(WHEN ALES IY) ore cnt es ve . ee 2 . ; : \ ROUTING AND RECORD SHEET May», | eto! INSTRUCTIONS ~~ _ ; oy 4 PRIOR TO FILING" __ [i ____iTO: ACTION BRANCH . Fill t. < and Eine 2. on pack. Detach back Hap _. | If file no. and title. shown are nc‘ proper, insert proper file no. below “and forward . Destroy front cover sheet, unless it records. - significant action taken or comments requir- document to RID/AN. . ' ing preservation. : : oe PROPER FILE NO. . mh TO: ALL ADDRESSEES ; wv : DATE OFFICER'S RECEIVED | Forwarpeo {| [NITIALS A tal Pans ae LF N27 MUS TRACE REQUEST. DATE MICROFILMED _ , 4 DOCUMENT DATE | DOCUMENT NUMBER a WAN 1964 — -|—OSMA.... 17213. . ; Cot oe cre eee elt cea es «6100 Editions : “SECRET 40) qw'54559_ Docla: 32105377 Page a en a ok. fi recone seem t,t ent a
F nen —~ “CLASSIFICATION Ne LA SYMBOL AND NO. e) 3 | ai DI ISP P AT - H- CONFIDENTIAL =e OSMA-17 213 yo TO Chief, WE Attention: KUDESK/ICG — _*([Raeavanee ne "MIGROFILMED Pl INFO _ ~ - : 65-9 Chief of Station,: Rome is “MAR 12 1965 : —— DATE mm nee FROM Chief of. Station, Madrid || | | 44 4 MaseTSSHSES. SER eee} | SuBIECT — _ | . . ; . : '43-3°' — (CHECK '*X"" ONE) j © Spanish Weekly SP and the O° MARKED FOR INDEXING : NO INDEXING REQUIRED ACTION REQUIRED INDEXING CAN BE JUDGED BY QUALIFIED HQ. DESK ONLY REFERENCE(S) -OSMW-9256 of 26 March 1964 4 "La Policia de Dallas Mato a Kennedy," ("The ‘Dallas: ‘Police Killed = Kennedy"), is forwarded as Attachment l of this ‘dispatch, 2. We have asked station source. QUEGG/3 for a background report on SP and its principal staff. members, and will forward it as soon.as we receive it. Meanwhile, . American Embassy Madrid Airgram. 581 of 5 February 1964 described SP. as Falange~oriented and added that. "since the Spanish’ government has. close control over the local press it is not difficult ‘to: give matters of its most. immediate interest the necessary publicity and it ‘appears ‘that this campaign (on establishing Mexican/Spanish diplomatic relations) if not supervised is at least. encouraged by the Ministry of Information or the: Foreign Office. a. , | | ! lL. oA copy of the 1 Janubry_1964—-tssue” of SP, with the article: | | ce emp een tie Be: As ‘indicated. in its. masthead, SP is published both in Madrid and in Barcelona, and its. director is the Rodrigo ROYO men tioned in reference. We do not know whether there is any connection between SP and the Italian Secolo XX, but it might be noted there is frequently cooperation~--tacit or formal~-between official and. semi~official Spanish propaganda organizations and. those of the Italian extreme right. o iia) 4. The writer of this dispatch does not usually read SP and is therefore not in a position to comment on its customary “editorial | | slant, if any. On the content of this issue in itself, we would: be _t inclined to guess that if the decision toe publish the O'Brien. article |° ‘was made by the SP staff it was probably. done because the article was| | sensational. enough to offer. good sales. prospects rather than because. | of any particular anti-American propaganda intent... This comment’ is i - based - in part on the fact that the same: issue contains B laudatory ce Gbas article on Jacqueline Kennedy and- another. consisting of quotations i\ ‘from the Kennedy’ ‘books Profiles. in Courage and "The _furning of the Re Tide.’ Ta Ted ore | 5. If the O'Brien article was in fact published as anti-U.S. - propaganda, it. would seem logical to look for the reason either in _, the paper's Falange orientation or in the fact that SP is published 4 in Spain, rather than in the political ‘bent of any particular staff i membérs. The Spanish press is government~controlled, and censorship 4 is very strict.. Occasionally an article of which the government i censors do not approve gets into print, but when this happens the . 