We Saw Spain Die

by Preston Paul

130 Louis Fischer, Russia’s Road from Peace to War: Soviet Foreign Relations, 1917–1941 (New York: Harper, 1969), and The Road to Yalta: Soviet Foreign Relations, 1941–1945 (New York: Harper, 1972).

  Chapter 8: The Sentimental Adventurer

  1 Gellhorn to Roosevelt, undated, 1938, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library.

  2 Noel Baker to Steer, 6 March 1937, Noel-Baker Papers, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge (henceforth CAC), NBKR, 4/2. The letter is clearly misdated March when the content points clearly to it being written in May.

  3 G. L. Steer, The Tree of Gernika: A Field Study of Modern War (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1938), pp. 161–8.

  4 Nicholas Rankin, Telegram from Guernica. The Extraordinary Life of George Steer, War Correspondent (London: Faber & Faber, 2003), p. 5.

  5 For a critical examination of Steer’s work, see Tom Buchanan, The Impact of the Spanish Civil War on Britain. War, Loss and Memory (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2007), p. 25.

  6 Sidney Barton, Preface, G. L. Steer, Sealed and Delivered (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1942), p. 1.

  7 Who was Who 1941–1950 (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1951), p. 1097; George Steer, Caesar in Abyssinia (Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co., 1937), p. 19.

  8 Steer, Caesar in Abyssinia, pp. 20–2, 130, 153–4; Noel Monks, Eye-Witness (London: Frederick Muller, 1955), p. 35.

  9 Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty. The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist, and Myth Maker from the Crimea to Vietnam (London: André Deutsch, 1975), pp. 174–5; Steer, Caesar in Abyssinia, pp. 37–41.

  10 Steer, Caesar in Abyssinia, pp. 7–8.

  11 The Times, 18 May 1936; Steer, Caesar in Abyssinia, pp. 286–93, 404.

  12 Waugh’s letters from September to November 1935 in Artemis Cooper (ed.), Mr Wu & Mrs Stitch. The Letters of Evelyn Waugh and Diana Cooper (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991), pp. 52–7. The meetings with Steer, Caesar in Abyssinia, pp. 73, 154, the fate of the house, pp. 370–87.

  13 Tablet, 23 January 1937, reprinted in Donald Gallagher (ed.), The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh (London: Methuen, 1983), pp. 188–9.

  14 Evelyn Waugh, Scoop (Boston, MA: Littlebrown, 1977) [1st edn, 1937], pp. 61–3, 115–16.

  15 Steer, Caesar in Abyssinia, pp. 393–7; Rankin, Telegram, pp. 38–40, 70–1, 97.

  16 The Times, 29, 31 August, 1, 2, 4, 5 September 1936.

  17 Steer, Gernika, pp. 13, 139.

  18 Monks, Eye-Witness, p. 94; Peter Kemp, Mine were of Trouble (London: Cassell, 1957), pp. 41, 52–3.

  19 Peter Kemp, The Thorns of Memory (London: Sinclair Stevenson, 1990), p. 21.

  20 Rankin, Telegram, pp. 84–5.

  21 Clark, War Office, to Roberts, FO, 8 February 1937, TNA FO 371/21284, W 2902/1/41.

  22 Herbert Rutledge Southworth, Guernica! Guernica!: A Study of Journalism, Propaganda and History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977), p. 402.

  23 Rankin, Telegram, pp. 85–6, 104.

  24 Steer, Gernika, pp. 12–13, 134–8.

  25 Steer, Gernika, pp. 113–19, 126.

  26 Stevenson to Chilton, 31 January 1937, TNA FO 371/21284, FO 371/21284, W 2827/1/41.

  27 The Times, 30 January 1937; James Cable, The Royal Navy and the Siege of Bilbao (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 75; Steer, Gernika, p. 132; Rankin, Telegram, pp. 96–7, 103; Clark, War Office, to Roberts, FO, 8 February 1937, TNA FO 371/21284, W 2902/1/41.

  28 Steer, Gernika, p. 159; Bowers to Hull, 30 April 1937, Foreign Relations of the United States 1937 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1954), I, p. 291.

