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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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