852.00/6433
Memorandum by Mr. Harry A. McBride, Assistant to the Secretary of State
The Spanish Ambassador called at his own request upon the Secretary at 3:30 o’clock, this afternoon. He informed the Secretary that he was calling on a personal rather than an official errand. He said that the Army, which in the name of the Spanish Government was defending the legal Republican Government in the Province of Santander in the north of Spain, has been surrounded by the Rebel Army and, because of lack of munitions, has been obliged to surrender; that this Government army numbered some fifty to sixty thousand men and among them are some two thousand civil members of the Spanish Government, such as members of the Government of Vizcaya—employees, mayors, judges, ambulance doctors, and the like. It is feared, according to the Ambassador, that “these two thousand civil employees will be shot, as happened at Malaga, Badajoz and Bilbao”. The Ambassador informed the Secretary that there were no charges against these two thousand men, “their only crime having been to defend the law and the legal Government against the Rebels”. The Ambassador said that to intervene in order to save the lives of these men would be an endeavor in the interests of humanity and justice.
In a subsequent conversation with me, he expressed the hope that the Secretary or the Department through any direct or indirect means at their disposal would be willing to take an interest in this humanitarian act.
I attach hereto a memorandum which the Ambassador wrote in my office upon the subject.42
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