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"The moment has come . . . when we are disposed to undertake negotiations which will assure us an honorable peace. We await your decision."
So said Julián Besteiro, Foreign Minister of Loyalist Spain's National Defense Council, over Madrid's Union Radio last week. He was speaking directly and publicly to Burgos, 220 miles away, seat of the Government of Generalissimo Francisco Franco.
Next day Ramon Serrano Suñer, Minister of Interior of the Franco Government, broadcast this reply from Burgos: "We can answer in no other way than this: We desire victorious peace. After peace, victorious, we will show our generosity, which we are proving in good works."
Thus began over the radio, in full hearing of everyone in Spain, the strangest peace negotiations that ever took place. Somewhere between "honorable" peace and "victorious" peace hard-working negotiators might be able to find an adjective which would bring plain peace to Spain. No doubt remained of the war-weariness on the Loyalist side last week. Little doubt remained that the Franco Government was anxious to wind up the 32-months'-old war that has killed more than 1,000,000 people, exiled half as many. Well it might, for even the Loyalists assumed that when peace came Generalissimo Franco would become the ruler of the entire country.
To the world, which has so far been able to pass judgment only on Franco's none too striking military qualities, the biggest question mark about Spain was what kind of a ruler he will be. Will he become a dynamic dictator like Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, and join them in adventures against the peace of the world? Or will he simply be a routine, domestic military dictator of the type of Primo de Rivera, his predecessor? Will his government—after the war is over—be Fascist or will he restore the monarchy?
The answers largely depend on the character of Francisco Franco, and last week as Spain was about to begin another chapter in her long history, the plump, enigmatic little man who will boss it—strangely colorless for a Spaniard—and the men with whom he has surrounded himself attracted the world's curiosity.
Soldier. Born in 1892 at El Ferrol, in Galicia, the son of a naval officer, Francisco Franco was given routine military education. He entered the military school at the Alcázar, Toledo, at 14, was graduated with a commission at 17, went soon after to Morocco. Even then Spain was fighting its interminable war with the Riffs. Adolescent Lieutenant Franco was wounded once, was decorated several times for bravery.
Hardened and ambitious, in 1923 he married Carmen Polo, daughter of a wealthy Oviedo merchant, and His Majesty King Alfonso sent a personal representative to the wedding. They have one daughter Carmencita, now 10, who busies herself with well-photographed good works around Burgos. Strange for a Spanish officer, he is said neither to drink nor smoke. Odder still, he is pictured as very much the family man. A typical dictator has no time for, and little interest in, family life.