We Saw Spain Die

by Preston Paul

  Frenchman with grapefruit reassembled in suit but with more grapefruits, continually pressed upon half-awake somewhat dazed behaving well crowd. Coburn, Klein, Frenchman, Dos, I have coffee Coburn’s room, & makings 2 pieces toast made fringed brown on edges no bidders, crumbled bread on stand & coffee drunk gratefully, shelling bang bang Go to H’s room. Gals gone. Gals (professionals) swarming in halls. As shelling subsides, what looks like 60 whores emerge from one room. More coffee made in Hem’s room & then still another batch.1

  As the shelling died down, one after another, Hemingway, Willie Forrest, Dos Passos, Josie Herbst and the other correspondents wandered out to see the damage in the Plaza de Callao. By now, the sun was blazing down and there were already workmen out repairing the pavement. Josie returned to the hotel to find it almost normal but gloomy after the glaring light outside and with a thick grey dust over all the furniture. After keeping their emotions in check during the terrifying morning ordeal, everyone was now touchy and on edge. Hemingway was talking to Cockburn but, noticing Josie, asked her why she was so grouchy. She replied that she was tired and didn’t feel like playing the Girl Scout any more. This prompted Hemingway to invite her to his room for a drink. While they were standing around, there was a dramatic entry, recalled almost in passing when Josie wrote her diary that night: ‘Dos comes in. Has found out Robles executed. Wants to investigate. Discuss with Hem danger of D. investigating. R. bad egg given fair trial – give away military secrets.’2

  The two lines of this cryptic diary entry contain the bare bones of a story about which rivers of ink would flow over the next seventy years. It was a story that would involve John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn and Josephine Herbst, all stars of varying brightness in the American literary firmament. A story with many loose ends, it would come to be seen as the last straw, if not the key element, in the break-up of one of America’s most celebrated literary friendships, that between Hemingway and Dos Passos. More recently, it has been taken up and wielded as ‘proof’ that the Spanish Republic, of which all four were staunch enthusiasts, had become simply an outpost of the most brutal Stalinism.3 Yet, despite all this, at the heart of the story, there was a central character whose role remains an enigma: Robles, the man of whose death Dos Passos had just been informed.

  José Robles Pazos was the translator into Spanish of the novels of John Dos Passos. The young American writer had met this tall dark nineteen-year-old Spaniard one Sunday morning in 1916 on a train from Madrid to Toledo and they visited the town’s artistic treasures together. Dos Passos was entranced by Robles’ cynical view on life and admired him as ‘a man of vigorous, sceptical and inquiring mind’. They became close friends. Robles had later left Spain to escape the repressive environment of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship. He settled in America and taught Spanish literature at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In 1936, as he did every year, he had brought his family to spend the summer in Spain.4 When the Civil War broke out, although Robles came from a reactionary monarchist family, he decided to remain and work for the Republic. Most commentators on the case follow John Dos Passos in stating that, because Robles knew Russian, he was drafted in as interpreter to General Vladimir Gorev, Soviet Military Attaché and GRU resident (local chief of the Soviet Military Intelligence), who arrived in Madrid at the end of August 1936. Robles was given the rank of lieutenant colonel and considerable responsibility within the Ministry of War.5 Louis Fischer, who had high-level access both to the ministry and to Russians posted there, referred to Robles as Gorev’s ‘aide’. He believed that ‘Gorev trusted him. Robles had a fine open face and pleasant face and looked the disinterested idealist.’ He also recalled that, when the American military attaché Colonel Stephen O. Fuqua came to the ministry to get up-to-date information on the military situation, ‘Gorev instructed Robles to talk to him’.6

