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By JOSE LUIS
GONZALEZ

Franco’s —
gamb

: PARIS
HEN General Francisco
Franco ‘recently toured

the African Spanish posses-
sions, he declared: “I am
now touring those remnants

of the bad, unjust carving up ~

of the rib of Northwest Af-
rica whereby we got the skin
on one side and the bone on
the other. I trust that if the
world continues to march on
the right road, injustices wall
ae “righted. *

It is not difficult to:'guess what
the General meant by “the right
road.” Franco is gambling des-
perately on U.S. policies which, if
realized, would offer his regime the
enly. chance of at least temporary
survival,

He was even more direct in an-
other speech on the same tour.
“Today,” he said, “we have pre-
sented ourselves to the world and

. we have done it modestly—asking
for our place under the sun. They
will understand us and we will
be taken into account because we
have things of which there is a
shortage in the world today: the
extraordinary
people ... and the privileged geo-
graphic position God gave us on
the European continent and the
Atlantic Ocean.”

It is no longer a secret that
American military installations,
especially airports and naval bas-
es, have been constructed in Spain.
Arriba, the official Falange news-
paper, said editorially on October
31 last: “Our naval bases are con
tinually improving their installa
tions. ... The government shows
a magnificient will that is ex-
»pressing itself in the civil works
at naval bases.”

Spain's small’and obsolete navy
certainly does not réquire enlarg-
ed and improved bases, And there .
are now at least two airports
in the country for every sage a
owned airplane.

As far back as January 30, 1949,
U.S. News & World Report said:
“Tf United States troops have to
begin action on European terri-
tory tomorrow, they will be able
to land on the Spanish airdromes,
perfected and equipped by the
Americans, The agreement sign-
ed by Franco to this effect in.

» 1945 is in force.”

The “right road” of war prepar
ations not only counts on Spain
as a base for aggression, but, as
the London Daily Mail admits:
“Among the non-commissioned of-
ficers and privates (of the Span-
ish army) the peasant population
predominates, which is among
the best material in the world.
With a tin of sardines or a piece
of sausage in one pocket and a
piece of bread in the other, they
are capable of fighting for whole
days, sleeping under their great-
coats, it does not matter where.”

Thus, Spain is being counted on
to furnish cannon-fodder, too. ~
e ;
But what is the situation inside
Spain itself? Firsthand reports
point to two things:

First, that the conditions under

quality of our ,

ryteen years ago, Spanish political prisoners in this
Valencia prison celebrated the People’s Front victory of
February, 1936, by burning. their jail.
hated Franco fascist regime, the prisons are full and poverty

and terror fill the country.

which the Spanish people are liv-
ing are unbearable and, second,
that discontent among the masses
has reached such a point that
“responsible circles” would not be
surprised by any event.

An average Spanish industrial
worker earns 160 pesetas (a little
more than $4) a week. The pur-

chasing power of his wage can,

be judged from the fact that one
kilogram (2.2 lbs.) of beef costs
from 30 to 50 pesetas.

While wages are 200 percent
higher than in 1935, the cost of
food and clothing is 600 percent

higher and the general cost of -

living is 1000 percent higher.
State expendituré has multiplied
seven times. And the five so
called national banks, which made
a profit of 50 million pesetas in
1935, made 400 million in 1949.
This situation has strengthened
the ranks of the popular op-
position movement and at the
same time has lunged goverhment
circles into sieoray pessimism,

A typical eee of working
class unity in the fight against
Franco oppression is provided by
the Sestao tin works in northern
Spain. Some time ago the work-
ers of this plant, one of the
largest of its kind in the country,
demanded a 20-minute interval
for lunch and a wage increase.
Management granted the 20 min
utes but refused to increase wages.
The workers answered by slowing
down production.

The management grew alanmed
and asked the workers to present
their demands in written form,
promising to, answer in 15 days.
Six months later there’ still was
no answer. The workers slowed
down production again. This time
Management fired 280 workers as
“saboteurs.” A strike ensued.

‘That was Several months ago.

ae
ty}

Today, under the

‘
The plant is still closed.

Actions like this, and the resis-
tance of the growing guerrilla
movement, have created a deep
feeling of defeatism and impend-
ing disaster among ruling circles,

Franco himself declared recently: ~

“Our civilization is today in an
anguished state, Europe has en-

- tered into a severely grave crisis;

it wavers on the edge of.an abyss,

‘the Spanish people.”

shaken by
ism.”

the wave of material-

Martin Artajo, Spain’s foreign
minister, has referred to the “an-

guished situation in which we are

living.” The Catholic high hier-
archy, at a conference of Spanish
Metropolitans, recently issued a
decree demanding that Falangist
authors and journalists defend
more zealously the Vatican fas-
cist conceptions which the masses
are rejecting with hatred.

The Bishop of San Sabastian
published a “pastoral exhortation”
in which, after denouncing the
existence of a “misled mentality”
and “storm clouds,’ he confessed
that there does not exist “total
union of wills nor, therefore,
tranquility of the spirits, which
obviously has a bad effect on

peace and good harmony among
citizens.”

The disastrous effects of his
domestic policies has Ied‘Franco
to try to divert the Spanish
people’s attention to Spain’s in-
ternational “aspirations,”

In the days when the Anglo-
American bloc at the United Na-
tions had not succeeded in get-
ting Franco into “decent -society,”
Franco tried hard to present the
condemnation of his regime as an
“international conspiracy against
This did not
have good results, and Franco
was only too glad when the Anglo-
American bloc finally succeeded
in lifting the diplomatic ban prev-
iously agreed on by UN.

