[Wallace T.]

Did Franco actually authorize the repressive measures against Protestants in the early 1940s? It would seem that with World War II going on and Franco trying to strike some middle ground between the Axis and the Allies, this policy would not have been too well thought out, especially since the major players on both sides of the war (Germany and Britain) at the time of the Time article you cited (1941) had large Protestant populations. The size of the Protestant minority was very small, less than 0.1% of the population, and represented no threat to the regime. Additionally, Franco was a ruler more in the model of Mannerheim in Finland or Pilsudski in Poland than a totalitarian ruler like Stalin in the USSR or Hitler in Germany, where there was a virtual unity between the ruling party and the state, including the secret police. The ruling party in Spain, the National Front, was a coalition of several factions, as I pointed out previously.

To draw an American analogy, local authorities, especially in the South before 1960, discriminated against blacks in the courts and government services. However, discrimination of this sort was not a Federal policy, and the various Presidents did not order or approve of the actions of Southern local governments. Franco was not a totalitarian ruler and may not have authorized what happened to the Spanish Protestants.

While I was incorrect in saying there was no persecution of Protestants under Franco, you have not proven that Franco persecuted Protestants any more than, say, Truman persecuted blacks.

[vladimir998]

You wrote: "While I was incorrect in saying there was no persecution of Protestants under Franco, you have not proven that Franco persecuted Protestants any more than, say, Truman persecuted blacks."

I don't have to. Franco persecuted Protestants. You were wrong. Continue to flog away at the dead horse if you like. Nothing will change. You were wrong.