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For the fact was that the western democracies, anxious to increase their own influence in western Europe and reduce Russia's, did not quite know what to do. Franco was betting his political life that Allied confusion would win out over Allied wishes for his downfall. By executing a Spanish Communist hero of the French resistance, Cristino Garcia Granda, he forced a crisis with France in which he calculated that the U.S. and Britain would not give the French full support. Amid widespread demonstrations against the Spanish leader, France closed the border; but there were no signs that Britain and the U.S. would break off trade relations.
Franco counted on his ability to outbluff the democracies until the rivalry between Russia and the West rose to a pitch where he appeared as an ally of Britain and the U.S. He posed a tough dilemma for the democracies—and one not confined to Spain. Discussing Europe generally last week. Columnist Walter Lippmann sadly observed: "It is the weakness of our position in the contest with Communism that we find in bed with us, pretending to be democratic, factions and forces representing views as incompatible with our own as are the views of the Communists."