Editorial Note
The subject of Spain was raised several times in the Secretary’s daily staff meeting during the spring of 1951. On March 5, Averell Harriman “asked where we went from here on the Spanish question. He said this was one more problem that indicated how important it was to set up some mechanism for reaching agreed US positions rapidly since he did not feel that we could allow questions which concerned NATO to drag on as slowly in the future as we had in the past. He was told that the Spanish question was under serious consideration but we had no immediate answer.” On June 4, Policy Planning Staff Director Paul Nitze “said he was disturbed about the lack of clarity in our policy toward Spain. He said he thought that we were unclear as to our political objectives—particularly, as regards to whether or not we would like to see the Franco Regime overthrown. He said that we had no one here now in the Department who has been in Spain recently and who has a first hand knowledge of the political situation there. Mr. Webb asked Mr. Matthews to look into means of getting a survey done by possibly sending someone to Spain on temporary duty and also the possibility of strengthening our Spanish set up here by bringing someone home from the mission in Madrid for duty in the Department.” (Secretary’s Daily Meetings, lot 58D609, Daily Summaries dated March 5 and June 4, 1951) No evidence has been found in Department of State files to indicate that either the Nitze query or the Webb requests were ever pursued.