Chief of State

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"The moment has come . . . when we are disposed to undertake negotiations which will assure us an honorable peace. We await your decision."

So said Julian Besteiro, Foreign Minister of Loyalist Spain's National Defense Council, over Madrid's Union Radio last week. He was speaking directly and publicly to Burgos, 220 miles away, seat of the Government of Generalissimo Francisco Franco.

Next day Ramon Serrano Suner, Minister of Interior of the Franco Government, broadcast this reply from Burgos: "We can answer in no other way than this: We desire victorious peace. After peace, victorious, we will show our generosity, which we are proving in good works."

Thus began over the radio, in full hearing of everyone in Spain, the strangest peace negotiations that ever took place. Somewhere between "honorable" peace and "victorious" peace hard-working negotiators might be able to find an adjective which would bring plain peace to Spain. No doubt remained of the war-weariness on the Loyalist side last week. Little doubt remained that the Franco Government was anxious to wind up the 32-months'-old war that has killed more than 1,000,000 people, exiled half as many. Well it might, for even the Loyalists assumed that when peace came Generalissimo Franco would become the ruler of the entire country.

To the world, which has so far been able to pass judgment only on Franco's none too striking military qualities, the biggest question mark about Spain was what kind of a ruler he will be. Will he become a dynamic dictator like Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, and join them in adventures against the peace of the world? Or will he simply be a routine, domestic military dictator of the type of Primo de Rivera, his predecessor? Will his government--after the war is over--be Fascist or will he restore the monarchy?

The answers largely depend on the character of Francisco Franco, and last week as Spain was about to begin another chapter in her long history, the plump, enigmatic little man who will boss it--strangely colorless for a Spaniard--and the men with whom he has surrounded himself attracted the world's curiosity.

Soldier. Born in 1892 at El Ferrol, in Galicia, the son of a naval officer, Francisco Franco was given routine military education. He entered the military school at the Alcazar, Toledo, at 14, was graduated with a commission at 17, went soon after to Morocco. Even then Spain was fighting its interminable war with the Riffs. Adolescent Lieutenant Franco was wounded once, was decorated several times for bravery.

Hardened and ambitious, in 1923 he married Carmen Polo, daughter of a wealthy Oviedo merchant, and His Majesty King Alfonso sent a personal representative to the wedding. They have one daughter Carmencita, now 10, who busies herself with well-photographed good works around Burgos. Strange for a Spanish officer, he is said neither to drink nor smoke. Odder still, he is pictured as very much the family man. A typical dictator has no time for, and little interest in, family life.

The French who cooperated with Colonel Franco in the final stages of the Moroccan campaigns against the Riffs in 1925-26 thought highly of his soldiery. In his authorized biography* he is credited with having planned and carried out the final battle which defeated Abd el Krim's army. Nobody remembered him as a particularly brilliant student when he attended L'Ecole Militaire in Paris in 1926. He had no particular political pull and no great wealth, both of which would get a young officer advancement in the old Spanish army, and still he became a captain at 20, a major at 23, a general at 32. The Spaniards, at least, thought he was good.

Never hesitating to pick quarrels, Franco once had a serious one with Primo de Rivera over the strategy to be used against the Riffs. (Young Franco insisted on ruthless suppression; Primo de Rivera urged gentler methods.) General Franco will be remembered as the Spanish Chief of Staff who, in 1934, brought Moorish troops into Spain for the first time in modern times to put down a socialist rebellion in Asturias. He has of course used Moors widely in the present civil war, much to the distress of many a Spaniard on both sides. Both in Asturias and in the present war the General earned a reputation for stern, ruthless treatments of conquered civilian populations.

"Exile." Although he was happy under the monarchy, the Republic, with its constantly changing governments and with its numerous encroachments on the privileges of the Army, angered him almost from the start. The Spanish Army has been called a "loaded pistol held at the head of the nation." With its 13,500 officers and several hundred active and reserve generals, the Army had long existed, not to fight foreign wars, but 1) to put down popular rebellions; 2) provide jobs for a military caste. If the Republic were to succeed, the Army had to be tamed.

