants would like to retaliate by cutting loose Lagaillarde and his friends to do their worst in Algeria...
...By granting Lagaillarde and his friends political asylum he is doing them a favor...
...This was an experiment...
...Salan wanted to see if he could do it...
...By neutralizing them politically, he is doing de Gaulle a favor...
...But Franco is unlikely to let this happen...
...Yet he is not quite a free man, for wherever he goes he is shadowed by the Spanish security police...
...More accurately, General Franco does, for he has had to override the opinions of an important segment of the officer corps and of militant Falangists who would prefer a policy of absolute support for the authoritarian-minded Algérie Française diehards...
...He can take the "down" lift when he likes and nobody will stop him...
...The police were suspicious...
...There is very deep anxiety here about Morocco: Franco's regime is troubled by the Soviet and Red Chinese penetration, the inflammable domestic tension and the nationalists' agitation for annexation of Ceuta and Melilla and other Spanish territories adjoining the Maghreb...
...Lagaillarde is free to consort with his activist cronies or to make the rounds of Madrid's night spots with his pretty, blonde wife, Babette...
...Yet there is irritation here with France, for it is felt that one favor deserves another...
...But if he tries to leave Spain and go to Algeria or to another country, he will be stopped...
...Their discreet presence is apparent in the lobby downstairs, upstairs on the 22nd floor landing and outside in an unmarked car usually standing in the "no parking" zone...
...But it was all right and Demarquet was allowed to go...
...As to Lagaillarde, the first week in January he and General Salan had things set up in Alicante for a quick getaway to Algeria, but the police spoiled their plot...
...So the police remain watchful...
...Neutralization of Lagaillarde and his activist friends is Franco Spain's contribution to current French efforts to initiate peace talks that might end the war in Algeria...
...continuation of the war, with the growing danger of Communist participation, would certainly make things more precarious for Spain...
...Spain Neutralizes Lagaillarde and Company By Richard Scott Movorer Madrid The bearded tenant on the 22nd floor of Spain's tallest building, the 33-story Tower of Madrid, is not exactly a prisoner...
...i.e., France should reciprocate by putting a stop to the anti-Franco activities of the Spanish exiles across the border...
...Recently one of the exiled activists, Jean Maurice Demarquet, showed up at Madrid's airport to take a plane back to France...
...Beyond the question of Spain's treatment of the Lagaillarde group and what benefits might be derived from it, Franco realizes that with regard to North Africa full cooperation with France is essential...
...The police have instructions not to let Lagaillarde or his fellow exiles go anywhere outside Spain—except to France...
...Franco is more likely, therefore, to swallow his rancor and keep Lagaillarde and his friends on a leash—at least until the future of Algeria is settled...
...Peace in Algeria would ease the pressure...
...To this extent he is a prisoner...
...unlike most Spaniards, however, he makes his decisions on the basis of cold, dispassionate calculations...
...There are 140,000 Spaniards in France, remnants of the 400,000 who fled before Franco's victorious troops in 1939...
...The Caudillo's approach to the problem is more subtle...
...That would be five months from now...
...But he boasts that he has 80,000 followers in Algeria ready to fight...
...Outwardly he appears unconcerned...
...The apparent imminence of peace talks between de Gaulle and the Algerian rebels must be particularly galling to him...
...Despite its sympathy for the French ultras' fascist-flavored politics, the Franco regime, for the time being anyway, favors maximum cooperation with de Gaulle's Fifth Republic...
...and there he is a wanted man w7ith a 10-year prison sentence awaiting him...
...They have to be...
...A hard core keeps antagonism alive against the Franco regime by publishing newspapers and pamphlets and holding political meetings and congresses...
...Such is the situation today of Pierre Lagaillarde, the fiery 37-yearold French Algerian Right-wing activist, former deputy in the National Assembly and ex-paratrooper who fled French justice three months ago to find asylum here...
...They held up the plane for 20 minutes in order to check with the French Embassy...
...Lagaillarde, a man of action, is violently hostile to the idea of a negotiated peace in Algeria and may try again to break out of his Spanish "prison...
...Such is the situation, too, of the handful of French ultras, including General Raoul Salan, who likewise oppose President Charles de Gaulle's Algerian policy and are biding their time in Spain...
...He could even leave the city and tour sunny Spain...
...Some weeks ago General Salan managed to shake off his shadowers for eight hours by driving a fast car and turning off the main highway onto a side road...
...Recently he assured a friend that his first child will be born in Algérie Française...
...The 67-year-old dictator is capable of anger...
Vol. 44 • March 1961 • No. 12
