He said it in 1945 after the spanish civil war ended and it goes Something Like this. Men of my generation have always had spain in our hearts because we learned that you could be right and still be defeated. Courage is not its own reward. And it goes on like that. American800 volunteers went there. They were among the 35,00040,000 volunteers from over 50 countries, and of those 2800 americans who went to spain, 750 did not come back. That is a higher death toll percentagewise in the military than any of the world wars. Brian what were the years of the spanish civil war and why was it fought . Adam it began very suddenly in july 1936 and lasted until the beginning of april 1939. So, almost three years. It was an extraordinarily bloody and brutal conflict. Essentially, here is why it had begun. For many centuries spain had essentially been a monarchy. In recent times, a time of military dictatorship. In 1931, the king left the country. They held elections and it became a republic. The spanish republic. People all over the world rejoiced that a country that had experienced very little democracy at last seemed to be getting it will stop and, there were great for reform. But it was a land of the inequalities between the rich and poor. Small numbers of landowners had these huge estates. Millions of peasants had little to no land. In 1936, a coalition of liberal and leftwing parties won the elections. This was absolute anathema to the powerful rightwing forces and in july 1936, a large group of rightwing Army Officers staged revolt against the elected government of the spanish republic and this was the beginning of the spanish civil war. Brian how many people lived in spain back in 1936 . Adam roughly 23 million. I may be off by a million or two. But it was something on that order. Brian what kind of group was in leadership . Adam the elected leadership of the spanish republic were people from parties that would be considered democratic socialists, liberal democrats elsewhere in western europe who were at that time a small number of spanish communists in the national legislature. Not very many. The generals who led the rightwing revolt from whom a very tough talking general named Francisco Franco emerged as the leader and the dominant figure. They represented an older spain. They wanted to restore spain where the landowners and big industrialists would be dominant. There would be no democracy at all. No free press. Military dictatorship. Do away with elections. Do away with any kind of land reform and hand education of the country back to the Catholic Church, because in the secularization process that had begun a few years before, they had begun to take education out of the hands of the church. The Catholic Church in spain was by far the most reactionary in europe. The spanish nationalists of the army officer rebels believed coeducation was the conspiracy of the devil and men and women should be segregated in education and education for women under their rule of the church was education for women was very strong on sewing and religion and not much else. There were two diametrically opposed views on what kind of country they wanted spain to be. Brian i would like to show some video of Francisco Franco. He won, as you pointed out. How long was he the head of spain . Adam he won the war in the early 1939 and remained dictator of the country with close to absolute power the remainder of his life which was 36 years. He died in 1975 amid signs of senility and ruled with an iron fist. Right up to the end. Torture was routine until the very end. No free trade unions. No elections. No free press. Brian lets look at a little bit of what he sounded like and looked like. [video clip] [speaking spanish] [end video clip] brian what is the worst thing he did to his people . Adam you can see it in that clip. He is essentially saying everybody must be united and essentially expressed the popular rule this way, which essentially means do what i say. The worst thing that he did was to extinguish any kind of expression of democratic feelings whether through dissent through the press or through the existence of civic organizations or any elections. For example, participation in anything that had the trappings of belonging to an international organization, even if it was something nonpolitical, a group of esperanto speakers or were in the rotary club, all of these things were forbidden. Because international nonspanish organizations were disallowed. He really did institute a kind of totalitarian rule that was not dissimilar to other forms of totalitarian rule in soviet union, nazi germany, fascist italy. It was somewhat different from the others in that the Catholic Church had such a huge role. It was a kind of totalitarianism. Brian if you are out watching this and you dont care about spain, what relationship does your book have to the American People . Brian if we roll back the clock to the mid1930s, one of the things that was on the minds of a lot of good people all over the world was this ominous sense that fascism was on the rise in europe. Hitler had come to power in germany in 1933. Mussolini had already been in power since the 1920s and 1935, was when he had gone and conquer himself a colony in ethiopia. A war which finally came to an end in 1936. It was clear that fascism was expanded there. Hitler was making all sorts of noises about expanding to the east. Grabbing territory in Eastern Europe and russia that should be under german domination. The soviet union was a grim place, but not as many details were known in the west. They were not talking about expanding. The menace seemed to be expanding fascism in europe. When the coup attempt happened in spain, when all over the country rightwing Army Officers tried to seize power and sent a shockwave of alarm throughout the world. Here was a major country in europe, the