BRITISH M.P. MAKES SECRET VISIT TO SPAIN

Chronicle (Levin), 15 August 1946, Page 5

BRITISH M.P. MAKES SECRET VISIT TO SPAIN

Press Assn.

ATTEMPT TO GET REAL PICTURE OF CONDITIONS

By Telegraph

-Copyright

Received Thursday, 10.35 a.m. LONDON, August 14. Britain's youngest member of Parliament, Captain ( • Francis Noel Baker, has.crossed the Pyrenees into France after a ten days' secret visit to the underground leaders of Spain's Republican Resistance Movement, says Reuter's Paris correspondent. He travelled with false papers and was the guest of various Democratic and Republican groups, who arranged an extensive tour to give him first-hand contact with the Opposition leaders. Captain Noel-Baker said the object of his visit was to assess the real strength of the Spanish Republican bodies, and he intends to prepare a report for the information of his fellow Commoners. His general impressions are: Firstly, that a competently-led. Republiican 'movement existed. Secondly, that there was active political repression of opponents of General Franco's regime. Thirdly, that despite a record Spanish harvest, the blackmarket still eontrolled the food prices. Captain Noel-Baker, who was a British intelligence officer during Ihe war, added that he proposed sending a letter to the Spanish Ambassador in London, explaining the reasons for the unorthodox methods which he felt impelled to adopt to get a true picture of inside Spain, and offering to undertake a seeond officially-sponsored journey if given freedom of movement.