The price of refuge. Spanish republican exiles in the US cultural cold war

This article explores the importance of the collaboration of the different groups of European exiles in the United States, after the rise of totalitarianism, in the construction of open and covert American diplomacy at the height of the Cold War. And this, in one sense, was logical. Refugees knew the languages and traditions of their home nations well and many shared their strong ideologies of anti-totalitarianism with the US government. There were synergies between both parties. In addition, we analyzed the link and then the confrontation on the part of one group of those European exiles in the US: that of the anti-Franco and anti-Stalinist community of Spanish republican exiles in New York, to American policies and interests during the nineteen forties and fifties. The United States' unexpected approach to Franco's Spain in 1953 was difficult for them. It caused desolation among this community of Spanish Republican exiles in the United States who, until then, had collaborated with the intelligence services of their host nation looking forward the end of the Franco´s regimen. But while a moderate group of those Spanish exiles considered that this approach was a necessary and transitory evil to restrain the Stalinist common enemy, another group of exiles remained faithful to their republican and anti-Franco political trajectory demonstrating their discontent. The Spanish exile community in the United States was deeply divided in 1953 against the Madrid Pacts and the recognition of the Franco´s regime by the US.