  That Robles should be given such a sensitive position as interpreter to the local head of Soviet Military Intelligence and such an exalted rank is extremely puzzling and surely significant. After all, the initial small group of high-ranking Russians had arrived with a team of twenty-five totally trusted interpreters and certainly had no need to recruit interpreters locally. Over the course of the war, over two hundred Russian interpreters were sent to Spain. They were, in general, neither sufficient in number nor, in some cases, sufficiently fluent in Spanish. However, Moscow intransigently insisted that only Soviet nationals or trusted foreign Communists trained in the USSR be allowed to work as interpreters in Spain, especially in the case of the top echelons of advisers. Since this meant the exclusion of virtually all Spaniards from the pool of potential interpreters, the employment of Robles as a GRU station chief’s interpreter would have been, to say the very least, highly implausible. Gorev had as many interpreters as he needed, all of whom were GRU personnel. At first, there was Paulina Abramson and then Emma Wolf, who was a captain in the GRU.7 Whatever Robles was doing with the Russians, it was almost certainly not interpreting.

  According to his close friend, the novelist Francisco Ayala, Robles, at the time of his arrest, was actually working as a translator in the cipher department of the Russian Embassy.8 If it makes little sense that the Russians would place someone who was allegedly just a pro-Republican academic from an American university in such an immensely senior and sensitive position as interpreter to the GRU station chief, it makes even less sense that such a person should be given access to Soviet code books. Why should Robles, a man who apparently had learned Russian in order to be able to read nineteenth-century novels in the original but had never lived in, or even visited, Russia, be offered either position? It might be the case, as Fischer suggests, that Robles was useful as a highly presentable individual who spoke excellent English.9 However, leaving aside the fact that Gorev spoke English, Robles’ possible usefulness as an English-speaker does not resolve the issue of his ‘reliability’ for the Russians. Even less does it resolve the even more mysterious question of his rank. Many totally trusted Communists who excelled on the battlefield had to wait many months for promotion. For Robles to be in such a situation suggested that he had more Communist credentials than has hitherto been assumed. What is much more likely is that Robles was a liaison officer between General Miaja, the Republican Minister of War, and Gorev (in his capacity as Soviet Military Attaché). This was the view of the American Military Attaché Colonel Stephen Fuqua, who described Robles as ‘a very ardent socialist with strong communist leanings’.10 This would, of course, have given him access to considerable sensitive material. Indeed, given that the international situation obliged the Republic to play down its reliance on Soviet aid, any knowledge of Russian activities was sensitive.

  Another mystery regarding José Robles was his relationship with his younger brother. The thirty-seven-year-old Captain Ramón Robles Pazos was a conservative, indeed reactionary, army officer who had made his career in the brutal colonial Army of Africa. In 1936, he was on the staff of the Infantry Academy housed in the Alcázar of Toledo.11 At the beginning of the war, he was in Madrid and he tried, on 21 July, to rejoin his comrades who had joined the rebellion and entrenched themselves in the Alcázar. He was arrested in Getafe in the south of the capital and taken to an improvised prison (checa) in the Paseo de Delicias in Madrid. After being detained for only a matter of hours, he was released and ordered to present himself at the Ministry of War. For him not to have been imprisoned or shot was highly unusual, unless his swift release was secured by the intervention of his brother José. If that were the case, it would suggest either that José already enjoyed extraordinary influence in the first days of the war or had somehow persuaded Ramón’s captors that he could convert him to the Republican cause. Ramón then survived for three months in Madrid while still refusing to serve the Republic. This again suggests both the exercise of considerable influence by someone, presumably José.

  A likely side-effect, however, would have been the accretion of some suspicion around José Robles for protec
ting an evident traitor. Ramón was arrested again on 16 October 1936 on charges of refusing to do military service for the Republic and was imprisoned in the Cárcel Modelo. He was there during the evacuation and subsequent massacre of right-wing prisoners on 7 November. The principal victims targeted in that operation were army officers who might want to join the rebels whose conquest of Madrid was assumed to be imminent. Yet Ramón was untouched. This curious history is explicable only in terms of the sort of influence that could be wielded by someone of power in the Ministry of War, someone such as José Robles. On 17 November, Ramón was transferred to the prison near the Ventas bullring where he remained until, on 26 January 1937, he was tried for desafección al régimen (hostility to the Republic). Having apparently withdrawn his refusal to serve in the Republican forces, he was released on libertad provisional.

