Researcher at the Instituto de Historia (CCHS-CSIC) and expert in transatlantic relations.
By Marc Amat
Two hundred years ago, when the United States looked at Spain, they saw a nation that oppressed Latin American countries. Today, on the other hand, they see Spain as a country fully integrated into the European Union. In fact, the two countries have a strong alliance. The U.S. view of Spain throughout history has been radically transformed over the past two centuries. In what ways has it changed? How has this change occurred? What social, economic and political elements have influenced it?
These are three of the core questions that are the focus of the book Somehow different: España vista desde Estados Unidos (Catarata, 2023). At the helm of this publication, in the role of editor, is Lorenzo Delgado Gómez-Escalonilla, one of the most expert voices in Spain to answer these questions. He is a researcher at the Instituto de Historia (CCHS-CSIC) and has focused much of his research in the field of international relations between Spain and the United States. In the book, several scholars analyze what vision Americans have of Spanish society and, above all, what historical elements justify it.
The war in Cuba and World War I; the international condemnation of Franco’s regime; Spain’s collusion with fascist movements; the arrival of American companies to Spain; Spain’s transition to democracy? All of these are ingredients that have been shaping the vision that Americans have of Spanish society today. To learn more, we spoke with Lorenzo Delgado Gómez-Escalonilla, historian and editor of the publication.
Let’s start with the present. How do we in Spain see the United States?
Let me give you an example. If you go into a high school classroom and explain that, today, the United States has military bases in Spain, you’ll find that young people know nothing about this issue. There is a great lack of knowledge about the U.S. military presence in Spain. When people under 40 think about the United States, they’re not thinking about political and historical parameters: the vision they have depends largely on consumer society, on the images received through the news, cinema, advertising, social media. Everything is very much impregnated with a strong “presentism”. Bilateral relations between the two countries have nothing to do with this vision, nor do the agreements that were signed in the past. For many young people it comes as a surprise that Spain signed military agreements with the United States during Franco’s regime and that they are still in force today.
Where does this lack of knowledge come from?
It’s the result of a mix of factors, but there is one long-standing element in play. When the Franco regime had to start reaching agreements with the United States, it did so keeping a low profile on many of the consequences. They weren’t interested in having the strategic subordination that these agreements entailed widely known, nor the ways in which American aid allowed them to rectify some of the grave shortages and incapacities of the dictatorial regime’s public policy. That silence has given way to the current ignorance.
In fact, the relationship between the United States and Spain has been greatly conditioned by World War II.
Yes, when the conflict ended, the United States had emerged as the great victor. Of the winning countries, it was the one that had suffered the fewest casualties, the one that had suffered the least destruction on its territory and the one that had been able to derive the most economic benefits from the war. Its industrial sector was strengthened. The favorable outcome also made it the architect of a new international system: many of the world organizations that came into being at that time – such as the UN and UNESCO – had the United States as one of their driving architects and their most important financial partner.
Where was Spain in this?
On the other side of the scale. Spain and its leaders had been wrong in their forecasts and their international partners. They had bet on the fascist side, which had helped them win the Civil War. They were consistent, but the outcome did not benefit them. During the Second World War, the Francoist dictatorship in Spain partially entered the war. It did so only on the eastern front, against the Soviet Union. However, it helped the Axis countries in espionage; it allowed the provisioning of their submarines; it supplied them with strategic materials such as tungsten. All these behaviors meant that, when the fascist bloc lost the war, Spain was isolated.
How did this isolation manifest?
In a quarantine that lasted about five years. Spain was isolated with the aim of pressuring the Franco regime to turn the rudder towards democracy or, at least, towards a system less closely aligned with fascism. The United States and its allies, such as France and Great Britain, ruled out military intervention in Spain and opted instead to have Spanish society itself act to oust Franco. During the early post-war years, both the victorious powers and the UN made appeals to that effect. But the Franco regime’s control over the country was ironclad.
But this quarantine did not last forever.
As the Cold War crystallized and communist parties came to power in Eastern Europe, the Allies’ view of Spain began to change: it was a regime of the losers’ bloc and prone to fascism, but it was also an anti-communist regime. That changed things in a context where the enemies of my enemies need not be my friends, but could be my allies. The Pentagon’s calculations were that, in the event of an advance of Soviet troops into Western Europe, they would not be able to stop them until they reached the Pyrenees. And, for that, they needed to open talks with Franco.
How did they go about it?
First, American soldiers and politicians who were passing through Europe began to appear in Spain, making a stop in the country to meet with Franco’s leaders. They were sounding out the terrain. Negotiations to establish an American military presence in Spain dragged on until 1953. It was not easy: the United States and Spain were looking for different things. The Americans wanted to have military bases in Spain at a low cost. On the other hand, the Spaniards wanted to get the maximum economic benefit and to have control of everything that was done on the bases.
In the end, both sides eventually gave in.
Yes, but Spain gave in much more than the United States. In the end, the Americans were free to use their bases. In exchange, the economic allocation for Spain increased with respect to what was initially planned, although it was never the equivalent of a “Spanish-style Marshall Plan”. Nevertheless, it was an important contribution, especially because of the collateral effects it entailed. For the United States, Franco’s regime did not fit in with their ideological affinities. They simply did it for the sake of expediency. Franco used this alliance as a way to get out of the international quarantine.
Did he also use it to modernize the country?
It was an element that boosted Spain’s modernization. In fact, the pact was accompanied by access to official and private American credit, and somewhat later by access to the main international economic organizations that also granted resources to the Spanish government. In addition, it was possible to use human capital in the form of educational channels offered by the Americans, which promoted a gradual recovery of educational and scientific exchange. Even some of the machines that built the airstrips of the American bases in Spain were ceded to the Franco regime or sold to Spanish businessmen under advantageous conditions, who used them for the construction of dams, roads and other public works. It was cheaper for the United States to do that than to take them back. The mythology of the developmentalist Francoism defended today by part of the Spanish right and extreme right, which insists that Franco brought the country forward, hides the fact that a good part of the formulas, financial instruments and training methods came from outside. Specifically, via the United States.
The present always connects with the past.
Yes, the historical view of what has preceded us helps us to understand the present and, also, to be able to build a future based on a better previous knowledge. It helps us not to accept uncritically the information transmitted by those in power or by those who manipulate the data to their benefit in order to hide the truth, especially when these interpretations were generated within the framework of authoritarian political systems. Transatlantic relations must be approached in this way: with an open and pluralistic view. That is what we have tried to do in the book Somehow different: España vista desde Estados Unidos.
‘Somehow different’. España vista desde Estados Unidos
¿Qué opinan los norteamericanos de España? ¿Qué visión tiene su sociedad de la española?
Lorenzo Delgado Gómez-Escalonilla