‘Then he turned to an old and
favorite trick. The Falange, since
its inception in the early thirties,
always talked a good deal about
Spain’s “Voluntad de Imperio”
(Will of Empire). It meant, in
the main, three things: Gibralter,
Africa and Latin America,

During the Second World War,
and especially during the period
of Nazi victories, Franco quite
vociferously repeated the Fal-

-ange’s old claim to Gibralter. He

was sure Hitler’s victory would
mean the transfer of The Rock to
Spain, After Hitler’s defeat, Fran-
co dropped the claim for obvious
reasons of not antagonizing the
victor — and prospective “anti-
Bolshevik” ally. But just a few

months ago, Franco revived the

“Gibralter for Spain” slogan.
What was behind this move?

American interests are playing up

Franco against the British.

e :

The story of U.S. economic

‘in Spain can continue.

penetration in Spain is a long

and well-known one. Under a deal -

concluded in 1946, U.S. cotton in-
terests obtained control of Spain’s
textile industry. They then forced
the French, by means of the Mar-
shall Plan, to buy’ textiles from
Franco with U.S. dollars, thus
getting rid of their surplus cotton

stocks and getting back the Mar-

shall Plan dollars from France.

Standard Oil and Texas Oi!
Company (Texaco) own the re-
fineries in Villa Cisneros ‘and at
the port of La Luz in Spain’s
Canary Islands. The Valladolid
Aluminum factory is a branch of
Aluminum Company of America.
The list is endless.

- When shortage of technical per-

sonnel arose, U.S. authorities did
not hesitate to hire Franco’s old
industrial advisers, the Nazis.

The New York Times of May
4, 1950, reported the arrival in
Spain of six German specialists
to advise the Franco regime on
the reorganization of Spanish in-

“dustry. The London News-Chron-

icle announced on December 1
that Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, Hit-
ler’s financial expert, was due to
lecture to one ‘of Spain’s most
powerful banking groups in Ma-

drid at the beginning of the
month.
The Spanish people, however,

quite obviously have not been de-
ceived by the talk of empire: They
know the future of Spain cannot
depend on the rebuilding of an
empire which died a long time
ago, that this is the era of the
people’s liberation, not of further
enslavement of weak nations by
stronger ones. That is surely why
when Franco returned to Madrid
after his African tour. the New
York Times of December 7 re-
ported that “his triumphal entry.
fell very flat despite the U.. vstr
fell very flat despite the UN vote

to withdraw the bans on relations:

with -his regime.”

The paper added: ‘In spite of
exhortations from the mayor of

Madrid, and although all shops.

and factories had shut down for
the occasion, the crowd was so
small that foreign observers were
surprised.

“There are constantly growing
indications that responsible Span-
ish circles no longer , believe that
the present trend of conditions
because
they see nothing ahead except eco-
nomic chaos.”

Ted Tinsley |

ECIL B. De MILLE, the: movie producer, has

. been writing a series of articles which have
appeared in the Hearst press under the modest
line, “Cecil B. De Mille Speaking.” Some of these
articles, which purport to be memoirs, deal with
the Soviet Union, and their level is about the
same as that of a De Mille motion picture.

I will give you one brief excerpt which is
rather revealing. In discussing U.S. movies and
their reception in the Soviet Union, De Mille
wrote, “The sight of Groucho Marx chasing a
blonde (quite regularly the case in his wonderful
comedies) is apt to give rise to a politburo edict:
In America no woman is safe’.”

De Mille evidently knows little about U.S.
movies. It happens that the man ‘who chases the
blondes regularly in the Marx brothers movies is
Harpo, and not Groucho. But a glance at an
average De Mille movie is enough to show that
,beyond buying a big cast, and miscasting them,
‘he is not an expert in the subject.

In dealing with the Soviet Union, he is even
as accurate as he is in dealing with movies.

The climax in one of his articles came with a
description of a visit to a chicken farm near
Stalingrad. De Mille wrote:

“It was government operated and quite large,
with thousands of chickens —- bony, dispirited
creatures, with the air of someone who has been
worked over by the GPU. ‘They leaned against
the fence and watched us with sinister calm,
like enemies in a concentration camp. Ag

. AH I can say is that if I were a chicken, and
Cecil B. De Mille visited me, I too, would be

Uispirited, lean against the fence, and wait for
him to go home. As for that “sinister cal

De Mille really has something there. If you have
ever come across a chicken. with a look of sinis-
ter calm-on his face you will know what a shock

it is.

Perhaps what De Mille interpreted as sinister
calm was really philosophic contemplation, or
simply disgust at the thought of the next picture
to come out of Holtywood. Personally, I have
always found it difficult to read the emotions
on a chicken's face. I will leave that to Cecil.

That particular ‘article answers a question that
has been plaguing me for some time. The NBO
radio program, “We, the People,” sent out 2
publicity release some time ago, promising that
on a forthcoming program a Mrs, Polly S. De-
Vasvary would show films of her German setter,
reputedly the one dog in the world that drives
a-ear. This dog, said NIBC, is “is now ‘a. prisoner
behind Russia’s Iron Curtain.” E

Now I understand it! The dog was captured
and put to work as a chauffeur for the dispirited
chickens, whose morale picks up on the open
road! But it is wrong to assume that the dog
is there against his will, He says he is much
happier chauffeuring the dispirited chickens than
he could ever be on the “We, the People” pro-
gram.

And so, let us now inscribe on the list of In-
tellectual Giants who are now. fighting com-
munism the name of. Cecil Pe Mille, Cc. .P
(Chicken: ieee as. ;

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 19, 1951 — Page 4

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