Second evacuation of Gibraltar was planned

A document marked ‘Top Secret’ was drawn up by the security services in Gibraltar with the collaboration of the secret intelligence service MI6 to consider the extent of Communist involvement in Gibraltar. The document was headed ‘The Scale of Fifth Column Activities to be expected in Gibraltar in the event of War with the Soviet Union before 31st December 1953.’

It considered individuals in Gibraltar who might be in active opposition to the Government in wartime; the capacity of individuals to interfere with operations of armed Services and Police; their capacity to interfere with civil administration, and the potential para-military forces.

Only seven copies of this document were produced, and apart from file copies, other copies went to the Director General Security Services in Britain and to the Governor and Commander-in-Chief. Senior military commanders, such as the then Flag Officer Gibraltar, the Deputy Fortress Commander and the Air Officer Commanding were shown only extracts.

When considering the potential Communist influence prevalent in Gibraltar, Copy No.1said:”Under the Gibraltar Defence Scheme it is envisaged that the non-essential civilian population will have to be evacuated.”

The document considered the infiltration in the Gibraltar Confederation of Labour (GCL), which was the main union, established in 1947, and its political arm the Association for the Advancement of Civil Rights (AACR) of a Communist clique. “In the event of war with the Soviet Union, those communists and their sympathisers among the principal officials of both bodies could, if they were so minded - even though as now in a minority - exert a strong influence,” said the document.

It went on to warn: “They might, to choose but one example, effectively exploit in enemy interests the strong emotions that the necessary wartime evacuation of non-essential civilians will arouse among the Gibraltarian population.”

In other reports the question of the evacuation was given as a possible point of discord, saying that the small Communist element might “make use of the popular hostility to the idea of the evacuation of the non-essential civilian population.”

“The non-refugee Spaniards listed can at any time be excluded from Gibraltar by the Commissioner of Police. Other provisions of the Gibraltar Defence Scheme allow for such precautionary measures as the imposition of censorship and the arrest and detention of the most dangerous potential fifth columnists, both of which are likely considerably to reduce the risk of fifth column activity,” the document added.

There was a small branch of the Spanish Communist Party in Gibraltar, recruited almost entirely from among the 117 Spanish political refugees, relics of the Spanish civil war of 1936-39, who were still in Gibraltar in 1953, down from 487 refugees seven years earlier.

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24-08-2020 PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR