Fighting for relevance: Economic intelligence and special operations executive in Spain, 1943–1945
This article examines the work of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Spain during the latter part of the Second World War. Unlike SOE's broad mandate to sow dissent and disarray in occupied countries, in Spain agents were forbidden from any involvement in direct action and sabotage. Diplomatic concerns, namely the maintenance of Spanish neutrality in the war, overrode all other strategic issues in Iberia. SOE agents and leaders in Madrid, therefore, attempted to create a different role for themselves. Drawing on files released in the Public Record Office in 1998, the article highlights SOE's limited success in the effort to establish for itself a part in the Allied strategic and diplomatic campaign against German wolfram smuggling. Success proved fleeting, however, and SOE's ultimate failure, in the face of hostility from the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), to prove its usefulness beyond the wolfram campaign, would lead to its withdrawal from Spain. The story of the SOE in Spain represents, on a small scale, the failure of the organization to find a niche in the British intelligence community after the Second World War.
Operation Warden: British sabotage planning in the Canary Islands during the Second World War
ABSTRACT Between 1939 and 1945, the Canary Islands became protagonists in the Second World War. Although Spain was never formally involved in the war, the connivance of the Franco regime allowed ports such as Las Palmas to act as supply points for Axis submarines. In response, the Allied Powers did not hesitate to intervene diplomatically or militarily. Therefore, the main objective of this article is to reveal the most fundamental components of Operation Warden, a British sabotage plan designed in 1941 which, although not ultimately implemented, stipulated the sinking of several German and Italians vessels in Puerto de la Luz (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria).
Spain and the Second World War
One area of the diplomatic history of the second world war that has only recently come under examination is the role played by Spain. Within this field, work is now slowly starting on Spain's relations with the United States.1 During the years 1943-4 the United States and Great Britain were conducting negotiations with Madrid in an attempt to have Franco impose an embargo on the sale of tungsten ore (wolfram) to the Germans for use in their ballistics industry. The occurrence of the so-called Laurel Incident during these talks delayed the final outcome of the negotiations. Spain, attempting to stay out of the war, used for this purpose, inter alia, the advantages she enjoyed in her trade with the Allied and the Axis powers. Only just beginning to recover from the losses and convulsions of an exhausting and costly civil war, Spain was in no position to gain from joining in the hostilities. The tungsten talks were one means of maintaining a balance between the influence of the two belligerent sides. The Germans viewed Spain as a friend during the early stages of the war but by the time of the Laurel Incident were fearful that Franco would turn against Berlin. Between September 1939 and the end of I944, the Allies considered Spain as a potential enemy because of her well-known economic and political associations with both Italy and Germany. The authoritarian character of her government, her civil-war record, and attempts to meet the