Who Needs Franco?

Last week, a lot of people thought it was time for the West to make friends with Francisco Franco. They were motivated not by affection for Spain's dictator, but by fear of Communism. The New Statesman and Nation's poison-ivy-wreathed laureate, Sagittarius, described the new approach:

Yet, though thy portrait I retouch, Respectable senor, I could not love thee, Chum, so much, Loathed I not Stalin more.

Easily Said. In Paris, 15 Latin American nations under Argentina's leadership prepared a resolution calling for Spain's admission to U.N. This would repeal a resolution the General Assembly passed two years ago, blackballing Franco as an Axis ally and calling on member nations to withdraw their ambassadors from Spain.

In Washington, Senator Chan Gurney, chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, who had just returned from a European junket, urgently demanded a U.S. military alliance with Spain. He also voiced a principle that had an odd sound coming from a country which objects to Communist tyranny everywhere. Said he: "It is not up to us to tell countries what kind of a government they ought to have . . ."

The prospect of a Western deal with Franco frightened Spaniards in exile into something they have never before been able to achieve--unity, or at least a semblance of it. In Paris, the Spanish Socialists announced that they had reached an agreement with their political enemies, the Spanish Monarchists.* They called for Franco's ouster and a democratic regime in Spain. Unfortunately, ousting Franco was far more easily said than done.

George Marshall asked Britain's Ernest Bevin and France's Robert Schuman how they felt about letting Franco into U.N. Both were opposed. Marshall agreed that the U.S. would not support the Latin American move for Spain's U.N. membership. The U.S., however, would back repeal of the 1946 resolution--if someone else proposed it. It would also back Spain for membership in U.N.'s non-political affiliates, such as the International Telecommunications Union.

Rhine or Pyrenees? The argument in favor of making friends with Franco was largely military. In case of a war with Russia, top U.S. strategists have long argued, Spanish bases would be important. Spain is the key to the Mediterranean.

The answer to this is that bases in Spain would be available to the U.S. anyway--since it is unlikely that Franco would side with Russia. Open U.S. reliance on Spanish bases would merely panic the French, who would regard it as advance notice that the U.S. does not expect to hold France. The French want the U.S. to make its stand on the Rhine, not at the Pyrenees.

Western reconciliation with Franco would be a serious blow to the West's moral position. Red propaganda would offer it as proof that Western democracy is fascism in disguise. These political liabilities of friendship with Franco seem to outweigh the advantage of advance agreement on bases.

* In Lisbon, Monarchist Leader Gil Robles perfunctorily denied this. He had to, having promised the Portuguese government not to engage in politics as long as he was a guest of Portugal.

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