The President in Europe : Thousands Demonstrate in Madrid

Several thousand Spanish leftists, protesting the visit of President Reagan, crowded across a main boulevard of Madrid during rush hour Tuesday evening, burning American flags and snarling downtown traffic for more than two hours.

The protest, only a few blocks from the residence of U.S. Ambassador Thomas O. Enders on the fashionable Paseo de la Castellana, was finally broken up when riot police with shields and truncheons rushed into the crowd.

The demonstration was the most dramatic of several that have marred the visit since the President’s arrival Monday. However, it was much smaller than the marches of an estimated 75,000 protesters in Madrid and several hundred thousand in other Spanish cities on the eve of his arrival.

‘Very, Very Friendly’

Despite these protests, Secretary of State George P. Shultz told reporters that President Reagan has received “a very, very friendly” public reception in Madrid.

“There . . . has been quite a demonstration of extreme friendliness as the President’s motorcade has gone around through the streets of Madrid and through the road that leads out to where he’s staying--large crowds, very friendly, smiling and waving . . . American flags. . . .

“Now quite a number of Spaniards, when I have asked about that,” Shultz went on, “have said that is expressing our feelings and, as a matter of fact, the demonstrations, they feel, were organized by what they describe as a small minority and they’re quite embarrassed about them.”

Just two hours after Shultz spoke, the demonstrators assembled at a modern sculpture garden alongside the Paseo de la Castellana and began to block traffic. Judging by their banners, the crowd, probably larger than 5,000, belonged to the Spanish Communist Party and other parties even further to the left.

They hung a huge banner, calling Reagan a murderer, from an overpass that crosses the boulevard over the sculpture garden.

The protesters chanted, “NATO no, bases out!” and burned at least two American flags in front of television cameramen. Sometimes, they shifted their attack to Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, chanting, “Felipe, you idiot, we don’t want NATO!”

Referendum Planned

Gonzalez, a Socialist who now wants Spain to remain in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after earlier campaigning against it, has promised to hold a referendum on the issue next year. Polls indicate that most Spaniards would vote to leave NATO if a referendum were held now.

The National Police, a reformed force that is descended from the brutal Armed Police of the late dictator Francisco Franco, seemed to use a good deal of restraint Tuesday in dealing with the protesters.

During the Franco era and for several years after his death in 1975, the Armed Police would move swiftly against even the smallest concentration of illegal demonstrators, smashing heads, shooting rubber bullets indiscriminately and firing tear gas canisters into nearby bars and apartment house hallways to flush out leftists.

In the anti-Reagan demonstration, the National Police at first seemed content to stand in the way of the demonstrators to make sure that they stayed away from the U.S. ambassador’s residence. They even spent a good deal of time redirecting traffic.

Then they tried clearing the crowd by swinging truncheons and firing a few canisters of tear gas. For a few minutes, the crowd, comprising mostly youths, rushed away but then re-formed when they realized that the police would not use any more force.

The police then stood aside, smiling and smoking cigarettes while motorists honked their horns in frustration. Finally, after the protest had lasted two hours, trucks came with reinforcements and the police, carrying shields and swinging truncheons, rushed into the crowd, dissolving it quickly. The traffic then started to move again.