  29 Steer, Gernika, pp. 160–70; Southworth, Guernica!, pp. 368–9; Jesús Salas Larrazabal, La guerra de España desde el aire, 2nd edn (Barcelona: Ariel, 1972), pp. 187–8.

  30 Steer, Gernika, p. 14.

  31 The Times, 14 April 1937.

  32 Steer to Noel-Baker, 19 April 1937, Noel-Baker Papers, CAC, NBKR, 4x/118.

  33 The Times, 15, 21, 24 April 1937; P. M. Heaton, Welsh Blockade Runners in the Spanish Civil War (Newport, Gwent: The Starling Press, 1985), pp. 35–50; Cable, Siege of Bilbao, pp. 55–76; Steer, Gernika, pp. 190–4; Rankin, Telegram, pp. 105–8.

  34 Cable, Siege of Bilbao, pp. 67–8.

  35 Steer, Gernika, pp. 208–9.

  36 Steer, Gernika, pp. 228–33.

  37 Steer, Gernika, pp. 234–45.

  38 Christopher Holme, ‘The Reporter at Guernica’, British Journalism Review, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 46–51.

  39 Southworth, Guernica!, pp. 181–7.

  40 Gijs van Hensbergen, Guernica. The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon (London: Bloomsbury, 2004), p. 45.

  41 Herschel B. Chipp, Picasso’s Guernica. History, Transformations, Meanings (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 58–70.

  42 Luis Bolín, Spain: The Vital Years (Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, 1967), pp. 279–80; Robert Sencourt, Spain’s Ordeal. A Documented Survey of Recent Events (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1938), pp. 237–45.

  43 The Times, 29 April 1937; Steer to Noel-Baker, 29 April 1937, CAC, NBKR, 4x/118; Rankin, Telegram, pp. 127, 137.

  44 Joseph F. Thorning, Why the Press Failed on Spain (New York: International Catholic Truth Society, 1938), pp. 10–11; Southworth, Guernica!, p. 442; Rankin, Telegram, p. 137.

  45 Franklin Reid Gannon, The British Press and Nazi Germany 1936–1939 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), pp. 113–16.

  46 Rankin, Telegram, p. 4.

  47 Steer, Gernika, p. 250.

  48 ABC (Sevilla), 4, 5 May 1937.

  49 Steer to Noel-Baker, 8 May; Noel-Baker to unknown Minister, 13 May 1937, CAC, NBKR, 4x/118, 4/660.

  50 The Times, 1, 3, 4, 7, 10, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27 May, 1, 4, 7, 12, 14, 15, 16 June 1937; Steer, Gernika, pp. 265–316, 322–4, 328–31, 354; Steer to Noel-Baker, 31 May 1937, CAC, NBKR, 4x/118; Gilbert to Hull, 29 May 1937, Foreign Relations of the United States 1937, vol. I, pp. 305–6.

  51 Leah Manning, A Life for Education. An Autobiography (London: Gollancz, 1970), p. 125.

  52 The Times, 5 May 1937.

  53 Noel-Baker to Steer, 29 April 1937, CCA, NBKR, 4/660.

  54 Steer, Gernika, p. 359.

  55 The Times, 21 June 1937.

  56 Rankin, Telegram, p. 137.

  57 Steer, Gernika, pp. 372–83; Steer to Noel-Baker, no day, August 1937, CCA, NBKR, 4/2. For a highly critical account of the Basques’ military failure, see Xuan Cándano, El pacto de Santoña (1937). La rendición del nacionalismo vasco al fascismo (Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros, 2006), Chapter 11.

  58 Steer to Noel-Baker, 12 November 1937, CCA, NBKR, 9/64.

  59 Noel-Baker to Steer, 7 February 1938, CCA, NBKR, 9/64.

  60 Cable, Siege of Bilbao, pp. 5–6.

  61 G. L. Steer, El árbol de Guernica (n.p. [Caracas]: Ediciones Gudari, 1963); George L. Steer, El árbol de Gernika. Un ensayo sobre la guerra moderna (Tafalla: Txalaparta, 2002).

