SPAIN-PORTUGAL: Two Dictators, One Mind?

From the Iberian Peninsula came huffs & puffs from a Class 4-F dictator, sour, stolid Francisco Franco. Throttled, starving, hate-ridden Spain, said he, must prepare to “fight a new war of a moral, religious, military and industrial character.” Up went the temperatures of diplomats in the old and the new worlds. They wondered how long it would be before Franco, backed once more by friends Hitler & Mussolini, would: 1) attack Gibraltar, 2) draw neutral Portugal into the Spanish orbit.

Probably Franco would not attack until, and if, Marshal Rommel reached Suez in the threatening showdown fight in North Africa (see p. 24). Then, if both Rommel and Franco were successful, the Mediterranean would be plugged at both ends and the United Nations would be given another lesson in Axis cooperation.

Less easy to guess was what was cooking between Franco and Portugal’s philosophically antidemocratic, rabidly anti-Communist dictator, Dr. Antonio Salazar.

Similarities. The two dictators have a common and outspoken fear of the Anglo-Russian pact and the increasing solidarity of the United Nations with Russia. They believe that Germany is their bulwark against Communist doctrine and Russian post-war political influence. Both are increasingly dependent on Germany for trade. From the U.S. Portugal has received slimmer & slimmer shipments of oil, tobacco, fertilizer and foodstuff. Spain has been getting shiploads of wheat for her sullen peons and rickety children.

From Germany both nations have received a barrage of radio propaganda, magazines, newspapers and fifth columnists—and a spark for their dreams of empire. Franco’s Hispanidad is carefully nurtured by Falangists in Latin America and an unknown number of active Franco supporters in the U.S. Salazar’s hope is that the remnants of the Portuguese overseas empire (still the world’s fifth largest), built up by 16th-Century adventurers, can be kept in Portuguese hands.

Disparities. A friendship pact in 1941 marked a new and closer liaison between Portugal and Spain. Since then frequent conferences between Franco and Salazar may have led to military understandings. Present at most of them has been Spain’s gadabout Foreign Minister Ramón Serrano Suñer. But Portugal, besides relying on British sea power for protection of colonies in Africa, India and the South Seas, has had friendship and trade pacts with Britain since the 17th Century. The Portuguese have also watched Brazil, which broke from the mother country in 1823, move toward war against the Axis (see below). Two months ago Salazar spoke of “an eventual British victory.” But in the same speech he warned of the moral and religious threat of Russia and “the possible need for fighting,” despite all efforts to remain neutral. His speech was entitled “Economic Defense, Moral Defense and Political Defense.” With what Portugal would fight, now that virtually her entire army has been sent to empire outposts—the Azores, Mozambique, Guinea—was not clear. But clear was the similarity between Franco’s bombast and Salazar’s fear of a Europe not dominated by Germany. The Allies would be wise if they kept an eye on both dictators.