SHOULDERING FREEDOM

Here is the ""truth about Spain"" as she is today, and more specifically about the world-wide movement directed toward achieving once again a free Spain. Isabel de Palencia is the author of several juveniles, and of an autobiography -- I Must Have Liberty -- which for many provided one of the first eye witness records of the true significance of the struggle within Spain between autocracy and democracy. An introductory chapter outlines the plane projected by the briefly dominant Republic, a program which included land settlement, public education, military reorganisation -- three factors abhorrent to the fascistic elements. But without the support -- in men and materials -- from Mussolini and Hitler, these forces would have failed. With them, the forces of democracy were defeated, driven into exile, confined to concentration camps in France, to Franco's prisons, to seeking refuge wherever there was a welcome (chiefly that meant Mexico, briefly Sweden, Chile, Columbia, Cuba). It is a story, based on actual record, of the reign of terror in Spain, of famine, of persecution, of false propaganda sent out by the France regime. And it is a story of individual heroism, of group action, of guerilla warfare, of with United Nation forces, of unflagging faith and preparation for the day of liberation. Singularly lacking in bitterness, this is -- at times -- provocative and challenging. One could wish the level of interest had been more evenly sustained -- at times the organisation is haphazard, ragged. But the book did help clarify for me the varying points of view that have emerged of recent weeks in San Francisco.