Arranging Franco’s crucial flight to take command in Morocco, and providing an alibi for the British-hired plane’s true purpose, was a John Buchanesque British MI6 officer, Major Hugh Pollard, undertaking this as a freelance operation because he was a devout Catholic (as well as an enthusiastic admirer of Nazism and Italian Fascism). Pollard, who subsequently publicly and indignantly defended the Nazi obliteration bombing of the Basque capital Guernica, was proud of having fulfilled ‘the duty of a good Catholic to help fellow Catholics in trouble’. He was duly decorated by a grateful Franco
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