Spain and the United States - Real Instituto Elcano

14
SPAIN AND THE UNITED STATES
War. Franco ratified a Pact of Friendship with Germany after the world war
broke out, he exported wolfram (a key ingredient in the manufacturing of highquality
steel for armaments), steel, mercury and zinc to the Nazis, he sent the
Blue Division to fight alongside the Wehrmacht on the Eastern front, and he
made overtures to Hitler (whom he met at Hendaya on the French border) to
bring Spain into the war in June 1940 after the fall of France (the asking price
of control of Morocco was too high, however, because it would have upset
Vichy France).
The victory of the allies in 1945 left the Franco regime very much of a
pariah in the United States and Europe.
1. From out in the cold to a place in the sun
The United States, Britain and France issued a Tripartite Declaration on
March 4, 1946, which stated that Spaniards could not look forward to “full and
cordial association” with them as long as Franco remained in power. Spain’s
ostracism was designed to bring about “a peaceful withdrawal of Franco,
the abolition of the Falange, and the establishment of an interim or caretaker
government under which the Spanish people may have an opportunity
freely to determine the type of government they wish to have and to choose
their leaders”.
However, no direct action was taken to achieve these goals, although Spain
was politically ostracised later that year by the United Nations, which adopted
a resolution calling on members to withdraw their ambassadors from Madrid.
There was no US ambassador to Spain until 1950, when this ban was lifted.
The Spanish government was also barred “from membership in international
agencies established by or brought into relationship with the UN and from
participation in conferences or other activities which may be arranged by the
UN or by their agencies.” As well as political and diplomatic ostracism, the US
government barred Spain from the 1948 Marshall Plan, impeded trade with it
and shut off public and private loans.
The US stance against Franco was to some extent dictated by the position
of its European allies, who were even more adamantly opposed to the regime.
Winston Churchill had lost the 1945 election to Clement Atlee of the Labour
Party, and his deputy, Herbert Morrison, had been one of the leading opponents
of the Chamberlain government’s non-intervention policy during Spain’s Civil
War. Pushing Spain’s membership of NATO (created in 1949) and allowing it
into the Marshall Plan would have deeply upset Britain and France, whose
support President Harry Truman needed to contain Russia. Truman, a