No On Really Saw It
Writing in the Universe from Burgos, iptain Francis McCullagh, the well-known rrespondent of some of the most famous pers in the world, throws serious doubts on the alle d massacre of the Reds when a Nationali ts entered Badajoz — the exmale alway quoted by anti-Nationalist 'hers and s4eakers.
" Even iii the case of the shootings by the Natio4lists in Badajoz," he writes, .1
,,General ranco's critic's were wrong. I went thoro ghly into that question and satisfied miself that no Red who surrendered in Baclajoz was shot. The wild stories about the streets being piled high with corpses and the drains running with blood came in the first instance from excited Portuguese reporters working for English and American journalists. 1 have beennoble to find an Englishman
ti or an American who saw with his own eyes any shooting of unarmed men by the Nation'alists."
An American paper also offers a denial.
" The day of the capture of Badajoz, the figure of 2,000 Reds shot was ,given by the French Havas correspondent. who was not there but in Portugal," writ os the American paper Time. " All over the world this figure was taken up and printed. Next day John Elliott of the New York Herald Tribune was the first American correspondent and probably the first non-Spanish correspondent to enter Badajoz. He saw no signs of the shootings, so didn't report them. By some of his own Herald Tribune colleagues he was promptly condemned for having sold out to the Fascists.' "