Biography

• Born on 23rd July 1886 in La Coruna (north–west Spain)
• Studied Engineering in Paris.
• From 1911 he worked as an Engineer with the Northern Spanish Railway Company and afterwards from 1916 as a columnist for the Times in London. He abandoned this profession and worked in the Press Office at the Secretariat of the League of Nations in Geneva (1921), where he became Head of the Disarmament Section from 1922 to 1928. In 1928 he became Professor for Spanish literature at Oxford.
• In 1931—after the proclamation of the Spanish Republic—he returned to Spain and was for a short time a Member of the National Assembly; in 1931 the Spanish Republic appointed him as Ambassador in Washington and Paris (1932–1934); during this time and until 1936 he was Spain’s Chief Delegate to the League of Nations.
• After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936) he returned to Oxford, where for 40 years he lectured and also followed a career as a writer and publisher; during the Franco era he fought against this regime whilst in exile. After World War II he lived in Switzerland as an author (published numerous books and amongst others leading articles in the Züricher Zeitung); his life’s work made him into an institution of the European idea.
• Died on 14th December 1978.