Reverse Current

At a time when authoritarianism was sweeping Europe, Jose Maria Gil Robles looked like the fascist to bet on in Spain. At Salamanca University, where his father was a professor, young Gil Robles made a name for himself by attacking liberal Philosopher Unamuno and exhorting women students to go back to their kitchens. By the time he was 34, Lawyer Gil Robles was leader of Popular Action, the political arm of Catholic Action. A squat, thick figure with a balding head, he swore loyalty to the Republic, but modeled his party on fascist lines. In 1933 (year of Hitler's triumph) he told the Cortes (parliament) that its "ultra-democratic" practices "run counter to the current that has generally set in in the world." Two years later as War Minister he appointed young Major General Francisco Franco to be chief of staff of the Spanish army. Backed by millionaire Banker Juan March and a private militia, Gil Robles maneuvered to set up an authoritarian Spanish government, but the army and finally Franco beat him to it.

Last week, having spent 16 years in exile in Portugal, Gil Robles was back in the mainstream, but this time the current was running the other way. His new role: defender of democratic rights.

"State of Unease." In a rare open political trial, Robles, pudgy and double-chinned but with all his old oratorical powers intact, appeared as attorney for three (of four) young university students charged with having printed and distributed clandestine propaganda containing "offense to the authorities." The student leaflets had demanded the release of fellow students, arrested after a mass attack of Falangist hoodlums on Madrid University (TIME, Feb. 20). Among the offenses they stood accused of was referring to Interior Minister Blas Perez Gonzales as "Blas Himmler."

When the news got around that Gil Robles was appearing, the stairways and entrance to Madrid's Palace of Justice were crowded with people, with a public queue snaking around the block. But when the doors were opened, 80 police agents in plain clothes were allowed to take seats before the public was admitted. About 300 people jammed the courtroom. As those outside began to shout for admission, police drew their rubber truncheons and closed the doors.

Robles called ousted Law School Dean Torres Lopez, who told the court "there was no provocation . . . in my opinion nothing to show . . . Communist inspiration." A priest testified that the accused were all pious Catholics and had been members of the Falange. A Falangist intellectual ascribed the trouble to "a state of unease and dissatisfaction in the university owing to . . . insufficient freedom of intellectual life." In his summation Gil Robles spoke ironically of "certain" conditions prevailing in Spanish public life that had justified the defendants' resorting to any means of expression since the obvious ones were denied them, and argued that it is "legitimate to criticize the authorities when these authorities reveal a tendency to cover up abuses."

"Silly Intrigues." As for the phrase "Blas Himmler," said Robles sardonically, "how could it be regarded as injurious to compare anybody with Himmler when Herr Himmler (chief of Hitler's Gestapo) was received with full honors and presented with the highest Spanish decoration during his visit here in 1940?" The sentences handed down by the court were surprisingly light: six months to a year and $125 to $250 fines.

Old Rightist Politician Gil Robles had turned the trial into an oblique attack on the Franco regime, and the Caudillo was angry. Said he: "Because we are strong we can afford to be generous. This is why we pay no attention to the silly intrigues of a few dozen would-be politicians and their followers." Then Franco threatened: "If they should ever disturb the realization of our heroic destiny . . . we would open the flood of blue shirts and red berets that would throw them out."

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