On this day, 11 August 1964, 18-year-old Scottish anarchist Stuart Christie was arrested in Madrid while carrying explosives to blow up Spain’s right-wing dictator general Francisco Franco.
Christie was working with the underground anarchist resistance to the regime, which began after Franco's victory in the Spanish civil war in 1939. However, unbeknownst to Christie at the time, the resistance group had been infiltrated and its plan betrayed.
When Christie went to an American Express office in Madrid, he noticed a member of staff alerting undercover police, and promptly left.
He later recounted to the Guardian newspaper: "I felt curiously detached as I took a deep breath and walked out of the office, trying to keep my face expressionless. Mustering all the confidence I could, I paused at the doorway to look at the group of five men now standing to one side of the entrance. Until I appeared at the doorway they had been deep in conversation. They stopped briefly, exchanging knowing looks with one another, and carried on. An empty taxi pulled in to the pavement beside me. But when the driver appeared to invite me to get in, I knew it was an undercover police car. I was being hemmed in. By this time I had reached the corner of the busy calle Cedaceros. As I steeled myself to make a dash through the crowds I was suddenly grabbed by both arms from behind, my face pushed to the wall and a gun barrel thrust into the small of my back. I tried to turn my head but I was handcuffed before I fully realised what had happened. It was all over in a matter of moments."
When arrested Christie was wearing a kilt, which confused the Argentinian press into describing him as "a Scottish transvestite." He was sentenced to 20 years in prison but after an international campaign in his support he was released in 1968.
Christie remained active supporting and helping record the history of the Spanish resistance movement until the end of his life in August 2020.
Learn more about the civil war in our podcast episodes 39-40: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e39-the-spanish-civil-war-an-introduction/
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