OIL SHIPMENTS TO SPAIN

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23884, 1 March 1943, Page 4

OIL SHIPMENTS TO SPAIN

AMERICAN CRITICISM (Rec, 10.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON. Feb. 27. "It is a damned outrage shipping to sunny Spain fuel so badly needed to warm people here, and to maintain morale in wintry weather.” This comment was made by the chairman of the Senate Military Committee (Senator R. L. Reynolds), on a statement by the United States Ambassador to Spain (Mr Hayes), that the United States was exporting oil, cotton, and food to Spain, and that petroleum products were available in Spain now at a considerably higher per capita distribution than at present on the United States Atlantic seaboard.

Senator Reynolds added: "Spain will not decide what she will do in this war. The more oil that is shipped to Spain the more Germany will seize when Spain is invaded.” The State Department explained that oil from the Caribbean, not from the United States, was reaching Spain in Spanish tankers, w'hich submarines did not attack. The provision of other commodities was part of a goodwill policy designed to keep Spain out of the war.

The "Herald-Tribune” says: “Mr Hayes’s speech makes unpleasant reading for Americans, who resent the fact that Hitler's friends are being supplied with necessaries which Americans find difficulty in supplying to their friends and to themselves. The obvious answer is that Spain could provide the most direct channel for the Nazis' attack against the Allied flank. Therefore military considerations demand that this channel be blocked by permitting Spain to obtain oil and food. However, the Americans recall that a similar policy in the case of Italy and Japan did not prevent these countries taking inimical action against America when they felt the time was ripe. Our Spanish policy, as in the case of Vichy, strengthens openly an antidemocratic regime maintaining a force which is actually fighting against our ally. Russia. American relations in Spain constitute a difficult and delicate problem for statesmen and generals. It remains to be seen whether the oil poured into Spain smoothes the troubled waters or adds fuel to the flames of war.”