ATTACKED BY LASKI

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 74, 25 September 1945, Page 7

ATTACKED BY LASKI

OVERTHROW ADVOCATED

(By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright.)

LONDON, September 24,

A violent attack on General Franco, whom he described as "a fawning satellite of Hitler and Mussolini," was made by Professor Harold Laski in a broadcast to the United States. Professor Laski demanded the withdrawal of official recognition from the Franco regime and declared that but for the dishonest Anglo-American policy of non-intervention the Spanish Republic would still be in power today. Professor Laski, who emphasised that he was speaking in a purely personal capacity, broadcast over the American Broadcasting Company's network. "Our peoples did not make immense sacrifices in this war to perpetuate either a tyranny like that of Franco or an unedifying mythology like a Vatican-sponsored King of Spain trying hastily to learn the vocabulary of the Four Freedoms," he said. "It was the fear of putting arms in the hands of the Spanish people and not goodwill, which kept Spain formally neutral during the war. "I do not share the view of those who think we should be grateful because, at a critical time, Franco did not complicate our strategic problems in the Mediterranean. He was neutral because he was afraid, but at a nod from his Nazi-Fascist masters he would have laid Spain at their feet." The cause of Republican Spain had come to be to this generation what the liberation of the Russian people was in the harsh days of Tsarist tyranny. British and American statesmen, who must have known Hitler and' Mussolini were preparing Spain as a theatre of experiment for a Second World War, timidly and hypocritically allowed the Spanish people to jbe crucified in the service of appeasement.

The. grim struggle of the Second World War had ended in victory, but executions in Spain still continued on a massive scale. The freedom-loving supporters of the Republic were still imprisoned and tortured.

Warning .that the continuance of the Franco regime must inevitably lead to a new and more barbarous war, Professor Laski appealed to the United Nations to aid the Republicans to overthrow Franco.