rightwing military quickly backed by hitler and mussolini who sent arms, airplanes, pilots, and mussolini eventually sent 80,000 ground troops. Here was the spanish army making a grab for power. People all over the world but it ought to be resisted. If not here, where . Otherwise, we are next. Brian fdr was president , what was his position . Adam he was a small d democrat as well as a large d democrat. Certainly someone who was personally very opposed to fascism. He was, however, wary of being drawn into the spanish civil war in any way. He knew that the American People at this point were deeply isolationist and any kind of opinion poll that you looked at, i mean, roosevelt was a great reader of the opinion polls. That would tell you that people did not want to get drawn into another war in europe. It is also believed, it was probably never put down on paper, it is believed that he promised the hierarchy of the american Catholic Church, before the 1936 campaign for reelection, that he would not intervene in spain. The Catholic Church all over the world heavily backed the revolt of franco and his allies. It was a matter of restoring the spain. To power in spaniards on the other side were so anticlerical that they have murdered thousands of priests and monks and so on. And so it is believed that roosevelt made a promise to the Catholic Church. In any event, throughout the war, he decided to keep america neutral, not to make any attempt to evade the fairly strict u. S. Neutrality laws that were there in place and not to prosecute a Major Oil Company that actually did evade those laws. Brian you write that two thirds of the americans that thought were jews. Adam im not sure i used the figure of two thirds, but people believe anywhere from a third to a half may have been jewish. It is hard to pin down because so many jews changed their name. Brian the reason i ask is why . What is the reason that they participated in much higher rate . Than the percentage of jews in america . Adam to quote one volunteer, he says for us, it was never about franco. It was always about hitler. American jews, like jews all of all over the world, saw hitler on the rise and this all the things he was saying about jews, it fueled recruitment of volunteers to fight in spain not just in this country, but many countries as well. American jews were also disproportionally represented in organizations of the left and that was another thing that drew them spain. Brian you have written, since this book was published, about a man named dell berg. He died this year at age 100. Heres some video. The last living member of the 2800 americans that fought in spain. [video clip] i was very affected by the fascist attempt to take over spain. I couldnt tell you why. I just didnt like the idea. That was my political understanding. I did not like what the s. O. B. s were doing. I joined the army. I didnt know how to get to spain until one day i went to work in hollywood as a dishwasher, in the Hollywood Roosevelt hotel, and i see on the side of the building, Abraham Lincoln brigade. I turned the corner, went up there and said, i want to go to spain. Brian what was the Abraham Lincoln brigade . And why was it named after Abraham Lincoln . Adam it was, it came to be the name, it was not an official name at the time. In later years it has been used as the name to cover all of these americans who volunteered to fight in spain. At the time, the first allamerican unit was called the Abraham Lincoln battalion and there was a George Washington battalion and then the two of them merged and they became the lincolnwashington battalion. It had the name of some canadian alliots but actually it was patriots. But the veterans of all of these things began calling themselves veterans of the Abraham Lincoln brigade because it was simpler and that is how people have referred to them ever since. So, when we speak of these americans who went to spain, including del berg who is the last known survivor of the group, they were the last participants. Brian when did you start your research on this book . Adam i started being interested in the subject many years ago. One of my first jobs was as a daily newspaper reporter at the San Francisco chronicle. As it happened, two other reporters of the newspaper were veterans of the Abraham Lincoln brigade and when things were slow, i would ask them about their experience and i got fascinated. Over the next couple of decades, i met other lincoln veterans and was actually good friends with two more for many years in the San Francisco bay area. I have been fascinated by their experiences were a long time and the way, when you know somebody who has personally lived or something, it brings you closer to that piece of history and at the same time, one of my favorite writers of alltime is George Orwell and i early on read his wonderful memoir of fighting in spain. His homage to catalonia which gives a somewhat different picture of this concept then you will hear from the lincoln brigade veterans. The difference is that orwell did not fight with a group of international volunteers. Basically these 35,00040,000 volunteers who were organized by the communist parties. Orwell had a very independent streak. He went to spain intending to probably join and he got there and discovered a Political Party in spain that he felt much closer to that was a sister party to the independent labour party in britain that he was affiliated with. So he its own militia and joined that militia and there feuding amongonal these different parts of the spanish republic. Orwell has a somewhat different picture of the war but i think he, too, thought he was fighting a good cause and he wished they had won. Brian you said he was 63. Here is a man reading part of the homage to catalonia. Catalonia is where . Adam the Northeast Corner of spain. The big city is