`Man in a Dressing Gown'
BY IAN GILMOUR
MHE Spanish press..has been described by Mr. I H. L. Matthews, the former Spanish corre- spondent of the New York Tinto': as 'one of the greatest insults to the intelligence in the Western world.' This is not of course the fault of the journalists, many of whom are clever arid culti- vated men, but of government and clerical control and censorship—which is today just as strict, though less intelligent, than it was during the war, when the Spanish press was entirely controlled from the German Embassy by the sinister Lazar. The censorship also applies to foreign news- papers. .Yet though the Spanish press in itself lacks interest, it is worth some attention because it conveys the views and attitude of the Govern- ment, and reveals what the newspapers think will be agreeable to the regime. 'Our censorship, in what concerns most of our papers,' General Franco told a journalist last summer, 'is in the hands of their' editors' (he appoints the editors); `and the censorship hardly, intervenes except in matters bearing on public .morals and in order to forestall attacks against foreign Heads of State and nations which we entertain good rela- tions.' (My italics.) 'Its spirit,' added the Caudillo, `ii the service of truth.'
Naturally this makes any form of controversy difficult, but the newspapers have to do their best, for not to engage in controversy might indicate a dangerous lack of zeal and loyalty. So the clerical Ya abandoned its usual ambiguous style to say, of my article 'Franco's Spain' in the Spectator, that 'since the immediate post-world-war days when Spain was due to be sacrificed to the Soviet Union [it] had never read anything so biased, so brim- ming over with spitefulness and ill will.' Ya's leader was entitled 'A Clumsy Liar,' and the
phrase was repeated in the text. If my lies were as clumsy as all that, it should have been easy enough• to refute them; but apparently not. To say. what they were, Ya said, would merely give them circu- lation; presumably they were more likely to be believed than Ya's refutations. Rather different tactics, however, have been used against Don Salvador de Madariaga. The Madrid daily ABC THE SPECTATOR, JANUARY 22, Pretended to its readers that he said things in The Times which he had not said, and then successfully disproved its own inventions (in the service of truth no doubt). Other news- papers have been carrying on a virulent and mendacious campaign against Don Salvador, the most interesting feature of which has been the tendency to blame his opposition to Franco upon this country. (One of Don Salvador's attackers, incidentally, was found spying for the Germans during the war in London, and sent back to Spain on the grounds that he was out of his mind.) The press and government of a dictatorship which allows no freedom of speech are unable to understand that anybody can say or write any- thing critical of their regime merely because he happens to believe it. A journalist, they think, must always be obeying orders and seeking to further some world-wide conspiracy (Jewish, I\las°nic, Communist, imperialist, or capitalist). The Caudillo in his New Year Message plumped for the Masonic conspiracy, always basically his favourite. ABC, however, was taking no such chances; Gilmour's 'rancour and his hostility to Our country are obvious. He is a professional defamer with blind obedience to those who in- spire and order him.' But ABC was not letting on Who those people were.
The Broadcasting Services favoured the im- perialist conspiracy : that my article was a put-up 1°6 by the Foreign Office. The FO was engaged '11 a deep manoeuvre to discredit Spain, as it was worried by her improved diplomatic position and by American aid; the Spectator Was therefore lined up to sow dissension between the United e 'tates and Spain, in case a US-Spanish alliance should force Britain to give up Gibraltar. The British were a hypocritical people, as they made a habit of killing negroes in Kenya prisons.
The Falangist organ Arriba adopted the Com- munist 'explanation. (If Arriba and the Broad- casting Service were both right the Macmillan- tishchev alliance must be closer than we The article was 'a masterpiece of „Ought.) I had been 'prompted by the Russians' and 'did not deserve to possess a house and a ear: I \vas 'a learned and pedantic dandy' who ,spent most of the day in a dressing gown,' and ,!hc, had given up golf and bridge' (not very int arxist pastimes, one would have thought) to Give himself heartily to the painful task' of dis- ering the Continent. This rigorous examina- tion of the author meant that Arriba, like all the other papers, had no space to dispute a single ,act or argument in the article.
It did, however, have room to make sixty-nine statements of 'fact' about England, which demon- thrated, as have articles in other papers, not merely criticise it, of the regime towards people who 1tIcise it, but its hostility to England as well. Arriba i illustrated the familiar dictatorial reaction
to
prongs: and democratic criticism. It has threeprotigs: 0) The criticism is not true.
(2) Freedom and democracy are bad things. (3) Anyway, England is neither free nor democratic. per�bcPS sixty-nine 'facts' range from 'there are trttoPle in England who have cold macaroni and at° on toast for breakfast' to 'in England it is a crime to criticise the Monarchy, Parliament, the Government and the Church in a way con- trary to the law.' One of these 'facts' is of some interest : `the bombing of Hamburg,' Arriba rightly says, 'caused more destruction and more deaths than did that of Guernfca.' Both at the time and for years afterwards Franco pretended that Guernica had been destroyed not by his Ger- man bombers but by its Republican defenders. Now that pitiful and discreditable lie has been abandoned. Even under Franco truth comes out in the end.
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