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As the leading spokesman for Europe's socialist democrats, Britain's Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, who has said he detests Fascist Spain, was well aware of the desperately delicate situation. He and non-socialist democrats were struggling against Communism for the political soul of Europe, for the trust of men who would never again trust those who tolerated Franco. The U.S. was more remote from the scene, but as the leading power of the democratic coalition, the U.S. was not remote from the responsibility.
If the objective—Franco's downfall—was clear, the way to achieve it was not. Armed intervention, severance of diplomatic relations, or even a mere shutting off of oil shipments to Spain—any one of these might bring about a change of regime. But unless the democracies' plans were carefully laid, a change of regime under any of these circumstances might also plunge Spain again into the abyss of civil war. The western democracies knew, and Franco knew they knew, that civil war might bring civil chaos and Communism's great opportunity. Franco's confident defiance sprang from misunderstanding of the West's dilemma.
While London and Washington stuck doggedly to a "moderate" policy, Moscow cried out against Anglo-American "inadequacy," called for a "radical solution . . . immediate rupture of diplomatic relations with Franco. . . . As is well known, the Soviet Government . . . does not maintain any relations with Franco Spain." This week Washington and London declined to join Paris in citing Franco before the UNO Security Council as a menace to world peace. But Moscow agreed to go along.
This was Russia's opportunity to try putting the Anglo-Americans across a propaganda barrel—the kind Russia had endured over Iran. This was also Franco's opportunity—as it had been the opportunity of Hitler. For all he was worth, the wily Gallegan dictator played Russia against Britain and the U.S.
Way of Power. Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde has never suffered from pallid faith in his own star. "God is with me," he said in public last September, "and those God helps along never fail to win." His path to totalitarian power has been religious and ruthless, stubborn and supple, medieval and modern, simple and complex. For almost three decades he has been a man of violence and inquisitorial intolerance. He hunts wild boars and rojos ("reds," meaning practically all political opponents) with equal intensity. Yet he has seldom failed to say a nightly rosary with his wife Carmen and daughter Carmencita (now 19). His most frequent prayer is: "Lord who entrusted Spain to my hand, do not deny me the grace of handing you back a Spain which is truly Catholic."
Way of Glory. Spain was still a feudal monarchy, its last shred of ancient grandeur dispelled by Yankee ironclads at Santiago and Manila Bay, when Francisco Franco first took notice of his star. By family and caste tradition he should have been a sailor. Because Spain was too poor to afford any more naval officers, he became a soldier. From seaside El Ferrel, in his native Galicia, he went to the Alcazar military school in Toledo. In 1912, at 20, he was a slender, shiny-eyed captain getting his baptism of fire and helping carve a new Spanish empire in Morocco.