Crisis in Spain-Two Articles

...Sanz Orrio wanted the Primate to check the activities of the Fraternities of Workers for Catholic Action...

...There is now deep dissatisfaction within the camp of the friends of the regime...

...The meeting of the two groups —the exiles, mainly of the Left...

...The Common Market countries cannot countenance the arbitrary, harsh measures adopted by the dictatorship against perfectly innocent and courageous people for the mere crime of asserting that they believe in Europe...

...Unable to ignore the congress, Franco's propaganda machine described it as an ultra-secret gathering of traitors and fools whose aim was to submit Spain to "capitalism, Communism and freemasonry...

...Since last February, when the Government was persuaded by its "economic" ministers to announce its intention of applying for association with, and ultimately full membership in, the European Economic Community (EEC), the movement has surged ahead...

...But the regime has not merely lost Europe...

...those from Spain, mainly of the Catholic Right—was charged with significance...

...Commenting on the Assembly's resolution asking for "authentically democratic institutions" in Spain, the Spanish Socialist leader Rodolfo Llopis declared: "A tragic chapter is now closed, and, together, we are writing the first lines on a new page—one of the most promising pages in our history...

...In Barcelona this past April, José Maria Gil Robles told a gathering of 1,500 "Europeans" that an authoritarian Spain could not hope for admission to the Common Market since "the pillars of the European Community are democracy and the rights of man...

...The Government could hardly impose intolerable restrictions on these groups for fear of damaging itself in the eyes of the EEC countries...

...Reports from Munich were beamed into Spain by the Spanish services of Radio Paris, the BBC and the Communist "Free Spain Radio," which operates from Prague...

...But 22 per cent gave political, 22 per cent economic and 12 per cent social reasons for their Europeanism...

...General de Gaulle, who has gone out of his way to make known his friendship and admiration for General Franco, allowed his officials to re-establish contact discreetly with the Spanish opposition, and French support for Franco's request for association with the EEC no longer seems assured...

...Fortunately, there is a new spirit abroad in the Spanish Church inspired by the younger priests and inflamed by the spirit of the Papal Encychcal, Mater et Magistra...

...I have just received word, but cannot yet confirm, that Dr...

...In another case, a priest who had organized a meal for the children of the strikers was told by the civil guards to stop at once and dismiss the children unfed...

...and insisted that the new Europe not be a Europe des États but a Europe des Peuples...

...An unstated number of Left-wing Christian Democrats also were rounded up...

...Crisis in Spain—Two Articles The Door to Europe By Salvador de Madariaga Munich THE FOURTH CONGRESS of the European Movement Assembly, which was held here last month, is another manifestation of the shaping of Europe...

...They have, on the contrary, opened the door...

...And the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, Primate of Spain, refused to bow to the hectoring orders of the Fascist Minister of Labor, Fermin Sanz Orrio—replaced last week along with three other civilian Cabinet members and the Army, Navy and Air Ministers, who retired under the normal rotation system...

...Llopis adds that a West German official tried to have the Spanish resolution withdrawn...

...It was estimated that the participants would include about 20 exiles and a maximum of 20 delegates from inside Spain, where the risk of reprisals was great...

...During the latest wave of strikes, priests were often observed to be on the side of the strikers...

...It can confidently be asserted that the inept measures taken against the "Munichers" were pushed through a reluctant Cabinet by the retired War Secretary, General Antonio Barroso, backed by two or three of his military colleagues, but not, curiously enough, by the Minister of the Interior, General Camilo Alonso Vega...

...What is the situation now...

...The theory behind the argument has never worked...

...A number of its wisest prelates have raised their voices against such symptoms of social disintegration as the low level of salaries and the extreme wealth of the rich...

...Joaquin Satrustegui and other liberal Monarchists opted for Fuerteventura...

...He was allowed to leave, but, according to Rodolfo Llopis, the Spanish Foreign Ministry requested the West German government to urge the organizers of the congress to restrain its anti-Franco participants...

...It would not work in the case of the Common Market either...

...The theme of the Assembly was the democratization of European institutions, and within this framework the delegates came to agree on a number of points still floating in the European air...

...Many more are being imprisoned, heavily fined and/or beaten by the police for having declared in Munich that to enter Europe Spain must adapt its institutions to European norms...

...and it suspended for two years the right of every Spaniard to live wherever he pleases—a right "granted" a few years ago for the precise purpose of enabling the regime to rescind it later...

...Just under 8 per cent of those who favored Western European integration thought it would strengthen Western defense against Russia...

