"The Amazing Franco"

In the terraced city of Tetuan, 10.000 Arabs and Berber tribesmen chanted Viva Espana! and begged Spain's help in throwing off 50 years of French authority in Morocco. In Madrid. Falangist hoodlums stoned the British embassy; in Seville, they screamed "Franco! Franco! We want Gibraltar." All last week, in an outburst of diplomatic orneriness, Spain set out to antagonize its neighbors.

Troubled Morocco is a hybrid North African protectorate where France nominally holds overall authority through a puppet sultan but in turn sublets the sultan's power to Spain and a caliph in a ninth of the country. In Tetuan, tribesmen gathered last week in a vast assembly, ostensibly to "express gratitude" to their Spanish overseers. Instead, apparently with the foreknowledge of the Spaniards, the day was turned into a hate-France holiday.

Under the approving eye of Franco's High Commissioner Rafael Garcia Valifio, 430 tribal leaders -- pashas, caids and ule-mas -- signed and proclaimed a fiery petition pledging "unconditional allegiance" to Spanish policy, denouncing France and soliciting Franco's help in seceding from French Morocco. Garcia Valino thereupon rose and blandly castigated French "colonialism." and pledged his and Franco's weight to the Moroccan cause.

French Anger. Both the Moroccans and the Spanish are mad at France for summarily expelling Sultan Sidi Moham med ben Youssef in favor of his more malleable relative. Sidi Mohammed ben Moulay Arafa (TiME, Aug. 31). This action has left some devout Moroccans closing their Friday prayers with blessings on the new Sultan, others petitioning God in favor of the old, and the puzzled ambiguously praying for "Sidi Mohammed" and leaving the choice to Allah.

On the Spanish side, the Sultan's representative is pliant, unventuresome, 43-year-old Caliph Sidi Muley Hassan ben el Mehed. cousin of the exiled sultan and nephew of the new. The Spanish have persuaded the caliph to condemn the French change of rulers, but he is also believed to have secretly telephoned his congratulations to the new. French-backed Sultan.

Angered by Spain's behavior and afraid that it might stir up more trouble in Morocco, the French sent an aircraft carrier, two cruisers and a flotilla of destroyers into the vicinity, protested to Spain, and asked the U.S. to please ask Franco to call off his Moroccans. The U.S., with millions invested in French Moroccan air-bases and ready to spend $200 million more on bases in Spain, kept aloof.

British Scorn. Meanwhile, Spain sent its ambassador to call on Anthony Eden to protest Queen Elizabeth's scheduled visit on May 10 to Britain's fortress on Gibraltar, "Spanish territory unjustly retained by Britain" for 250 years now. Britain, reacting with lofty scorn, saw its feelings aptly expressed in a London Daily Herald headline: THE AMAZING FRANCO DARES TO WARN us. Undeterred by these headlines. 8,000 Madrid students this week stormed the British embassy and were finally driven away after a 2 1/2-hour hassle with the police.

The puzzle behind Spain's lusty noise-making was what did it hope to gain. The French thought they knew: Franco, newly secure with the U.S. bases agreement, hoped to gain a little popularity at home and bolster his prestige in the Arab world. One irritated French official probably got it just about right: "Spain doesn't want to eat in the kitchen. She wants to come right in the dining room."

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