852.2221/938: Telegram
The Consul at Seville (Bay) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 14—7:50 a.m.]
34. With reference to the Department’s telegram 19, May 9, 7 p.m., and to my despatch 253, May 23, 1938,64 concerning the desire of the Department to obtain a statement from General Franco about treatment of American prisoners, following is translation of a communication dated June 12 from Civil Governor, Seville:
“The Chief of the Political and Treaty Section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs desires me to communicate to you, with reference to your oral declarations about reports circulating in the United States regarding the welfare of Americans captured by the Nationalists while fighting in the ranks of the Red forces, that on repeated occasions it has been stated by the Chief of State, as well as by competent organisms, that national Spain not only applies the conventions and principles regulating the practice of war, and especially those relating to the treatment accorded to enemy combatants, also in a magnanimous spirit has liberated on many occasions foreign combatants who have taken part in a war which they should have and could have avoided, did not deserve such measures of clemency. As for the treatment accorded to prisoners and the conditions in which they live, you may take note yourself by visiting the concentration camps in San Pedro de Cardenas.
It would be helpful, therefore, if you would communicate to the press of your country the true criteria by which the National Government has been acting in this matter since the beginning of the war and about which the Chief of State has already made declarations.”
- Despatch not printed.↩