...Enough men who are influential in international and national affairs recognized this, and it appears certain that Spain will not be admitted into the Common Market, even as an associate member, while it is under the present regime...

...Although a survey in southern cities might produce lower "European" percentages (in Catalan and Basque cities, on the other hand, they would probably be higher), there can be little doubt that on the issue of integration Saragossa is fairly representative of urban Spanish opinion...

...and that this liberalization had to be carried out with wisdom and patience and without any violence whatsoever...

...Thus, 66.7 per cent of unskilled laborers, 37.2 per cent of civil servants, and 37 per cent of skilled workers gave a nationalist response...

...A decree was issued in Madrid empowering the Government to order its subjects into forced residence...

...The Assembly firmly rejected any economic or political grouping less open or less wide than the Common Market nations plus Britain...

...Christian Democrats, Liberals and Socialists, recalling the expectations built up in Spain by the prospect of integration into the new Europe, are confident that the disappointment and humiliation of rejection by the EEC would bring Franco down...

...In addition, most of the civilians in the Cabinet, with the exception of Finance Secretary Mariano Navarro Rubio, who passed over to the big stick camp, were reticent...

...In one case I know of, a priest urged his faithful to go out and demonstrate for the strikers in the street, and he himself led the demonstration...

...There is a veritable European utopianism in the air...

...The names of the principal Spaniards participating in the congress read like a roll call of the men educated Spaniards expect to see in the administration which succeeds Franco...

...But old-school officials of the Ministry of the Interior and the dwindling band of Falangist diehards viewed the European Movement with suspicion, fearing that it was becoming a rallying-point for Liberals, Christian Democrats and Socialists and a vehicle for the propagation of democratic ideas...

...Until recently a staunch supporter of the regime, the Church has shown repeated signs of concern at its excesses...

...Franco's Blunder By Ray Alan Madrid The Munich conference of September 1938 served notice on the Spanish Republicans that their cause was lost—that the European democracies were intent on appeasing the fascist dictators even to the point of endangering their own security...

...The worn-out argument in favor of accepting the proposal was soon heard once again: Merely by working with the European communities, albeit only on the economic side, a liberal evolution of the Spanish political world would be inevitable...

...The Franco regime feels that they have attempted to close the door of Europe to Spain...

...The survey also showed that 84.5 per cent thought Spain should participate in a "European government...

...For the Franco regime, this would mean the acquisition of all the economic advantages of belonging to the group without the risks involved in a liberalization of Spanish political institutions...

...Spaniards returning from Munich were given the choice of either exile or deportation to bleak Fuerteventura...

...In Prados Arrarte's words: "The regime knows now that it has not long to live...

...The regime is passing through a bad crisis which is straining to the breaking point its ability to survive...

...2.5 per cent had an anti-American motive...

...urged a supranational stage for decisions dealing with genuinely European affairs, while wisely recognizing the obstacles ahead and the need to be patient...

...This picture is not correct, however, and the Pretender's role may turn out to be less fatal to his cause than some of his blunter followers make it out to be...

...expressed a desire to see Europe evolve toward a federation unhindered by Britain's entrance into the group...

...A public-opinion survey—one of the first ever held in Spain, whose results have not yet been published in the Spanish press—organized last year by a group of Europeanminded university professors in Saragossa, revealed that 93 per cent of those questioned approved of "the present trend toward European unification...

...By now it is well known that the resolution was acclaimed by the Assembly in three unforgettable ovations—when I presented it, when Gil Robles seconded it and when the Assembly President, Maurice Faure, declared that the Congress adopted the spirit of the resolution by acclamation...

...Before leaving Madrid for the Munich congress, Gil Robles informed the authorities that he intended to make a speech advocating a democratic Spain...

...That the regime does not want to pass through does not mean the door is shut...

...In addition, the arrest of 100 members of a Socialist underground movement, the Popular Liberation Front, was announced...

...Unexpectedly, however, the highlight of the Assembly was provided by the Spanish question...

...It meant nothing less than the end of the Civil War...

...It has also lost the Church...

...About 25 men, including Gil Robles, have suffered heavy personal loss and inconvenience through this arbitrary action, by being exiled either abroad or to Fuerteventura, the most inhospitable of the Canary Islands...

...For its part, the regime reacted in three ways: It declared the Munich events to be the result of a Communist conspiracy organized by me...

...European" committees and study groups have sprung up in every city and been allowed unusual freedom of discussion...

