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Acheson admitted that "this question of whether or not ambassadors, as distinguished from charges d'affaires, are in Madrid is a matter of no real importance at all." What gave the question importance (which it seemed to have, Acheson added wryly, "because it arouses a great deal of emotion both in this country and in other countries") is that recognition has become "a symbol of something else." If recognition had been withdrawn in the first place as a symbol of disapproval, then restoring recognition would inevitably be taken as a symbol of approval of Franco.
No Interference. Why, then, didn't the U.S. vote the way it believed in the U.N., instead of merely sitting by? The answer, said Acheson, was simply that the U.S. wanted the Western Europeans to do the deciding for themselves. "American policy is to try to bring Spain back into the family of Western Europe," he explained. "You have to convince the Spaniards that they must take some steps toward that end, and you have to convince the Europeans that they have to take some steps . . . Therefore the policy of the American Government is one which I am quite sure is calculated to please neither group of extremists in the United States—either those who say that we must immediately embrace Franco, or those who say that we must cast him into the outermost darkness."
Obviously, though Acheson did not put it so bluntly, the State Department would just as soon send an ambassador back to Madrid. But that didn't mean that the U.S. loved Franco any better, or wanted him in the North Atlantic Treaty.
And this week the U.N. took the State Department off the hook by voting to keep the ban on Spain.