SPAIN: Fillip for Franco

Ever since his great & good friends, Hitler & Mussolini, went down history’s drain, Spain’s Francisco Franco has suffered an international ostracism. In 1947, Argentina’s Evita Perón broke into his loneliness with a spectacular visit. Last week it happened again—in double measure and double pleasure for Spain’s plump dictator.

First, the U.S. Navy dropped in. Then came the wily Abdullah, King of Hashimite Jordan.

Yankee Ships. For the first time since before the Spanish civil war, a visiting squadron of four U.S. warships (cruisers Columbus and Juneau, destroyers Stribling and Bordelon) steamed into the harbor of El Ferrol, where Francisco Franco was born. While ships of the Spanish Navy fired a salute, the U.S. vessels dropped anchor. High-ranking Spanish officials climbed aboard the flagship Columbus to greet Admiral Richard Conolly, Commander in Chief U.S. Naval Forces, Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean. From then on, until the Americans left five days later, there was a round of receptions, dinners and ceremonies. U.S. sailors poured ashore to see the sights as far inland as Madrid and Toledo.

It was the first time in a generation that Spaniards had got a close look at U.S. uniforms. Said one Madrid housewife, no doubt thinking of her daily struggle with water and electricity shortages: “They must have plenty of maids on board those ships. How else do they keep so clean and their hats so white?” Added a Madrid girl: “Just like in the movies but much nicer and not so noisy.”

Citizens gathered around the sailors in the streets and crowded quays, staring with awe at the U.S. men and warships. To pro-Franco folk the visit looked like a friendly gesture towards their leader. To anti-Franco folk the U.S. flag and sailors were a demonstration of a way of life for which they long.

The American tars were struck by a difference between Spain and other European points. There were no cries of “chicle, chicle” or “cigarette” that generally haunt the U.S. Navy elsewhere in foreign ports. “What’s the matter with these fellows, anyhow?” asked Chief Warrant Officer Milburn (“Duke”) Holmes of North Platte, Neb. “They won’t accept our cigarettes and want us to smoke their smelly black tobacco. I haven’t been able to pay for a glass of sherry in town—but they sure look as if they could use some extra money or some food.”

The Falangist press did its utmost to emphasize that the naval call represented “the real feeling of U.S. public opinion toward Spain.” An editorial in Juventad proclaimed: “American friends, we . . . have more reasons to hate you than to love you . . . But we can forgive all when he who has offended comes to us with a smile on his lips. In this case our pride gives way to simpatia, and we are ready to fraternize with our old enemy who is now our new friend.”

U.S. Navy spokesmen said the visit was “informal but official.” The less friendly U.S. embassy underlined the “nonpolitical” significance of the visit by keeping away from all ceremonies on the Navy’s behalf, and limiting official recognition of Admiral Conolly’s presence to a private cocktail party in the chargé d’affaires’ home. Unlike the Navy, which thinks of Spain as a neglected sector of Western Europe’s defense, State thinks that the only way to liberalize Franco’s regime is through the hostility of U.S. opinion towards the Spanish dictator. Now, wailed DOS men, Franco would be harder than ever to liberalize. Undeniably, the Navy’s independent foreign policy had bolstered Franco’s internal position.

Moorish King. Jordan’s Abdullah arrived at La Coruña, a few miles down the coast from El Ferrol, before the Americans left. Disgruntled because his British masters had put him aboard an ordinary passenger steamer, the Highland Brigade, the Hashimite sovereign had his pride restored when Host Franco stopped the British steamer in the harbor and provided a Spanish naval launch for his Arab guest to come ashore in regal style.

One afternoon, Franco in white admiral’s uniform and Abdullah in kalpak boarded the Spanish cruiser Miguel de Cervantes. A high wind blew off Abdullah’s kalpak but a lackey promptly produced another. All was shipshape as the Cervantes steamed proudly into El Ferrol to receive a 21-gun salute from other Spanish vessels and the visiting U.S. warships. Beaming with delight, Franco waved at the U.S. Marines as they presented arms while the Columbus band struck up Spain’s national anthem, the Marcha Real.

Franco beamed some more when he read Admiral Conolly’s farewell statement: “The Spanish people are proud and stubborn. So are we . . . The Spanish people and the Spanish nation merit our sympathetic understanding and friendship . . .”

Franco was still beaming next day as he gave Abdullah a spectacular public embrace. Madrid declared a national holiday the better to welcome the royal guest. One peevish cobbler grumbled: “Haven’t we enough saints’ days which keep us from working without a Moorish king thrown in as well?”

Abdullah was scheduled to make a fortnight’s tour of Spain, including Andalusia in the south, where his ancestors once ruled. A Spanish man-of-war will bear him home. Thus shrewd Francisco Franco would finish an important knot in the net with which he is trying to snare support in the Arab world.