Basque Country, CIA and FBI

Today at Berria:

Basque Country politics was subject of detailed investigation by CIA and FBI

Salegi and Egana have selected a number of documents declassified by the United States and produced them in book form

Eider Goenaga – DONOSTIA (San Sebastian)

The United States secret services, the FBI and the CIA, have thoroughly investigated aspects of political activity in the Basque Country. This is clear in the book “Expediente Vasco. CIA y FBI en Euskal Herria” (The Basque Files. The CIA and FBI in the Basque Country) brought out by the Txalaparta publishing house. Mario Salegi and Inaki Egana are responsible for compiling and classifying the documents for the book and it was they who presented the book yesterday.

The book describes the work conducted by the secret services in the Basque Country starting from the relations the EAJ (Basque Nationalist Party) and the Basque Government in exile [after the end of the Spanish Civil War] had with the United States; the book includes documents made by the United States intelligence services on Basque political activity up until 1980. Manuel de Dios, the American journalist of Basque origin, began the work which remained unfinished when he was killed in 1992, and Salegi wanted to continue the work with Egana’s help. It can be seen from the 50 or so documents the two of them have selected that the FBI and CIA knew exactly what was going on in the Basque Country.

The book reflects the events between 1955 and 1980 in the words of the American agents: the birth of ETA [armed pro-Basque independence organisation], internal documents and attacks, the Christian Democrat International organised by Agirre [the President of the Basque Government in exile], the Carlist movement, the Montejurra assassinations, the Law of Amnesty, mobilisations in favour of the prisoners, pre-autonomy plan, elections, referendums on the Spanish Constitution and Statute for the Basque Autonomous Community, tensions within the EAJ and the monitoring of all the political parties: EAJ, UDC, AP, HB, PCE, PSOE-PSE... .As already mentioned, the documents declassified by the United States only go up to 1980.

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