  The charmed existence of Ramón Robles inevitably raised suspicions that his brother José was in contact with the Francoist fifth column. The Russians viewed the parlous situation of the Republic with some paranoia, shocked by the levels of disorganization and also treachery within the higher levels of the army and the administration. Given the constant sabotage activities of the rebel fifth columnists within Madrid, it was an issue to which they and the Republic’s own nascent security services were highly sensitive. Accordingly, even if the suspicions were misplaced, in protecting his brother, Robles was living dangerously. The slightest hint that he was playing a double game would have been sufficient for the NKVD to eliminate him and would certainly explain his arrest in December.12 Dos Passos would later be told that Robles was killed by ‘a special section’. This may well have been a unit known as the Brigada Especial, which had been created in Spain with the collaboration of the NKVD department known as ‘Administration of Special Tasks’. One of its principal operatives was the twenty-three-year-old Lithuanian, the Spanish-speaking Iosif Romualdovich Grigulevich, who would later be involved in early attempts to murder Trotsky. Among the activities of the Brigada Especial was the rooting out of the fifth column.13

  In fact, José had been in prison for a month when Ramón secured his own release by withdrawing his opposition to serving the Republic. However, far from joining the Popular Army as he had sworn he would do, on 28 January 1937 Ramón took refuge in the Chilean Embassy until, three weeks later, he managed to move to the French Embassy, where he remained until January 1938. Then, with the help of the French authorities, he managed to get evacuated to France. Ramón’s desertion would not have helped José’s case and would have intensified suspicion about the nature of the contacts between the brothers. At best, Ramón may have been motivated only by a desire eventually to get to the rebel zone. At worst, however, it is possible that he was provoked into going into hiding at the Chilean and French Embassies by fear that, under interrogation, José might reveal the real nature of those contacts. Certainly, there is nothing about Ramón’s subsequent career to suggest that his discussions with José were focused on helping the Republic. From France, after some extremely complicated adventures, he reached the rebel zone in May 1938. After the standard investigation into his activities in the Republican zone, he was incorporated into the Nationalist forces as a major, a promotion back-dated to 10 December 1936. Because of his African service, he was given command of a unit of Moroccan mercenaries (fuerzas regulares indígenas). Further investigation into his role within the Republic produced favourable reports from fifth columnists of his complete commitment to the rebel cause (manifiestan conocen al mismo, constándoles es persona de ideas com-pletamente afectas al Movimiento Nacional). He was promoted to lieutenant colonel and decorated several times. In 1942, he fought in Russia as a volunteer with the Blue Division, the force sent by Franco in support of Hitler. Thereafter, he enjoyed a highly distinguished military career, being promoted to brigadier general in 1952, to major general in 1957 and to the highest rank in the Spanish Army, lieutenant general, in 1961.14

  That José Robles might indeed have had something to hide regarding his links with his brother might be inferred from two letters he wrote in the autumn of 1936. Sent to his friend and head of department at Johns Hopkins University, Professor Henry Carrington Lancaster, the letters suggest that his loyalty to the Republic was not all that Dos Passos and other later commentators have assumed. Both were written in French, which may not be of significance since Lancaster was a French specialist. On the other hand, it seems odd since Lancaster was American and Robles was totally fluent in English. Accordingly, it is just possible that by writing to Lancaster in French, Robles might have been sending him some previously agreed message. Both letters were sent from the Russian headquarters in the Hotel Palace.

