MOROCCO: Moors Unmoored

In 1936 General Francisco Franco led an army of Moors and Legionnaires out of Africa to join in the Spanish Civil War that brought him to power. Ever since, lance-bearing, scarlet-robed Moorish cavalrymen have attended the dictator on state occasions. But the rude surge of Moroccan nationalism, threatening to overrun Spanish holdings in North Africa, put the old soldier's loyalty to his Moors under heavy strain.

Last week the Madrid government finally permitted its tightly controlled press to report that the Spanish garrison at Ifni had taken a beating. The first official casualty list enumerated 62 dead, more than...