Major U.S. Jewish Organizations Express Opposition to Proposed Loan to Spain

Ten major Jewish organizations today announced their opposition to the proposed loan to Franco Spain and warned that “far from striking a blow against Communism, it will actually aid the Communist propaganda campaign.”

In a joint statement sent to the President, the Secretary of State, the leaders of the major political parties, and members of the Senate-House Conference Committee, the Jewish organizations charged that “the Government of Spain is a totalitarian tyranny as evil and anti-democratic as the Communist dictatorship.”

Organizations which signed the statement were the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Association of Jewish Chaplains in the Armed Forces, B’nai B’rith, Jewish Labor Committee, Jewish War Veterans, National Community Relations Advisory Council, National Council of Jewish Women, Synagogue Council of America, and Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

Declaring that “world Communism is a deadly menace to freedom and peace, which menace must be resisted,” the statement said that “not all the self-styled enemies of Communism are friends of liberty.”

“General Franco actively and openly supported the forces that for a time enslaved Europe and sought to suppress civil liberties and religious freedom,” the statement continued. “For America to bolster financially this ruthless dictator is to betray the faith of those who died for liberty on the battlefields of the world.”

The organizations commended President Truman and the Secretary of State for their “forthright opposition to the proposed loan” and deplored the “recent action of the Senate in singling out the Spanish Government for preferential consideration outside the regular channels of the Export-Import Bank.”