Known for his views related to Catholic fundamentalism,[1][2] he joined the Falange during the course of the Civil War, embarking on a rapid rise in his political career.

During the dictatorship, he played an important role in censorship, holding the positions of Vice-Secretary of Popular Education and, later, Minister of Information and Tourism.

In August 1938, he was appointed director of the Falangist weekly Libertad de Valladolid, which under his direction began to be published on a daily basis.

[a] Among some of its measures was the founding of the Official School of Journalism[14] – whose inauguration in 1942 was attended by Arias-Salgado and Juan Aparicio,[15] and the creation of the NO-DO – acronym for "News and Documentaries" – on 26 September 1942.

[25] Coinciding with the end of World War II and the defeat of the fascist powers, Arias-Salgado and other pro-Nazis were losing weight within the Franco dictatorship.

[29] Considered the main theoretician and architect of Franco's censorship,[30] he was placed in charge of the recently created Ministry of Information and Tourism,[31] a position he held from July 1951 to 1962.

At the instigation of Arias-Salgado himself, during the month of June of that year, the official press of the regime launched a harsh campaign against the Spanish participants in the IV Congress of the European Movement, presenting a distorted imageof the meeting and coming to refer pejoratively as the "Munich Conspiracy".