The Day We Lost the H-Bomb: Cold War, Hot Nukes, and the Worst Nuclear Weapons Disaster in History

Both sides had committed horrendous atrocities against civilians, and Franco emerged from that bloody conflict with a reputation for coldhearted brutality. During the war, Franco ordered the slaughter of anyone who opposed him or posed a threat: schoolteachers, trade unionists, prisoners, wounded troops. He refused to hear any appeals for clemency.

Franco idolized Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, and his side received massive military assistance from them during the war. But when World War II began just six months after the end of the Spanish Civil War, he had little to offer his friends. The civil war had devastated Spain. Most of the country's industry lay in ruins. About half a million Spaniards had been killed or had died of disease and malnutrition. Another half million had fled the country, and those who remained faced widespread poverty and hunger. Spain was a broken country, and Franco was in no position to support the Axis powers when World War II broke out. Throughout the war, Spain remained officially neutral.

The Allies worked hard to maintain Spain's neutrality. Britain knew of Franco's infatuation with Hitler and Mussolini — the British ambassador reported that Franco kept signed photos of the two dictators on his desk. But the British also knew that they couldn't afford to lose Gibraltar, the tiny British stronghold jutting off southern Spain that served as their gateway to the Mediterranean.

They, along with the United States and other allies, sent Spain petroleum, cotton, food, and other materials under the condition that the country remain neutral. Franco eagerly accepted the goods while keeping his eye on the changing winds of the war. Once the United States entered the fray and the tide began to turn against the Axis powers, Franco started to hedge his bets. “Henceforth,” said one historian, “his energies were to be devoted almost impartially to working both sides of the street while keeping Spain untouched by war.”

Meanwhile, Franco continued his brutal behavior within Spain. Between 1939 and 1945, the Franco government executed thousands of political opponents; one study says the death toll may have reached 28,000. The government imprisoned hundreds of thousands more and sentenced them to hard labor. Franco, threatened by ethnic groups like the Basques and Catalans, banned the Basque and Catalan languages, folk music, and traditional dance. The government muzzled the press and stifled all political opposition. Only Catholics were allowed to build churches and practice their religion openly.

Franco's internal policies, and his waffling during the war, disgusted the Allies. After the war, the victors paid him back. The fledgling United Nations excluded Spain from membership. Then, at its second meeting, the UN. General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending that all members recall their ambassadors from Madrid. On March 4, 1946, the United States, France, and Great Britain signed a Tripartite Declaration to the Spanish people, warning that they would not gain full relations with the three countries as long as Franco remained in power. In 1949, when NATO was formed, Spain was kept out. Finally, and perhaps most devastating, the Allies excluded Spain from the Marshall Plan, the massive aid program that helped rebuild Europe after the war.

Spain crawled forward in virtual isolation for several years, its only foreign relations with the dictatorships of Portugal and Argentina. The country lagged behind the rest of Europe, its economy and industry struggling, its people — for the most part — desperately poor. But Franco, dictator for life, knew he could wait out any storm. Historians tell a famous anecdote about the dictator's legendary patience. As the story goes, Franco kept two boxes on his desk. One was labeled

“Problems That Time Will Solve;” the other, “Problems That Time Has Solved.” Franco's career involved shifting papers from the first box to the second.

And indeed, time — and the advent of the Cold War — did solve the problem of Spain's isolation. In the late 1940s, as the situation between the United States and the USSR grew increasingly tense,

“more weight was given to the help Spain might furnish in the next war than to any hindrance she had offered in the last,” according to the historian Arthur Whitaker. Franco had long been a virulent anti-Communist, and in the new world of nuclear deterrence, Spain's strategic location looked increasingly useful. Furthermore, the idea of giving aid to Spain now seemed more acceptable: American Catholics were lobbying their congressmen to give economic aid to the starving country.