The pen and the cross in Franco’s service: Alfonso Junco and the Spanish Republican Exile in Mexico

Abstract

Ater the Civil War of 1936, the Mexican writer and journalist Alfonso Junco
was one of the supporters of not only General Franco’s crusades against the
republican bloc, but also of the decision of sending them to exile overseas
to the “other Spain”, a decision which was carried out ater the conlict. A
fervent defender of the cross and a detractor of ideologies such of liberalism,
communism and even fascism, Alfonso Junco strongly criticized the arrival
of Spanish refugees to Mexico, with the intention of undermining the ideological
and institutional project which would end up in forming the Spanish
Republican government in exile through the institutional reconstruction of
Mexico City in August 1945. Disputes between Indalecio Prieto and Juan Negrín,
the Project of Morelia’s children or the confusing issue on the treasures
of Vita were topics that intensiied Junco’s criticism against the Spanish in
exile.