...This same argument was brandished to wrench from unwilling world opinion Spain's entrance into the UN, UNESCO, the now defunct Organization for European Economic Cooperation, the "technical" commissions of the Council of Europe (including, scandalously enough, the cultural commission) and even, though here unsuccessfully, NATO...

...Giménez Fernandez, author of the land-reform program of the Second Republic and the present leader of the Left-wing tendency within the Christian Democrat underground, has been deported to the Canary Islands...

...he refused and moved the children and the food to the church...

...So, Europe lost, the Church concerned, the workers already in motion, there remains the position of the Army to be considered...

...Catholic and Monarchist personalities were persuaded to issue statements denouncing the Munich congress and dissociating themselves from it...

...Even the Falangist press no longer advocates autarky and isolationism, and the more influential papers have published dire warnings of the perils likely to beset Spain's economy if it is excluded from the EEC...

...EEC circles in Brussels let it be known that Franco's "reversion to type" had damaged Spain's chances for acceptance by the Community...

...There have been many cases of sermons in favor of the strikers, and the Government even forbade the broadcasting of religious services all over the country...

...Thirty-five workers were arrested in Bilbao for trying to organize a strike, and 1,000 other workers who followed their lead were thrown out of employment...

...The Papal Nuncio, a staunch advocate of the regime, has been removed and decorated with a red hat, and a new Nuncio known for his liberal outlook has been appointed...

...it protested that when Spain was on the point of entering Europe a handful of Spanish traitors in alliance with Communists had closed the door...

...Gil Robles, Jesus Prados Arrarte, the brilliant chief economist of the Banco Central, and Dionisio Ridruejo, once the Falange's propaganda chief, chose exile...

...To the question "Should Spain join a united Western Europe even if it were known in advance that certain Spanish interests might suffer?," 71 per cent replied "Yes.' This last question was considered by the organizers of the survey "a litmus paper with which to test nationalist reactions," and the relatively low percentage of nationalist feeling surprised them...

...But this abuse only succeeded in convincing Spaniards of the regime's embarrassment...

...On the other hand, of those interviewed, all the journalists and priests, 84.5 per cent of the technicians, 84 per cent of the Army officers, 78.5 per cent of the businessmen and 75 per cent of the students gave a "European" response...

...To our surprise, the Spanish contingent at Munich numbered 118— 80 of whom came from Spain, most of them led by the Catholic Monarchist José Maria Gil Robles, possibly the future de Gasperi or Adenauer of Spain...

...Obviously, the regime has lost a battle in world public opinion, largely through its mishandling of the situation...

...Lobbying having failed, Franco proceeded to deploy heavier weapons...

...The Council of the Spanish European Movement, which resides in Paris but also works—underground, of course—in Spain, saw to it that the matter was raised in Munich...

...it is not for Spain...

...Of all the changes in the Spanish situation which have manifested themselves, this is perhaps the most dramatic...

...The organizers of the survey comment: "Of the many who believe that Spain cannot solve its problems alone, a majority have faith in 'salvation through Europe.' Thanks to Europe, living standards will rise, middle-class families will have cars, workers will have unions —and all Spaniards will be free...

...For the sake of Spain and of Europe it is to be hoped that it will evolve in the direction of wisdom and liberty—that is to say, that it will evolve out of existence...

...The congress held in Munich in June 1962 made clear the desire of European democrats to make amends and see freedom restored to Spain...

...that Spain had to liberalize its own institutions in order to be integrated or even merely associated with Europe...

...We organized a round table for the Spanish delegation to take place during the two days preceding the General Assembly...

...He was threatened with a heavy fine if he repeated the offense...

...As in Britain and France, the nationalist reflex was strongest among the uneducated, the poor and the petite bourgeoisie...

...It may be shut for the regime...

...On February 9, the Spanish government had asked to be associated with the Common Market...

...Agreement was complete and the 118 Spaniards unanimously voted a resolution, drafted by Gil Robles, which affirmed three points: that Europe could not be built up without Spain...

...Even more important, the European Movement represents one of the most powerful currents of opinion in Spain...

...Some of them, operating through the pro-regime fractions of the Monarchists, have tried to represent the Pretender, Don Juan, as angry with Gil Robles, and even as having expelled him from his Council...

...Bearing in mind the number (about 1,000, including the press) of the persons present and their representative quality, this acclamation amounted to serving notice on the Spanish regime that there was only one door through which it could enter Europe: the rapid liberalization of its institutions...

...The pro-Fascist leaning of the Archbishop of Madrid, Monsignor Nijo y Garay, has been checked in ways better left untold...