  62 Steer, Gernika, pp. 12–13.

  63 George Orwell, Time and Tide, 5 February 1938, reprinted in Orwell in Spain (London: Penguin Books, 2001), pp. 263–4.

  64 Steer to Noel-Baker, 12 October 1938, CCA, NBKR, 4/8.

  65 Steer to Noel-Baker, 18 October, 26 November 1938, CCA, NBKR, 4/8.

  66 G. L. Steer, Judgment on German Africa (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1939); G. L. Steer, A Date in the Desert (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1939).

  67 The Times, 15 July 1939, 15 May, 10 June 1940, 22 October 1942; Rankin, Telegram, pp.31, 39, 103.

  68 Rankin, Telegram, pp. 166–70.

  69 Noel-Baker to R. A. Butler, 4, 18 June 1940, CCA, NBKR, 4/663.

  70 Sir Geoffrey Thompson, Front Line Diplomat (London: Hutchinson, 1959), pp. 154–5.

  71 Tablet, 26 September 1942, reprinted in Gallagher, Reviews of Evelyn Waugh, pp. 271–2.

  72 Luis Bolín, Spain: The Vital Years (Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, 1967), pp. 279–80.

  73 Steer SOE file
, TNA HS9/1410/9, 22666/A.

  74 The Times, 5 January 1945.

  75 Steer, Gernika, p. 365.

  76 Steer, Gernika, p. 13.

  Chapter 9: Talking with Franco, Trouble with Hitler

  1 Isabel de Palencia, Smouldering Freedom. The Story of the Spanish Republicans in Exile (London: Victor Gollancz, 1946), p. 153.

  2 Allen to Juan Negrín, 14 December no year (1945), Archivo Juan Negrín, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Carpeta AJN 29, 33-33J.

  3 Allen, ‘Autobiographical summary’. Although written anonymously and in the third person, this document was almost certainly compiled by Jay Allen himself.

  4 Constancia de la Mora, In Place of Splendor. The Autobiography of a Spanish Woman (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939), pp. 135–6.

  5 Allen to Holman Hamilton, 28 February 1963, Jay Allen Papers; Allen to Southworth, 2 June 1967, Southworth Papers.

  6 Allen to Southworth, 18 June 1964, Jay Allen Papers.

  7 Michael Allen to Preston, 1 November 2006; Santiago Álvarez, Negrín, personalidad histórica. Documentos (Madrid: Ediciones de la Torre, 1994), p. 277.

  8 Allen to Southworth, 7 August 1967, Southworth Papers.

  9 Jay Allen, ‘Fragment of Memoirs’, papers of Dean Michael Allen; Alden Whitman, ‘Jay Allen, News Correspondent in Trenchcoat Tradition, Dead’, New York Times, 22 December 1972; Claude Bowers, My Mission to Spain (London: Victor Gollancz, 1954), p. 101; Bruno Vargas, Rodolfo Llopis (1895–1983). Una biografía política (Barcelona: Planeta, 1999), p. 88; George Seldes, ‘Treason on The Times’, The New Republic, 7 September 1938.

  10 Allen to Hamilton, 7 October 1963, Jay Allen Papers.

  11 Quintanilla to Allen, undated, 25 May, 13 June, 20, 23 July 1935, Luis Quintanilla Papers.

  12 Whitaker to Allen, 30 March 1935, Jay Allen Papers.

  13 Ruth Allen to Honoria Murphy, 7 January 1982, Jay Allen Papers. Among these papers there is a correspondence with Walter B. Boyce, an Englishman from whom he was renting a house.

  14 Allen to Bowers, 14 February 1936, Papers of Claude Bowers, Lilly Library, Indiana University (henceforth Bowers Papers); Bowers, My Mission, p. 103; Fischer, Men and Politics, pp. 309–10.

  15 Michael Allen to Preston, 29 December 2006; Jay Allen, ‘Slaughter of 4,000 at Badajoz, City of Horrors’, Chicago Daily Tribune, 30 August 1936.

  16 Allen to Negrín, 14 December 1945, Archivo Negrín, Carpeta AJN 29, 33-33J.

  17 On Araquistain and Leviatán, see Paul Preston, ‘The Struggle Against Fascism in Spain: The Contradictions of the PSOE Left’, in European Studies Review, vol. 9, no. 1, 1979, and ‘Prólogo’, Leviatán: antología (Madrid: Ediciones Turner, 1976). On Largo Caballero’s prevention of a Prieto cabinet, see Paul Preston, The Coming of the Spanish Civil War: Reform Reaction and Revolution in the Second Spanish Republic 1931–1936, 2nd edn (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 262–5.

