Evening star., 1943-10-12
UnaIarmed Interest
Spain S Reaction 10
Portuguese Moves
BY the Associated Press.

BY the Associated Press.
MADRID, Oct. 12-Spain, friend
lier than ever with Portugal and
more neutral than ever, too, looked
on with unalarmed interest today.
Spanish policy since General
issimo Francisco Frances speech on
october l has been one Of "vigilant
neutrality and, while the Portu-
guese situation might have alarmed
Spain two years ago, much has
happened since.
In his October speech Franco
said the possibility of the spread
of Communism appeared more
| clearly as the war continued and
urged that Spaniards s"preserve
| great vigilance against foreign in
| f1uence and moral turpitude which
exists in many parts OF the world"
Count Francisco Gomez Jordana.
Spanish Foreign Minister. went to
Lisbon last December and reached
an Iberian bloc agreement with the
Portuguese Premier. DR.. Antonio
de Oliveira Salazar.
Countries Drawn Closer.
The bloc was designed to keep war
out of the Iberian Peninsula and the
! agreement served to draw the two
countries closer than they had been
for many years.
In one way, Portugal and Spain,
with their different types of neu-
trality, formed an ideal balance for
keeping war out Of the peninsula.
! Spain had no territorial claims on
Portugal and Portugal had none on
/ Spain.
(How today's developments
might affect this balance was not
clarified in the dispatch, several
| paragraphs Of which are missingD
Even during the heyday of Spain S
imperialism following the civil war,
when the book "Reivindicaciones de
Espana" was published, outlining
| SPANS claims to all sorts of ter
rltories, mainly in Northwest Africa
no publication claimed any part of
! Portugal or her empire.
| Then the japanese struck at
Pearl Harbor and pushed into the
Southwest Pacific. They drove into
1amor, entering Portugals half OF
the little island as we'll as that OF
the Netherlands. and Portugal had
even more reasons to lean toward
the Allied cause.
Diplomatic Conferences.
Both Spain and Portugal recog-
nized in 1912 that their differing
types Of neutrality might become q
dangerous combination.
In February the Portuguese Pre-
mier left Portugal for the first time
in his public career to meet with
Franco and Ramon Serrano Suner
the generalissimos brother in law
who was then SPANS Foreign Min.
| lister.
Throughout the year Spain anc
Portugal drew closer diplomatically
and economically. Jordana replaced
the Axis-inclined Serrano Suner ir
September. Pursuing his new policy
OF neutrality, which is now Spain.
national policy as opposed to pro.
Axis nom n-belligerency, Jordana wen
to Lisbon in December and reached
the agreement with Salazar creating
the Iberian bloc.
The bloc, so far as is known here
was created not by the signing O.
any specific documents but by s
series of conversations In a speech
at Lisbon, the Spanish representa-.
tive referred to the bloc as alread,
created. His trip to Lisbon had fol.
lowed shortly after United State.
forces landed in North Africa.
Portugal and Spain have treat,
of friendship and aggression
signed in 1899 and protocol signed
in June, 1940 There have also beer
number of commercial agreements
between the two.