Batista's Boost

Fulgencio Batista, Cuba's dynamic President, hates fat Francisco Franco of Spain and does not care who knows it. A month ago, after a visit to Washington, President Batista announced that an Allied invasion of Falangist Spain would bring a "total ovation . . . throughout all Latin America" (TIME, Dec. 28).

Last week Batista took another crack at the dictator across the water. He ordered his Minister of the Interior, Antonio Bravo Costa, to legalize the belligerently Loyalist Spanish Republican Circle, outlawed since 1936 street riots with Franco Falangistas. He made no move to release the many Falangistas now jailed as fifth columnists.

Of Cuba's more than 4,000,000 inhabitants, about 250,000 are nonnaturalized Spaniards, including some 4,000 Loyalist refugees. Presumably most of these Spanish citizens intend to return home some day, since they have failed to take out Cuban citizenship. If .the Circle extends any appreciable influence, it will be in leading these Spaniards to demand a Republican Spain to which to return. With Mexico's 15,000 Loyalists and some 30,000 in North Africa, they may become an important factor in post-war Spanish politics.

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