  In the first, undated but postmarked 20 October 1936, Robles made it quite clear that he wanted to leave, he wrote:

  The only thing that I’m lacking at present is a letter from you – on official notepaper – saying that you need me back as soon as possible. I don’t need money, but it would be prudent to deposit my cheque in the National City Bank of N.Y. There is a branch here. I think that anything might happen. My wife is no longer here, and it is possible that, at a given moment, I will have to leave. That is why I would like to have a certain sum at my disposal. See you soon. I will have such things to tell you!!!

  The second, also undated, and for which the envelope does not survive, expressed even more strongly Robles’ desire to leave:

  I wish it were me arriving instead of this letter, but for the moment there is no way out. However, don’t believe the exaggerations of fascist propaganda. We are fine here and things will be sorted out. I expect a resolution to my case in a few days. I will write to you soon, but probably not from Madrid. Thank you for your concern, but finances are not a problem. We don’t need the cheque. Later on I’ll tell you where to send it. Despite the situation, I am busying myself with the file-cards for M.L.N. [Modern Language Notes]. You’ll get them.15

  Without the date of the second letter, it is impossible to know if it was written before or after his arrest. The suggestion that his next letter would not come from Madrid implies that the letter was written at the end of October or the beginning of November, just before the evacuation of the government to Valencia. In that case, the phrase ‘a resolution to my case’ would imply that Robles was awaiting permission to leave the Ministry of War and the service of the Russians. In the unlikely case that the letter post-dates his arrest, the phrase would refer to his arrest, implying that he did not consider himself to be in real danger and that he was merely the victim of a misunderstanding which he would be able to clear up. However, it is much more likely that it was before, given that it was addressed from the Hotel Palace and that he was still in a position to occupy himself with file-cards for a scholarly journal.

  When the government moved to Valencia, Gorev remained throughout the siege of Madrid but Robles was among the staff evacuated. There, Robles soon became an assiduous member of the tertulia in the popular café known as the Ideal Room. One day in early December, he told the American Military Attaché, Colonel Stephen Fuqua, that ‘he had to leave Madrid because he was being persecuted by someone who was ignorantly denouncing him’. This makes little sense and sounds like Robles preparing the ground in advance of a possible denunciation. Another habitué of the Ideal Room was the novelist Francisco Ayala. ‘One day’ (cierto día) – Ayala does not mention the date in his memoirs – Robles failed to appear after lunch as he normally did. That same evening, Robles’ wife, the tiny brunette Márgara Fernández de Villegas, accompanied by her two children, was to be seen frantically going from café to café asking if anyone had seen her husband. Apparently, José had been detained the night before in his own apartment by a group of men in plain clothes. It appears that he accompanied them without fuss. At the Soviet Embassy, Márgara was told that no one knew anything. However, she soon discovered that he had been accused of treachery and taken to the Cárcel de Extranjeros on the banks of the river Turia. She was able to visit him there on two s
eparate occasions and told their daughter to walk up and down the pavement outside so that he could see her. Robles himself told her not to worry, that there had been a misunderstanding and it would soon be cleared up.16

  The visits must have taken place after 6 January 1937, for on that day, Robles’ son Francisco ‘Coco’ wrote to Henry Lancaster, his father’s friend and head of the Department of Romance Languages at Johns Hopkins University:

  Through misunderstanding and perhaps the personal feelings of people with whom he worked my father José Robles has suffered a rather disagreeable mishap. My father was working lately at the Ministry of War and more recently in the Junta de Defensa of Madrid. Because of the designs of certain people he was obliged to come to Valencia where he worked with the Soviet Embassy. By orders from Madrid he was arrested there. Nobody, from the Minister of State and the Russian Embassy down, has been able to find out a concrete reason for his ridiculous arrest. He has been arrested nearly a month already.

  This would place the arrest a couple of days either side of 9 December. Because the family was running out of money, Coco went on to ask for financial help from the university and that any moneys be sent in such a way as to avoid the need for José Robles’ signature: ‘He is incommunicated. We haven’t been able to come in touch with him in any way.’17