Word: grimau
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...whole, however, political liberalization has been slow and erratic. Most of the old restrictive laws are still on the books, and although they are sel dom enforced, the regime can dust them off at its pleasure, and does. Three years ago, Spanish Communist Julián Grimau was executed under the 1941 Law for the Suppression of Masonry and Communism, which supposedly had been repealed...
After the Republican collapse Grimau fled, worked as a Communist agent in Czechoslovakia, Russia, Mexico and Cuba. A member of the central committee of the outlawed Spanish Communist Party, he was living in France when he slipped across the frontier in 1959 to reorganize the Spanish Communist underground. After several trips in and out of Spain since 1959, an informer gave him away to police in Madrid last November. Franco's cops clapped him in jail and began a lengthy interrogation. During one session, Grimau leaped, fell, or was pushed from a first-floor window, fracturing his skull...
Last week, with a large dent in his forehead, gaunt, balding Grimau heard a seven-man military court tick off the charges against him; they ranged from "continuing military rebellion" to arson, torture and execution of anti-Republicans by the Chekas 25 years ago. The maximum penalty was death. Did he care to say something before sentence was passed? "Only this," replied Grimau. "Since 1936, I have lived the life of a Communist. I will die a Communist...
This was the cue for Communist dem onstrations in half a dozen West Eu ropean cities; Nikita Khrushchev, no stranger to executions, had the gall to send a personal appeal for clemency to Franco. Grimau's wife vainly urged President Kennedy to intervene. The international pressure only stiffened the regime's determination to carry out the penalty. At a meeting with his Cabinet, Franco upheld the sentence...
Next day at dawn, Grimau, pale but composed, was led into the courtyard of Carabanchel Prison just outside Madrid. He walked alone to the wall, refused a blindfold, shouted "Viva el Comunismo!", and then collapsed under a volley of shots fired by Spanish Moroccan troops...