Reforming Franco

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The editorial on November 6 stated the belief, which you have held for a long time, that the United States government should have nothing to do with Franco's regime in Spain, and thus indirectly try to weaken it. I suggest that your opinion is outmoded and needs to be revised.

The United States government should never concern itself with reforming foreign countries, whether they be Fascist, Communist or anarchic. If we undertook to make them over in our own democratic image, or to punish them for being different from us, we would be doing exactly what the international Communist Party is attempting.

We should show active hostility only toward an aggressor nation, and let a country's internal affairs be settled internally. Every peaceful country is a potential ally against an aggressor nation, and we need every ally we can find, especially one with a large standing army occupying the last bulwark of continental Western Europe. Indeed, we are giving aid to Tito's Communist dictatorship: and how can the CRIMSON editors reconcile their advocacy of alliance with Tito's Yugoslavia with their hostility toward Franco's Spain? Herbert Barry III, '52

The CRIMSON feels that the military value of Franco's army is greatly overrated, that there is no need to preserve an economically tottering France government to ensure Spain's position as "the last butwark of continental Western Europe." Spain may be a "peaceful" nation but it is an oppressive one: there is no reason--political or military--for the U. S. to aid and encourage that oppression.

There is no analogy between France and Tito; Tito is bad, but the alternative to his regime--straight Russian domination--would be worse. The alternative to France, with Communism a small threat in Spain, can only be better.