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Though dictator-ruled Portugal is a member of NATO, dictator-ruled Spain is not. One reason is the long-standing hostility between France and Franco's Madrid. During the Spanish Civil War, France took in 500,000 Republican refugees and even let them set up a government in exile. French Socialists in particular, recalling with distaste Franco's wartime friendship with Hitler and Mussolini, have always resisted friendly relations with Franco.

Last week, in the odd way that news is made these days in France, the major French news agency said that France would "strongly support" Spain for membership in NATO, though it would not necessarily nominate it. The dispatch came as something of a surprise to the Quai d'Orsay, where only Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville knew about it.

The man behind the idea was none other than President Charles de Gaulle himself. Other NATO powers--notably Norway, Denmark and Britain--are still firmly opposed to Spanish membership. Regarding Franco's forces as ill-equipped, intended primarily for internal security and not much good anyway, they think that Spain's geographical usefulness is already taken care of by U.S. bases in Spain.

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