No. 830
Editorial Note
Due to the dominant importance in United States-Spanish relations during 1952–1954 of the attempt to integrate Spain into the Western defense system, the documentation which follows deals exclusively with the negotiation and implementation of agreements directly related to that objective. As a result, no documentation concerning official American contacts with important Spanish persons and groups who expressed opposition to the Franco regime is included in this compilation. Foremost among these persons was Don Juan, the Pretender to the Spanish throne who was then living in Estoril, a suburb of Lisbon. One of the responsibilities of Theodore Xanthaky, the Special Assistant to the Ambassador in Portugal, was to report on conversations he held with Don Juan, which he did on a regular basis. These reports are in file 752.11. The President of the Spanish Republic in Exile, Diego Martinez Barrio, maintained contact with American officials in France on an intermittent basis. The Basque Government in Exile, led by Jose Antonio Aguirre y Lecube, occasionally called on officials of the Department of State when he was in Washington. Inside Spain, the Comite Interior de Coordinacion, an umbrella organization encompassing most non-Communist opposition groups ranging from the socialists to the monarchists, regularly communicated to the Embassy in Spain accounts of its position vis-à-vis the attempt by the United States to integrate Spain into Western defense schemes. Documentation concerning these contacts is in files 611.52, 752.00, and 752.5.