Frank RYAN. Your 144/35¹

Further² to my minute of 8th October³, the Viscount de Mamblas informed me by telephone late on Saturday night 8th October that, in reply to an enquiry made by him urgently in Burgos at my request, he had received an advice dated 7th October stating that Ryan was alive; he went on to say that about six weeks or so ago there had been a critical moment when it was just touch and go whether he would be 'popped off', that he believed the danger to be past and that 'there are three or four influential people, of whom you are the first, interested in him'.

I thanked de Mamblas for the official assurance that Ryan was alive; I begged him to intervene - and he promised to do so - with a view to obtaining permission for Ryan to communicate with his family; he also agreed to ascertain in Burgos whether the authorities there would accept the principle of an exchange in this particular case, in which event I stated I would gladly endeavour to induce Barcelona to agree to the liberation, in exchange for Ryan, of any particular prisoner of corresponding rank or importance whom Burgos might wish to rescue; he was of the same opinion as myself as regards the certainty of any exchange negotiations being spread over a long period; it is clear, however, that, once Burgos admits the principle of an exchange and gives me the name of a nationalist prisoner in Republican Spain, this will almost constitute a guarantee for Ryan's safety, providing of course that nothing untoward should subsequently befall the nationalist prisoner in question.

Perhaps I should add that, when commenting on the fact that Ryan had so narrowly escaped execution, de Mamblas explained that Ryan had of course 'a very bad background' - presumably in Ireland rather than in Spain; it may be that a bad background justifies a death sentence where Franco holds sway.