Notes
UNSAFE TO KNOW
1 the honeymoon with Mr. Tom Williams came to an end even ascribed the American attitude as being due to Foreign Office pressure, which in turn he attributed to the influence of the After twenty-two months in the Modelo Prison, Barcelona, without trial, Ramon Porqueras, General Secretary of the Catalan Socialist Party, has been released on bail. Porqueras, a good-looking, self-educated metal worker in the late twenties, is the outstanding figure among the Catalan opposition groups. His personal prestige proved as much a bane to the Stalinists, who like to claim a monopoly of Spanish opposition, as to the Falange. In comradely fashion the Communists revealed his whereabouts to the police by a carefully planted article in their smuggled news-sheet Mundo Obrero, printed in Prague. The reference was noted by Franco, who was at the time growing impatient of the delay in completing the US Pact. He Labour Party. To teach Transport House a lesson Franco ordered the arrest of all prominent Socialists in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia; this was in February. 1953. The Madrid leader, Tomas Centeno, is known to have died under torture; some of the smaller fry were sentenced to.imprison- ment, but Porqueras was left untried. It is difficult to know to what extent his recent release is due to the State Depart- ment's intervention at the instance of the AF of L. The more probable explanation is that, with the US Pact safely signed, Franco is prepared to bury the hatchet with the Labour Party, while getting rid of an awkward customer by giving him the chance to walk across the Pyrenees. One of the charges in the indictment against Porqueras was that he was found to possess a number of issues of Tribune in his rooms. It is ironical that admiration for Mr. Aneurin Bevan should prove so dangerous under all types of totalitarian regime, for this week when Messrs. Djilas and Dedijer were tried in Belgrade. they were accused, amongst other things, of having fallen under his beguiling spell.
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