SPAIN: New President's New Premier

Last fortnight Spain's Manuel Azaña surrendered the power of a Spanish Premier for the prestige of a Spanish President. Last week all Spain tried to read its immediate future as President Azaña chose a Premier to replace himself.

President Azaña is a real Republican, but the Socialists who swept him into power in the February elections want a "proletarian dictatorship." Last week he offered the Premiership to the only Socialist leader who does not believe in revolution : Indalecio Prieto. Prieto declined it. President Azaña offered it to the Radical Democratic leader. Speaker of the Cortes Diego Martinez Barrio, who also declined. Finally he offered it to another Republican, Minister of the Interior Santiago Casares Quiroga, who for two months has had the delicate job of suppressing Socialist riots and church-burnings without making the riotous, incendiary Socialists too angry. Senor Quiroga accepted.

Premier Quiroga is a tough, tense little lawyer from the northwestern province of Galicia. Rich, honest, a spectacular conversationalist, he has had a hard time, in explosive Spain, living down his effective suppression of the Anarchist riots in 1932 when he was Minister of Interior in Manuel Azaña's first Cabinet.