Spanish Bombs

At left, photo of Republican militiawomen by Gerda Taro













This obituary in Monday's Times, coupled with the exhibits of Spanish Civil War photography and graphic arts I saw in New York last Friday, and the book I'm reading, have me absorbed of late in the images and espionage that arose out of war-torn Spain from 1936-1939.

The reporter Lester Ziffren's obituary included his encoded message from Spain announcing Francisco Franco's military uprising in Melilla, one of Spain's Moroccan outposts, to the press:

“‘Mothers everlastingly lingering illness likely laryngitis Aunt Flora ought return even if goes north later equally good if only night...’”

The first letter of each word spells out "Melilla foreign legion revolted martial law declared ..." and it seems to me that more of our day-to-day communication should be encoded like this, for thrills.^*

Anyway, something that our guide at the International Center of Photography exhibit told us struck me as similarly intriguing: apparently, the coded message that communicated Franco's uprising to the Nationalists, his followers, over Spanish radio was "Los cielos están claros por toda España" ("Skies are clear over all of Spain"). This is curious because one of the clandestine jokes to arise during the Franco dictatorship -- Franco being a general and from rainy Galicia, in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula -- read as: "Parte meteorológico: Reina en toda España un fresco general procedente de Galicia..." ("Weather report: All over Spain a general chill originating from Galicia will reign.") 'Fresco general' can also be read as a 'fresh general,' and there's no doubt that Franco would, indeed, leave Spain in the cold for 35 years.

^* Bats undulate sheepishly hanging in secluded areas near icy dark interior openings together.