  18 Allen to Negrín, 14 December 1945, Archivo Negrín, Carpeta AJN 29, 33-33J.

  19 Jay Allen, notes on reading John Spencer Churchill’s book, A Churchill Canvas (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1961); Michael Allen to author, 1 April 2006. On the relationship with Brenan, see Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, The Interior Castle. A Life of Gerald Brenan (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1992), pp. 301–5; Jay to Brenan, 13 August 1936, Brenan archive, Harry Ransome Research Centre, University of Texas at Austin.

  20 Chicago Daily Tribune, 28, 29 July 1936. Very slightly different versions of these articles were printed in The News Chronicle, 29 July, 1 August 1936.

  21 Allen to Negrín, 14 December 1945, Archivo Juan Negrín, AJN 29, 33-33J.

  22 Allen undated memo to Carlos Baker, Jay Allen Papers.

  23 ‘Portugal lets Nazi ship unload arms for Spain’, Chicago Daily Tribune, 23 August 1936.

  24 Allen to Fischer, 9 July 1962, Jay Allen Papers.

  25 Chicago Daily Tribune, 30 August 1936.

  26 Michael Allen to author, 1 April 2006.

  27 Father Joseph Thorning, Why the Press Failed on Spain! (Brooklyn: International Catholic Truth Society, 1937), p. 5; Francis McCullagh, In Franco’s Spain (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1937), pp. 48–56.

  28 On Pires, see the report of the Spanish Ambassador to Portugal, Claudio Sánchez Albornoz, 18 August 1936, in José Luis Martín (ed.), Claudio Sánchez Albornoz. Embajador de España en Portugal, mayo–octubre 1936 (Ávila: Fundación Sánchez Albornoz, 1995), pp. 157–60; Alberto Pena Rodríguez, El gran aliado de Franco. Portugal y la guerra civil española: prensa, radio, cine y propaganda (Sada-A Coruña: Ediciós do Castro, 1998), pp. 283–6; Francisco Espinosa Maestre, La columna de la muerte. El avance del ejército franquista de Sevilla a Badajoz (Barcelona: Editorial Crítica, 2003), p. 209.

  29 Herbert Rutledge Southworth, Guernica! Guernica!: A Study of Journalism, Propaganda and History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977), p. 133. Omitted from the quotation above is the following sentence: ‘In another part of this article, Jay Allen referred to the Portuguese correspondent Mario Neves. This name was garbled in transmission, printed in the Chicago Daily Tribune as “Mario Pires”, and has continued to be spelled that way at least five times subsequently in anthologies.’ In fact, on this point, it was Southworth who was mistaken. See previous footnote.

  30 Lester Ziffren, ‘Diary’, entry for 16 September 1936; Fischer, Spanish Diary, pp. 48–9; Gathorne-Hardy, The Interior Castle, p. 311.

  31 John T. Whitaker, We Cannot Escape History (New York: Macmillan, 1943), p. 113.

  32 Shannon to Scanlan, 18 December 1937, Bowers Papers.

  33 Representative of the campaign were the pamphlets of Father Joseph B. Code, The Spanish Civil War and Lying Propaganda (New York: Paulist Press, 1938); Father Joseph Thorning, Why the Press Failed on Spain! (Brooklyn, NY: International Catholic Truth Society); Father Joseph Thorning, Mercy and Justice! (New York: Peninsular News Service, 1939); Father Joseph Thorning, Fernando de los Ríos Refutes Himself (New York: Paulist Press, 1939).

  34 Allen to Hamilton, 16 January 1964, Jay Allen Papers.

  35 Thorning to Weir, 5, 15 March 1938, Bowers Papers.

  36 The Fresno Bee, 1 April, Modesto Bee, 4 April 1938.

  37 Allen to Baker, 6 March 1963, 9 January 1969, Jay Allen Papers.

  38 Chicago Daily Tribune, 9 October 1936 (also reproduced in The News Chronicle, 24 October 1936); Ian Gibson, En busca de José Antonio (Barcelona: Planeta, 1980), pp. 161–70; Herbert Rutledge Southworth, Antifalange; estudio crítico de ‘Falange en la guerra de España’ de Maximiano García Venero (Paris: Ediciones Ruedo Ibérico, 1967), pp. 144–8.

