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The man who stepped off a plane at Madrid last September, followed by an efficient-looking retinue of 25 men & women, was a Ph.D. from Syracuse. Professor Sidney Sufrin had been hired by ECA to find out once & for all just how strong Francisco Franco's economy is, and what might be done to help it in the interests of Western Europe's defense.

Last week, two months ahead of schedule, the Sufrin mission finished its job. It had steered clear of the social whirl which delights and hampers Madrid's official world with an average of 25 diplomatic cocktail parties a week. Finding official statistics totally unreliable, Sufrin & Co. had fanned out across the country. They hiked up the Pyrenees, Guadarrama and Cantabrian mountain ranges to have a firsthand look at hydroelectric plants. They poked underground in Asturias' and Galicia's coal pits, riding in shafts without safety devices. They visited factories, farms, fishing centers, shipyards. They talked with workers, industrialists, peasants and bureaucrats. They offered neither criticism nor advice--they just noted.

Usable Luggage. In his Madrid apartment, preparing to leave for Washington, Professor Sufrin had his team's survey all wrapped up in a 180,000-word report; it included the first complete inventory of Spain's agricultural and industrial resources.

"You see," he said, pointing to a hodgepodge array of new and old suitcases he was packing, "the Spanish economy is like this luggage. It has been collected all around the world. Part is new, part old. Some pieces have Yale locks, others are held together with ropes. But it's all good enough for travel . . ." Though Spain has often been pictured as on the verge of bankruptcy and starvation, said Sufrin, it is more nearly self-sufficient than some other European nations (e.g., Britain and Belgium). If Spain were to lower slightly its already low standard of living, which Sufrin puts at $160 income a year per Spaniard, it could do without foreign aid and without international trade.

Spain's economic troubles, says Sufrin, lie in 1) bad distribution of resources and goods, low standards of maintenance, 2) state control purely for the sake of control, 3) a shortage of skilled workers, 4) poor agricultural organization and 5) inefficient general management. These ailments cannot be cured, he said, by indiscriminately handling out dollars (Spanish officials would like about $300 or $400 million). "Spain will never die of starvation, but she can die of indigestion if we give her more beef than she can chew."

"No Deluge of Dollars." Even if, for military and political reasons, the U.S. decides to try a far-reaching rehabilitation of Spain, Sufrin is against any deluge of dollars. He recommends rehabilitation in three successive phases: existing equipment must be put to work at full capacity (it is now operating 20% below); then, there should be small investments in the form of raw materials; and finally, after these steps are taken, there can be larger investments. In the meantime, Spanish workers must be trained in new skills, and the country's power and transport system drastically improved.

"If we are to have a positive policy toward Spain, the standard of living must be raised," he concluded. "Politics is no field of mine, but economics teach us that an underfed worker is a poor worker."

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