The United States and Spain
Contrary to expectation the Government of the United States has anticipated our own in resuming full diplomatic relations with Spain. Mr. Stanton Griffis, till lately American Ambassador in Buenos Aires, is to go in the same capacity to Madrid, and at the same time a Spanish Ambassador will establish himself in Washington. This sensible decision appears to have been pressed on a reluctant President by the State Department, and the nomination of Mr. Griffis will have to be approved by the Senate next month ; there is little doubt that the approval will be forthcoming. It is to be hoped that Mr. Bevin will lose no time in following a good example which he might very well have rset himselft He has indeed announced that a British Ambassador to Spain will be appointed, and the sooner the appointment is gazetted the better ; France may
then prove capable of overcoming her own hesitations in the matter. Quite apart from the patent ineffectiveness of the semi-ostracism which this and other nations have been imposing on Spain for the past four years, there is urgent reason on defence grounds why Spain should be brought fully within the Western European organisation. It would not be surprising if the voice which represented that most emphatically to President Truman was that of the Minister of Defence, Mr. Marshall, reinforced possibly enough by General Eisenhower's.
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