  39 Claude G. Bowers to Acting Secretary of State, 20 November 1936, Foreign Relations of the United States 1936, vol. II (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1954), p. 568.

  40 Allen to Hamilton, 28 February 1963, Jay Allen Papers.

  41 Allen to Southworth, 2 June 1967, Southworth Papers.

  42 Jay Allen, ‘The Spanish Nightmare’, Speech to Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. Text sent from British Library of Information, New York, 22 April 1937, FO 371/21291 W 8895/1/41.

  43 ‘Confidential Information from E. H. Knoblaugh’, distributed by Joseph Thorning, copy sent by Jay Allen to Claude Bowers, Bowers Papers.

  44 Knightley, The First Casualty, pp. 200–1; Allen, ‘Fragments of Memoirs’; Herbert Rutledge Southworth, Guernica! Guernica!: A Study of Journalism, Propaganda and History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977), pp. 109–18, 441; Marta Rey García, Stars for Spain. La guerra civil española en los Estados Unidos (Sada-A Coruña: Ediciós do Castro, 1997), pp. 65, 118–19; H. Edward Knoblaugh, Correspondent in Spain (London and New York: Sheed &Ward, 1937), pp. 82–99.

  45 Allen to Hemingway, 17 March 1943, Hemingway Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston (henceforth Hemingway Papers); Allen to Carlos Baker, 9 January 1969, Jay Allen Papers.

  46 Knoblaugh to Bennett, 16 November 1939, Milly Bennett Papers, Box 3, Folder 7, Hoover Institution Archiv
es.

  47 Gathorne-Hardy, The Interior Castle, p. 314.

  48 Seldes to Hemingway, 24 February 1938, Hemingway Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston; George Seldes, ‘“Ken”, the Inside Story’, The Nation, 30 April 1938; ‘Insiders’, Time, 21 March 1938; Michael Allen to author, 1 April 2006.

  49 Allen to Bowers, 28 September 1937, Bowers Papers; Peter J. Sehlinger and Holman Hamilton, Spokesman for Democracy. Claude G. Bowers 1878–1958 (Indianapolis, IN: Indiana Historical Society, 2000), p. 198; Allen to Baker, 6 March 1963, Jay Allen Papers.

  50 Diary entry for 7 May 1938, Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, Volume II, The Inside Struggle (New York: Simon + Schuster, 1954), pp. 388–90.

  51 Allen to Southworth, 7 August 1967, Southworth Papers.

  52 Michael Allen to author, 1 November 2006.

  53 Allen to Southworth, 6 January 1964, Allen Papers.

  54 Allen to Baker, 9 January 1969, Jay Allen Papers.

  55 Allen to Bowers, 13 January 1938, Bowers Papers.

  56 Allen to Messersmith, 8 January 1939, Allen to Fischer, 9 July 1962, Allen to Southworth, 6 January, Southworth to Allen, 20 January 1964, Jay Allen Papers.

  57 The process is referred to in many subsequent letters between Jay and Herbert. I am indebted to Michael Allen for his recollections. I also draw on my own conversations with Herbert Southworth. There are substantial fragments of the chronology in the ALBA Collection of the Tamiment Library, at New York University. I am grateful to Gail Malmgreen and Dr Isabelle Rohr for help in locating this material.

  58 Michael Allen to author, 1 April 2006.

  59 Allen to Southworth, 28 May 1967, Southworth Papers.

  60 Letter from J. D. LeCron to Jay Allen, 16 March 1939. Papers of Jay Allen; Soledad Fox, Constancia de la Mora in War and Exile. International Voice for the Spanish Republic (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2007), pp. 84–7.

  61 Letter signed ‘Blank’ from the National Labor Relations Board to Jay Allen, 25 March 1939. Papers of Jay Allen.

  62 Diana Sheean to Fischer, 21 March, 10 April 1939, Fischer Papers, Box 11, Folder 19.

  63 Michael Allen to author, 30 November 2006.