4 a€director. of the publication is promptly. suspended or fined or~-both, i z and the mistake is rarely repeated. "Political publications" .exist Ey only in the sense that all Spanish publications are propaganda media 4 | JUN N 1976 @ for the policies of the Spanish government. Within this limitation “"|:4 a there are certain nuances. Of the principal Madrid dailies, for. 6 example, Arriba is a spokesman for the Falange, ABC.is Don Juan= iu monarchist, Ya speaks’ for the Spanish Catholic Hierarchy and the Spro-regime’ branch of Catholic Action, and Pueblo for the official _ Syndicate organization and the Falange. The only. exceptions to the rule that Spanish papers say only what the government wants Vos roa to say are a handful of periodicals published by Catholic lay ‘organizations as. apostolic material. which is protected: from secular ~ een Number ee wd USE PREVIOUS EDITION. REPLACES FORMS : ; 51-28, 51-284 AND 51-29 , Aah i i \. : i (40) Zs WHICH ARE OBSOLETE. | ee ine fit 8 LARD Bins 54553 eer ee tab 6 . ; , . ad ce ve. |
CLASSIFICATION DISPATCH SYMBOL AND NUMBER “CONTINUATION OF i CONFIDENTIAL | - OSMA-17 , 213 _DISPATCH censorship by the Concordat between the Vatican and the Spanish government—-and even this protection breaks down for’ publications that go too far. beyond the censorship tabus. In short: before the O'Brien article was published in SP it had been approved by | the Ministry of Information. If it had not been, the issuecwould not have reached the newsstands. . 6. If the article was an anti-American propaganda plant. the two most ‘Tikely points of origin would be: a. The Falange, which is the principal member of The Movement (the other two members are the Carlists and the small. "remnant of the old national-syndicalist J. 0. N. S.) . The “ Movement is the only political organization legally allowed to exist in Spain and, as the official political unit, is a major part of the structure of the Government itself. The Falange is ideologically anti-democratic, hence anti~American. As it happens, its outlook in this field was illustrated nicely in this morning's issue (12 May) of. Arriba, -in one of -the daily editorials written by Ji L. Gomez Tello. The editorial, entitled "A:Corpse for a Democratic War," is devoted to "Defense Secretary McNamara's current trip to South. Vietnam. It says the war is going very badly, but the Democratic Administration can't. afford to™ pull out of it with an election coming. up. In Arriba’ view, "KHANH's army is. suffering heavy losses——double those of” a few months ago. What does this mean? A dangerous disinte~ .gration, which began with the fall of President DIEM. How will this affect those who were rubbing their hands with glee at. the death of the only man who was galvanizing his people in this life or death combat? But the Western world, which wants nothing to do with the struggle against. Communism=<what is it ‘complaining. about now? KHANH is a democratic man. So energetic that the most spectacular thing he has done in the past few days has. been to order the shooting of NGO DINH CAN, the younger brother of DIEM. The Americans turned him over to: them. {As they turned over to STALIN the General VLASOV who wanted to fight against Communism.) There are things for | which there seems to be no remedy in the demoliberal philo- . sophy. One of them is. (its penchant for) showing its liberalism “. by offering up the anti-—Communists as propitiatory victims on the bloody altars of democracy. Just when the ignoble term 'twar criminal’--a term invented by the Communists--seemed to have been forgotten on this side of the Iron Curtain, ‘democracy found a man to execute as such. DIEM and his brother were . ' .agssassinated by the Communists., And now still another has. ‘been shot. We feel a sensation of nausea at this conspiracy mounted by the same ones who-—in the name of democracy and ' liberalism—are-opening the~gates—to-Communisme™ oo x ere soentsiest cite” 4 b., The Ministry. of Information and Tourism is [the official propaganda voice of the Spanish Gevernment. - Oo c . propaganda dnustrument of the ,Ministry ‘is its wee Ly newspaper El: Espanol {: The: ‘papes: doeé*net carry’ ‘the. Manet ‘¥ name, but it is” “published Within ~ the Ministry ~ LESSLE and =: Fives “the Ministry ‘address on its masthead. A month or two ago Information Ministe : Manuel FRAGA Iribarne (a Falangist, although this fact is only - incidental in his conduct of