One of the first acts of Manuel Azana, the Republic's first War Minister, was to close down the military school at Zaragoza, of which Francisco Franco was the head. Switched to the Balearics temporarily in 1933, and to Morocco in 1934, he was brought back to the mainland in 1935 when a Rightist Government came into power and his old friend, Jose Maria Gil Robles, Minister of War, appointed him Chief of Staff. When the pendulum swung back the other way in February 1936, General Franco was "exiled" to the Canary Islands. From there he flew to Morocco to begin the revolt in July 1936.

From all that is known about General Franco's attitude at the war's start the last thing he had in mind was a long-drawn-out civil war. The conspiring generals had planned a military coup d'etat along a pattern long familiar in Spain and Latin-American countries. Their chief object was to restore the privileges which the huge officer class had long enjoyed under the monarchy. None of the officers dreamed of setting up a Fascist state on Nazi or Fascist models. General Franco became the revolt's leader because Generals Sanjurjo and Coded were killed in its early days. Crown? Nor was General Franco particularly fond of the monarchy. When

Alfonso XIII was forced to leave Spain in 1931 General Franco did not protest. Throughout Rebel Spain radios continued for weeks to end their programs with "Viva la Republica!" Although General Franco has since consistently placated his monarchist supporters by talking vaguely of restoration, the odds are that such an ambitious general will want no throne around when he finally gets down to the job of governing all Spain.

Changes. If the general aims of the original rebellion were simply to restore the Army clique to power, as soon as the rebellion became a prolonged civil war, aims had to be expanded to obtain additional supporters. While social revolution of the most violent kind occurred in Loyalist Spain during the war, scarcely less fundamental changes have taken place in Franco territory.

The chief supporters of General Franco's administrations have been:1) the Carlistas or Requetes, 2) the Falangistas, or Spanish Phalanx. The Requetes are monarchists, devout Catholics, traditionalists in every sense of the word. The Falangistas have modeled their organization after the German Nazis and the Italian Fascists, believe in a broad and wide social reorganization.

Most numerous and most zealous Rebel troops at the war's start were the Requetes. Coming from the North, they fought each other tooth and toenail until Madrid, Basque and Aragon campaigns until a large proportion of them were killed. The Falange, on the other hand, was less zealous about fighting at the front, more anxious to help back of the lines. When Generalissimo Franco first moved from Seville to Badajoz, then to Burgos, the Falangistas were left behind to patrol the cities.

Suffering fewer casualties at the front, the Falange soon overtook in membership and influence the Requetes until today they are the dominant group in New Spain, numbering some 3,000,000 members as against 800,000 Carlistas. The two groups fought each other tooth and toenail until Generalissimo Franco took a hand and consolidated them into one organization, but they nevertheless remain separate parts of the same nominal party--the Falange Espanola Tradicionalista de las Jons, known for short as the F. E. T.

With the tide of Fascism coming in fast, it would be impossible for Dictator Franco to ignore it. Moreover, he has often expressed his admiration for the totalitarian way of government. Although by no means an eloquent speaker and a poor subject to interview, visitors returning from Rebel Spain report that his popularity is rising high with his military successes. Thirty-two months ago, when he began his long drive to turn the Popular Front Government at Madrid out of office, he never dreamed that he would be anything but the head of a military junta. Since that time Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler have given him some valu able advice and object lessons on dealing with big powers like England and France.

He has also learned much about governing a State. But henceforth as the head of a State, instead of a mere military man, his troubles are just beginning. It remains doubtful whether the little mustached Generalissimo will ever come up to the calibre of his German and Italian mentors, but with further coaching and support from his Fascist friends, he may be able to hold on to his job for years. The friends hope so.

*Francisco Franco, The Times and The Man, by Joaquin Arraras.

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