barcelona. Why is that relevant . Adam George Orwell was fighting in catalonia and aragorn. Catalonia, especially is a part of spain that, in recent years, they have a strong separatist movement. They speak in different languages. Catalan. Foughtwho have lived and there get very attached to it, as George Orwell was. Brian you can watch when they get to the picture of some of the fighters. George orwell sticks out because of his height. [video clip] something overwhelming. It was the first time that i had ever been to town. Practically every building had been seized by the workers. Draped with red flags. Or with the flag of the red and black anarchists. Every wall was draped with a hammer and sickle and the initials of the revolutionary party. Every shop and cafe everyone called everyone else comrades. All of this was queer and moving. There is much i do not understand. In some ways, i did not even like it. But i recognized it immediately as a state of affairs we were fighting for. [end video clip] brian obviously the man at the back is talking about comrades and a hammer and sickle. You talk about a lot of americans who consider themselves communists at the time. What was their interest in communism . Adam first i want to talk about the revolution in barcelona. Heres what i think was going on. Look at the world as it was in the 1930s. It was a grim place. Here in the United States, close to the quarter of the working population was without jobs. There were 34 million americans living in households with no cash income. Huge encampments of homeless and jobless people. Everywhere you look, in central park in new york near wall street, every American City had these hooterville shantytowns, as they were called. It was easy to believe that capitalism had failed. Its also easy to believe that there was an alternative system communism in the soviet union which, what did i hear much bad news about, whatever problems the soviet union had, employment did not seem to be one of them. We always what to idealize some distant place that seems to offer a happy alternative to our own misery in one way or another. So millions of people all over the world, without knowing much about what was really happening in the soviet union, became true believing communists. Something that forced that feeling was that when the war in spain broke out, none of the major western democracies would provide any help to the spanish republic. None of them would even sell arms. Republican spain had the money to buy arms. The only major country willing to sell anything was Joseph Stalins soviet union. People do not realize that he was asking for some things in return, mainly top positions for spanish and soviet communists in the spanish republics army and security apparatus. It was clearly the only major country does providing help to spain. Indeed, general franco and his nationalists would have won the civil war much sooner if stalin had not done this. They would have overrun madrid and the war would have been over in a matter of weeks or months after he overran madrid. This was something that drew people to communism and made people appreciate what stalin appeared to be doing for spain. But, there was Something Else going on. Which got almost ignored by the press at this time. It is one of the things that fiendishlywar so fascinationg. Heres what it was. George orwell referred to it when he talked about the spirit of barcelona. In catalonia and spains northeast and other pockets of the country as well, frank is francos nationalists were defeated in their initial attempt to take over, not by normal army soldiers. Most Army Officers had gone over to his side. But by badly trained hastily organized militia units together by leftwing Political Parties and trade unions. They were the ones who beat back the coup attempt in barcelona and other cities. When that happened, these workers motions found themselves workers militias found controlling a sizable chunk of spain. During that time, this beginning late july 1936, they put into effect in parts of the country the most farreaching social revolution western europe had ever seen. Workers took over factories, landless peasants took over these huge estates where they had worked as laborers, waiters took over restaurant, trolley car drivers took over the transportation system. You see people driving Railway Locomotives with their initials on the night. Barcelonas hotel ritz, waiters and bus was took over the dining room entered into peoples cafeteria for the poor. It was an amazing, amazing spectacle. Orwell saw it and was fascinated by it. The government of the spanish republic was appalled that this was happening because they suspected, quite correctly, that if spains republic was perceived as a revolutionary society they would never have a chance to buy arms from the United States, britain, or france. As it happens, u. S. , britain and france never sold arms anyway to them. The Foreign Correspondents who flocked from all over the world in huge numbers to cover the war in spain largely ignored the social revolution and wrote very few stories about it because they were all competing with each other to cover the battle for madrid. The city was under stage, the hotel where there was living was being bombed. That seemed to be the big story. But i was fascinated by the spanish revolution. I could find very little coverage of it by any of the american correspondents and then discovered that the most extensive record of what is that like as a foreigner to live through that amazing revolutionary. It was in a series of letters in an unpublished menu script written by ayearold American Woman who lived through that time. She was my favorite find in terms of the character for this. Bryan who was she . Adam she was a student at the university of louisville kentucky. She had married an economics instructor he was a