propaganda and political-action i operations) told. the Counsellor of the American Embassy in ;) -. Madrid that he personally reads and approves. the major El | Espanol articles before they go into print. - ESE anol, Tike e “He xegzime itself, is ideologically antinaamvwasieee “7The fact, ee untries ts the editorial line on +e yartous Mestern , 9 BR da dawn. oe _tions with the Cues UP OF PIE ats sné-momént. (This state- ment, by the way, applies to the Spanish press in general, po. although. the purely propagandist character of El Espanol makes : the swings somewhat morp obvious and usually Somewhat more < 7 te . a oe + “eS. ASSIFICATION: 5 59a ‘ USE PREVIOUS EDITION. ; Co SIDENTIAL ogi. | oo t ~~ PAGE NO. 2 of 4 CONTINUED ja DocId:32105977 Page 7 - P pipe Sa ee rp Pee he RY net en at try Ae
3 i —- ————————SCSC:™:””””._GLASSIFICATION. -. [“wiSPATGH SYMBOL AND NUMBER di ; CONTINUATION OF. DISPATCH OSMA=17,, 213 CONFIDENTIAL “9 violent. in “BL Espanol than in the general press. During the early part of 1964, for example, the United States and its government. were receiving a very poor press in Spain because of U. S. efforts to persuade Spain to drop its profitable trade with Cuba.) . An example of the official propaganda style and approach as they tugn up in El Espanol was the paper's farewell to the Kennedy Administration, in an. article in the 22 February issue, signed by one Benjamin. PRICE and entitled "DESPUES. DE. KENNEDY =- La Nueva Frontera: Una Herencia que’ Divide a los Estados Unidos" (AFTER KENNEDY - The New , Frontier; <A Heritage which is Dividing the United States"), The article was headed by a photograph of President: Kennedy, - Captioned "Behind Kennedy's popularity=-<-greater outside the U. S. than within it--+were hidden the grave faults of the Democratic Administration." At-the beginning of the article, in bold-face type, was a summary of. the "heritage" of its title: "AMERICA: The Cuban infection is spreading to all of Spanish “America, Castro is more dangerous than before; ~ the Russians have been replaced by the Chinese. "ASIA;. Since the assassination of DIEM, Communist pressure ; on South Vietnam has grown constantly; the Americans soon will have to choose between getting out, and fighting alone. - , "AFRICA: CHOU EN-LAI has reached the shores of the Mediterrane Ne "EUROPE: China has in fact taken over the role of guide of ° -'the new peoples' of the black Continent. The Utopians of Washington and London are insisting on disarmament. without guarantees. Meanwhile, people are still dying at the Berlin Wall." The text of the article itself begins: "The Government of President. Kennedy was not a happy - government. During its three years of existence American _ Setbacks, both international and ‘domestic, were far more serious than those that have occurred under any other Government, The failure at the Bay of Pigs, only three months after Kennedy? s election, was caused solely by his indecision. The project had been organized during the Eisenhower Government, but if. Kennedy had wanted to he . could have cancelled it ‘before the 1800 Cuban patriots, ¢ trained in American, disembarked on the island without ‘the air cover the Americans had Promised. "The ‘shame of the. Berlin wall, -puilt in August of , the same year, damaged American tntornetional prestige. The chief of the Free World did nothing when the Communists put up that permanent barrier between the eastern and western — parts of the occupied city. ~ an "In the summer of 1962 there was a stock market crash comparable only to that of 1929, The market was finally stabilized, but tens of thousands of small investors had —— disappeared. "The Cuban crisis of 1962, viewed without~the din of. : propaganda, had as its greatest result the installation of : Communism in the Southérn Hemisphere. The propaganda experts painted the event as a great victory Hr the political ability of the defunct president, who ‘thanks to his determined attitude succeeded in avoiding a nuclear war.'! aa CLASSIFICATION PAGE NO. 3 of 4 i op 58a USE PREVIOUS EBITION. ., |. CONFIDENTIAL’ ~~ Tel conpinuen / Docld: 32105977 Page & SLOT