A. A. McLeod’s Visa

Our lives are ruled by the documents we carry; licences, permits and identity cards all make it easier to glide through everyday life. 

During wartime though, they can spell the difference between life and death. And this single page with a visa stamp in Alex MacLeod’s passport likely saved the lives of 269 Mac-Paps, who otherwise  faced being killed by Franco’s rebels and Canadian government indifference.

A prominent Communist between the wars, A.A. (Alex) MacLeod led Canada’s humanitarian relief efforts during the Spanish Civil War. He was one of the first Canadians to go to Spain after the attempted coup; raised funds for Norman Bethune and pulled him out of Spain when he irritated too many people; and convinced the International Brigades to establish a separate Mackenzie-Papineau battalion for the Canadian volunteers. MacLeod’s fingerprints can be found on just about every aspect of Canadian involvement in the conflict.

So, on the eve of Franco’s victory, it was natural that supporters would turn to MacLeod to rescue the last of the Mac-Pap’s before they were trapped behind rebel lines. He faced two problems though. The Communist Party, which had sent most of them over to Spain,  had no money to pay for their passage home, and MacLeod couldn’t get to Spain to help them. The Canadian government had made it illegal to fight in the Spanish Civil War and routinely marked it’s passports as “Not Valid For Spain.” 

MacLeod appealed to the Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, O.D. Skelton, for an exemption to this law. Skelton was reluctant, as he didn’t want to set a precedent that would leave the Canadian government on the hook financially for bringing the Mac-Paps home. He changed his mind after CCF leaders told him the Canadian government would be blamed if the Mac-Paps were trapped and killed by Franco’s troops. So, he recommended to Prime Minister Mackenzie King that they grant MacLeod the visa for Spain. “Mr. MacLeod’s journey,” said Skelton, “seems the most likely means of resolving what may be an embarrassing situation.”

While the visa was necessary, it was not sufficient. MacLeod now had to raise the money he needed to bring the Mac-Paps home. And he did, even getting $5000 from Canadian grocery magnate Galen Weston. On January 14th, 1939, he flew into Barcelona, the beleaguered and embattled capital of the Spanish Republic. After spending a week rounding up the stranded Canadian volunteers, MacLeod and the Mac-Paps braved rebel bombs and shelling and boarded a train for France, just two days before the fall of Barcelona.

On his way out of Barcelona, MacLeod sent a telegram to the Canadian Prime Minister in which he predicted “…within the next few days, democratic nations must choose between freedom and barbarism. The Spanish Republic conquered, universal democracy will suffer reverse and democratic nations have to prepare for a war in which [they] already have lost [the] first battles...” 

The democratic nations didn’t have to wait long for the war that MacLeod was predicting. A little more than eight months later, Hitler marched into Poland and World War Two began.

JM