A Note on Appeasement

Workers in undernourished, underhoused, underclothed Spain began in January to prepare the Cortes for its greatest Fascist hour. To change the onetime chamber of the Congreso de los Diputados to a hall fit for grandees, the offending red upholstered seats were changed to blue. Marble tables bearing honor rolls of past liberal leaders were removed. Paintings and inscriptions distasteful to the Falange were torn from the walls. The President of the Cortes' dais was raised to befitting Fascist level. Special space was allotted to the junta of the Falange. Carefully, it was seen that no accommodation for public or press should be available. Everything that recalled any liberal period since the Cortes of Cadiz in 1812 was gone as the Procuradores (literally: procurers) of Spain's new Cortes assembled last week to be sworn in and listen to Caudillo Francisco Franco.

On the appointed day, in the big, black Mercedes-Benz given him by Hitler, the Caudillo slid down the Puerta del Sol and Carrera de San Jeronimo. In the Puerta del Sol. he was greeted by trumpeters, and again in front of the Cortes.

Inside, the chunky Caudillo spoke mostly in the flowery phrases of Fascist mumbo jumbo. But he did predict that the war would last another six or seven years. And, with British Ambassador Sir Samuel Hoare and U.S. Ambassador Carlton Hayes sitting there listening, the Caudillo suggested that all the belligerents might yet get together and fight Russia. Said Franco: "The presence of Russia on one of the sides gives the struggle in Europe the character of a war to death. Many are the surprises that a long war might yet present."

Once again the Caudillo slapped the faces of his Allied appeasers. Three weeks after U.S. Ambassador Hayes praised the Franco Government (whose Blue Division is fighting with the Wehrmacht against Russia), and publicized the aid that Spain was receiving from the U.S., Axis-Admirer Francisco Franco boasted to the Cortes:

"I am sure that when the echoes of the great struggle die down ... the world would be surprised to see that, in spite of the great catastrophe broken loose by the Reds, Spain could re-establish her situation . . . without any outside help . . . and that the rebirth of Spain--we can conclude --is patent in all its orders."

The excerpts printed by the U.S. press ignored that statement (it appeared in the version broadcast in Spain and transcribed in the U.S.). Few Americans knew that the Caudillo made it. Nevertheless, Ambassadors Hayes and Hoare heard it.

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