Author Claims Western Press Distorted Facts of Bombing

Governments of the Western democracies helped promulgate a fraudulent account of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, Herbert Southworth, a noted writer on Spanish affairs, said yesterday at an informal meeting of the Nieman fellows.

Southworth, who will soon publish a book on newspaper coverage of the bombing, told an audience of about 20 at the Faculty Club that the governments of France and England made no attempt to contradict reports that the Republican forces in Spain had burned down their own city--reports the governments knew to be false.

The fire-bombing of Guernica in April 1937, which razed the entire city, became a symbol of fascist aggression, Southworth said. He said the German air force bombed Guernica for eight hours, and their fighter planes machine-gunned fleeing civilians.

Appeasing a Madman

Southworth said the English and French governments supported the false version to appease Hitler, who was supplying the Spanish fascists with military aid.

The fascists denied responsibility for destroying the city, and the Spanish government still maintains that the Republicans set fire to Guernica themselves to turn world opinion against the fascists, Southworth added.

Southworth worked for the Republican government's information office during the war, and has since published an authoritative book--"The Myth of the Franco Crusade"--on the Franco government's official version of that country's civil war.