As I say, it is quite conceivable that at some time or other the guns were stolen, because to my own knowledge, though I never actually saw it done, there was a great deal of stealing of weapons from one militia to another. But people who were not actually in the militia do not seem to have understood the arms situation. As far as possible arms were prevented from getting to the P.O.U.M. and Anarchist militias, and they were left only with the bare minimum that would enable them to hold the line but not to make any offensive action. There were times when the men in the trenches actually had not enough rifles to go round, and at no time until the militias were broken up was artillery allowed to get to the Aragón front in any quantity. When the Anarchists made their attacks on the Jaca road in March–April they had to do so with very little artillery support and had frightful casualties. At this time (March–April) there were only about 12 of our aeroplanes operating over Huesca. When the Popular Army attacked in June a man who took part in the attack tells me that there were 160. In particular, the Russian arms were kept from the Aragón front at the time when they were being issued to the police forces in the rear. Until April I saw only one Russian weapon, a sub-machine gun, which quite possibly had been stolen. In April two batteries of Russian 75 mm. guns arrived – again possibly stolen and conceivably the guns referred to by the Russian ambassador. As to pistols and revolvers, which are very necessary in trench warfare, the Government would not issue permits to ordinary militiamen and militia officers to buy them, and one could only buy them illegally from the Anarchists. In these circumstances the outlook everyone had was that one had to get hold of weapons by hook or by crook, and all the militias were constantly pilfering them from one another. I remember an officer describing to me how he and some others had stolen a field gun from a gun-park belonging to the P.S.U.C.,1and I would have done the same myself without any hesitation in the circumstances. This kind of thing always goes on in war-time, but, coming together with the newspaper stories to the effect that the P.O.U.M. was a disguised Fascist organisation, it was easy to suggest that they stole weapons not to use against the Fascists but to use against the Government. Owing to the Communist control of the press the similar behaviour by other units was kept dark. For instance there is not much doubt that in March some partisans of the P.S.U.C. stole 12 tanks from a Government arsenal by means of a forged order. La Batalla, the P.O.U.M. paper, was fined 5000 pesetas and suppressed for 4 days for reporting this, but the Anarchist paper, Solidaridad Obrera, was able to report it with impunity. As to the guns, if stolen, being kept in Barcelona, it seems to me immensely unlikely. Some of the men at the front would certainly have heard of it and would have raised hell if they had known weapons were being kept back, and I should doubt if you could keep two batteries of guns concealed even in a town the size of Barcelona. In any case they would have come to light later, when the P.O.U.M. was suppressed. I do not, of course, know what was in all the P.O.U.M. strongholds, but I was in the three principal ones during the Barcelona fighting, and I know that they had only enough weapons for the usual armed guards that were kept on buildings. They had no machine guns, for instance. And I think it is certain that there was no artillery-fire during the fighting. I see that you refer to the Friends of Durruti being more or less under P.O.U.M. control, and John Langdon-Davies2 says something to the same effect in his report in the News Chronicle. This story was only put about in order to brand the P.O.U.M. as ‘Trotskyist’. Actually the Friends of Durruti, which was an extremist organisation, was bitterly hostile to the P.O.U.M. (from their point of view a more or less right-wing organisation) and so far as I know no one was a member of both. The only connection between the two is that at the time of the May fighting the P.O.U.M. are said to have published approval of an inflammatory poster which was put up by the Friends of Durruti. Again there is some doubt about this – it is certain that there was no poster, as described in the News Chronicle and elsewhere, but there may have been a handbill of some kind. It is impossible to discover, as all records have been destroyed and the Spanish authorities would not allow me to send out of Spain files even of the P.S.U.C. newspapers, let alone the others. The only sure thing is that the Communist reports on the May fighting, and still more on the alleged Fascist plot by the P.O.U.M., are completely untruthful. What worries me is not these lies being told, which is what one expects in war-time, but that the English left-wing press has refused to allow the other side a hearing. Eg. the papers made a tremendous splash about Nin and the others being in Fascist pay, but have failed to mention that the Spanish Government, other than the Communist members, have denied that there was any truth in the story. I suppose the underlying idea is that they are somehow aiding the Spanish Government by allowing the Communists a free hand. I am sorry to burden you with all this stuff, but have tried to do all I can, which is not much, to get the truth about what has happened in Spain more widely known. It does not matter to me personally when they say that I am in Fascist pay, but it is different for the thousands who are in prison in Spain and are liable to be murdered by the secret police as so many have been already. I doubt whether it would be possible to do much for the Spanish anti-Fascist prisoners, but some kind of organised protest would probably get many of the foreigners released.