Born in
Bilbao on 9 December 1907. He read
Law and held a
Doctorate from the
University of Madrid. He also undertook postdoctoral specialisation at the
Universities of Paris,
Cambridge and
Geneva and at
The Hague Academy of International Law. He was appointed
Catedrático of
Public International Law at the University of Madrid in 1935. A
Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right activist during the
Second Republic, he often wrote in
El Debate about international issues and was vice-president of the Catholic Students' Confederation. When the
Civil War started he fled from Madrid to the Nationalist zone, joining the Nationalist Army as official of the
General Staff. During the
Second World War he joined the
Blue Division, a unit of Spanish volunteers that served in the
Wehrmacht on the
Eastern Front. With
José María de Areilza, and wrote
Reivindicaciones de España (Madrid:
Instituto de Estudios Políticos, 1941), that drafted an expansionist programme over
French African colonies. The book was written at the height of the
Third Reich's power and Franco had considered entering war on Hitler's side. He promoted the establishment of the Faculty of Political Science and Economics of the University of Madrid and he was the first
dean. He was appointed
ambassador to
Peru (1948-1951) and to the
Holy See (1951-1957), where he negotiated the
Concordat of 1953. Franco appointed him minister of Foreign Affairs on February 25, 1957. He set out to improve the relationship with the
Western world. He tried with no success to become member of
NATO and associate member of the
European Common Market. He also tried to improve the terms of the defence and cooperation appointments with the
United States but also with little success. He succeed, nevertheless, to be one of the co-founder countries of the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (1961). Politically moderate aperturist, in 1961, he wrote a draft bill of
religious freedom, although it was not passed until 1967. He tried vehemently to see the return of
Gibraltar to Spanish
sovereignty claiming the case was eligible for a
decolonization process. He had for some decades ago written a book on Gibraltar on a such issue, but was nonetheless unsuccessful in his endeavours. After his tenure as minister, he taught Private International Law to Ph.D. students at the
Complutense University in Madrid. He died in
Madrid on 25 November 1976. ==Works ==