Word: spaak
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Paul-Henri Spaak, Belgium's Socialist Premier, is usually several jumps ahead of political trouble. Last week he was caught off guard. Paul Struye, Spaak 's Minister of Justice, had just commuted the death sentence of two Belgian collaborators. When Socialists joined Communist deputies in protest, Struye, a member of the Catholic party, handed in his resignation, bringing down the coalition cabinet of Socialists and Catholics...
...Belgian traitors sentenced to death since the liberation, 232 had already been shot. Struye (himself a Resistance hero) had personally sent 107 to their death. Said he: "On my soul and conscience, I declare that those 107 deserved supreme punishment." Now he thought it was time to slow down. Spaak, just back from the U.N. in Paris, agreed. "Yes," he declared, "this government is contemplating a policy of mercy...
Should we not return to those happy days when the death penalty was abolished in Belgium?† Is not the abolition of the death penalty a victory of humanity and civilization?" A Communist deputy jumped to his feet. "Don't interrupt me," exclaimed Spaak. "It's hard enough to see my way clearly as it is." When the Regent Prince Charles asked him to form a new government, Spaak resisted: "With the U.N., the chairman ship of O.E.E.C., Western military union and the direction of Belgium's Foreign Office, don't you think that...
...Spaak was wrong. The death penalty was never legally abolished in Belgium, but from 1865 to 1909 King Leopold II automatically commuted all death sentences...
...headquarters in Paris, Belgium's Paul-Henri Spaak was telling one on himself. Spaak spends three days each week in Brussels. There recently he had to make a radio speech. His chauffeur was away, so he hailed a taxi. "The radio building," he ordered the driver. "Sorry, m'sieur," said the cabby, "I haven't the time to drive you. Premier Spaak speaks on the radio tonight, in a few minutes in fact, and like a loyal Socialist I'm going to listen." Glowing with pleasure at the words, Belgium's Premier nevertheless...