SPAIN: Put-and-Take

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In Madrid last week the ominous "Min istry of Government" changed hands.

Built up into an octopus of politics and patronage holding the police, posts and telegraphs, reconstruction of devastated regions and immigration under the control of the Dictator's brother-in-law, Don Ramón Serrano Suñer, it was taken away from him and vested in Generalissimo Francisco Franco himself.

Brother-in-law Serrano Suñer had just made an elaborate pilgrimage to Berlin and Rome (TIME, Sept. 30). The Generalissimo has all but officially joined the other dictators, but the most that the Axis got officially last week was that Serrano Suñer, relieved of his Ministry of Government, was made Spanish Foreign Minister, a shift that went over with a bang in the Axis press.

In Madrid buzzed reports of a Cabinet squabble said to have occurred about the time Dictator Franco decided to play put-&-take with his brother-in-law. The then Spanish Foreign Minister, Colonel Juan Beigbeder, was said to have rushed to the Generalissimo in a passion because transit visas through Spain which he had given to Refugee Belgian Premier Hubert Pierlot and Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak had not been honored by the immigration police of Brother-in-Law Serrano Suñer's Ministry of Government. "It is an affair of honor!" the Colonel reportedly told the Generalissimo, "I gave my word of honor that they should pass!" Instead, MM. Pierlot and Spaak were in jail in Spain last week, at Axis request.

Big Policeman Serrano Suñer was said to have argued that Germany surely ought to be humored to this small extent in view of the fact that Germany had not yet put the screws on Spain to join the Axis. That the screws might soon be applied was evident from the arrival in Madrid last week of Heinrich Himmler, Chief of the efficient Gestapo. Colonel Beigbeder resigned in a huff, his Foreign Ministry going to Serrano Suner. If the Germans are to run Spain, as the potential liaison man Serrano took a step up. If not, down.