“CARMENCITA” GOES EASt 533

“CARMENCITA” GOES EAST: FRANCOIST CULTURAL DISCOURSES ABOUT THE MIDDLE EAST

María del Mar Logroño Narbona

From April 4–28, 1952, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alberto Martín Artajo, went to the Middle East on a diplomatic mission that included official visits to Lebanon, (including the and ),1 , , Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Franco, as was the case in these missions, did not make the trip, excusing himself due to the “duties of serving the nation.”2 However, signifying the particular relevance of this occasion and as stressed in the official media, Franco’s only daughter, Carmen Franco (Carmencita, as his mother called her) and her husband, the Marques of Villaverde, joined Artajo in his official visit.3 Further mark- ing the importance of this mission, the delegation also included two mili- tary officers (Mohamed Ben Mizzian Ben Kassen and Luis Zanón Aldalur); two diplomats (Jose Sebastián de Erice and Alberto Pascual Villar); one academic (Emilio García Gómez, an Arabist); two media representatives (Pedro Gómez Aparicio, the head of the Spanish Press Agency [EFE] and Joaquín Soriano, the director of the visual newsreel NO-DO); and the Count of Argillo.4 As if this unusually large delegation was not enough to mark the relevance of this mission, Franco himself gave a farewell speech to the deputation that was broadcast on national radio on the eve of their depar- ture. In the talk he stated the three main pillars of Spain’s longstanding good relationship with countries in the Middle East: their shared history,

1 Beginning with the Conference of December 1, 1948, and until the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the Six-Day War of June 1967, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were annexed by King Abdallah of Jordan, becoming part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The annexation of the West Bank (but not of East Jerusalem) was only recognized internationally by Great Britain and the United States. It was at first rejected by the League of Arab States. This may explain why the mission visited East Jerusalem and the West Bank first, coming directly from Lebanon, and afterwards went to Jordan. For the annexation see Joseph Massad, Colonial Effects (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 228–29. 2 Franco’s transcription of his speech in ABC, April 5, 1952. 3 Revista Audiovisual Imágenes, 382. 4 ABC, April 4, 1952. 534 María del Mar Logroño Narbona the racial links between Spain and the Middle East, and the strong spiritual affinity among them.5 During their tour around the Middle East, the mission enjoyed full cov- erage in printed and visual official media. Unlike other diplomatic missions, the media representatives joined the delegation to provide an entire range of visual and narrative coverage. As a result, the main newspapers, includ- ing ABC, La Vanguardia, and Ya, supplied “firsthand” information about the progress of the trip, through the telegrams and notes that Pedro Gómez Aparicio sent to EFE, while NO-DO provided seven short visual newsreels of the trip, which were later re-edited and compiled in a forty-minute popular audiovisual news program, Imágenes, covering the entire trip.6 According to the official press of the regime, Artajo’s official visit to the Mashreq7 was meant to consolidate the existing good relationship of Franco’s regime with Arab Middle Eastern countries. Offering a more nuanced perspective, historians of modern Spain, Dolores Algora Weber and Raanan Rein,8 have demonstrated how the Spanish diplomatic mission had a less rhetorical but more practical objective: the mission was meant to conclude several years of bilateral diplomatic efforts that aimed at earn- ing the diplomatic support of Middle Eastern countries in the midst of the increasing international political isolation that Western nations placed on Franco’s fascist government from December 1946 until December 1955, when Spain finally became a member of the United Nations.9 In their read- ing, Franco’s regime sought to “substitute” the lack of support from the United States and European nations at the end of the Second World War10 with friendship from the Vatican, Latin American countries, and Arab Middle Eastern countries, since many of them had either rejected or

5 ABC, April 5, 1952. 6 Araceli Rodríguez Mateos, Un Franquismo de Cine: La imagen política del Régimen en el noticiario NO-DO (1943–1959) (Madrid: Rialp, 2008), 151. For the technical aspects of NO-DO and Imágenes see María Antonia Paz and Inmaculada Sánchez, “La historia filmada: los noticiarios cinematográficos como fuente histórica. Una propuesta metodológica,” Film- Historia, IX, no.1 (1999): 17–33. 7 In Mashreq refers to the Oriental-Levantine Middle East (mostly Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinian Territories) in opposition to the Maghreb, the western/North African part of the Middle East (mostly Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia). 8 See Algora Weber, Relaciones hispano-árabes, 35–41, Raanan Rein, “In pursuit of votes and economic treaties,” 200. 9 These were UN Resolution 39 I of December 14, 1946 condemning and sanctioning the regime, and UN Resolution 386 V of November 4, 1950 lifting the sanctions. For a full description see Alberto Lleonart Amsélem, “El ingreso de España en la ONU: Obstáculos e Impulsos,” Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea 17 (1995):101–19. 10 See among others Algora Weber, Relaciones hispano-árabes, 62.