Victorious Generalissimo Francisco Franco proclaimed over the Burgos radio at 2:20 p. m. on March 29 that the Spanish Civil War had officially ended. His troops had occupied Madrid, Valencia, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Jaén, Albacete—almost without resistance. Italian planes from Majorca had made a last bombing trip over Gandia, British-controlled Mediterranean port. A few anarchist soldiers were still putting up a feeble resistance in isolated districts and clean-up campaigns were bound to continue for some time. But, broadly speaking, Generalissimo Franco was right: the war was over and for the first time in 984 days Spain had peace.
Food. After the war-weary city had displayed white flags from the tallest buildings and the Franco troops had taken possession, 6,500 truckloads of food for half-starved inhabitants began to roll into Madrid. New Franco money (the old Loyalist paper money was declared valueless) arrived by carloads to be exchanged for pre-war currency. Direct train service between the capital and Saragossa was restored after nearly three years. Sandbags piled up in front of buildings on the Gran Via were removed, shutters were pulled up, temporary boarding was torn down. The rooms of hotels long considered unsafe because of artillery fire were reopened. Barricades which had been carefully erected in West Madrid more than two years ago were torn down. For the first time in over two years Madrid was allowed to have electric lights at night.
The city which had once been the heart of Republican resistance soon echoed with cries of Arriba España! Viva Franco! The clenched fist became the upraised arm. Some 40,000 secret Fascist sympathizers —members of the Fifth Column—dropped their Republican disguise, took over the city even before the first of Franco's troops had crossed the Manzanares River and taken actual possession of Madrid. Out of hiding in foreign embassies and legations came hundreds of Franco partisans.
Among those who saw the last of Republican Madrid was Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., 23-year-old son of the U. S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's. He had gone to Loyalist Spain on a British battleship, then to Madrid on a sightseeing tour. He had put up at the spacious U. S. Embassy as the guest of Francisco Ugarte, the Embassy's caretaker. Marveled young Mr. Kennedy at Madrid's fall: "Did you ever see anything like it?" After attending Palm Sunday Mass, he went to Burgos, planned to leave Spain soon and report to Father Kennedy his observations and conversations with Loyalist leaders, Foreign Minister Julián Besteiro and Colonel Segismundo Casado. Young Kennedy wrote his honors thesis at Harvard last year on the legal aspects of the Spanish war.
Vengeance. But not everywhere was there unmixed joy. Lines of men and women streamed out of Madrid toward the coast, hoping somehow to escape the clutches of Fascist rule. Thousands of stanch Loyalists who feared for their lives if they remained clamored to board British warships, besieged consulates of neutral powers.