SPAIN: La Pasionaria: An Exile Ends

Aeroflot Flight SU 297 from Moscow was slightly ahead of schedule. The blue and white, three-engine Tupolev 154 taxied to a stop on the tarmac some 200 yards from the main terminal at Madrid's Ba rajas Airport. After a brief delay, the doors opened and a frail figure in black descended the forward boarding ladder. At exactly 7:54 p.m. last Friday, Dolores Ibarruri, 81, La Pasionaria* of Spanish Civil War fame and president of the Spanish Communist Party, set foot on Spanish soil for the first time in 38 years.

Up on the observation deck, about 200 Spanish Communists, most...

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