[1] Carmen's early life, like much of the pre-civil war aristocracy, was a round of parties and vacations moving between the capital, their country estates and fashionable European resorts.

[7] Before they divorced, they were the parents of: On 24 February 1948 she married John McKee-Norton, a Canadian expatriate living in England whom she met in the bar of the Hôtel Ritz Paris.

In his memoirs John McKee-Norton states: I was interested, confused and intrigued, at this little Spanish woman, with the dark flashing eyes, and beautiful bony hands, with long red finger nails, like rubies.

Ambassador in Paris,[8] and states that: Carmen de Gurtubay was a very high placed Allied intelligence agent who risked her life both in Portugal and Spain during the war years.

[9] In his book, Franco and the Axis Stigma, David Wingeate Pike refers to Carmen's investigation into the number of Germans in Spain in 1946, which she estimated at between 100,000 and 500,000 including 6,000 scientists and technicians.