852.00/6928: Telegram
The Counselor of Embassy in Spain (Thurston) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 17—5:35 p.m.]
823. The suspense produced by the prolonged lull in major military operations is further affecting the impaired morale of Loyalist Spain and many rumors are in circulation, the most persistent of which concerns an impending armistice. Despite official denials that negotiations to that end are under way or contemplated, it is evident that special significance in this respect has been assigned to Companys’ [Page 450] visit to Brussels, the revocation of a recent order calling the Class of 1939 to service and the visit to Madrid over the last weekend of Azana, Negrín, Prieto, and Giral. In another effort to lay these rumors which have provoked editorial and other comment hostile to any compromise, Negrín yesterday informed the Permanent Committee of the Cortes that the Government “will accept no proposal for mediation which does not imply the unconditional surrender of the rebels to the legitimate authorities of the Republic.”