His father Jay Cooke Allen (1868–1948)[1] was born in Kentucky but he settled in Seattle and practiced as an attorney;[2] his mother Jeanne Maud Lynch (1876–1901)[3] was a first generation Irish-American.

The religion-motivated legal battle for custody over Jay ensued between Jeanne's Catholic relatives and the Methodist father, who eventually emerged victorious.

[12] Following the news of the July Coup Allen immediately left Torremolinos and fled to Gibraltar; en route his car was mistakenly fired at – according to his own account – by "very nervous squad of Republican soldiers", who killed the driver.

As American press correspondent he gained access to the entourage of Francisco Franco and managed to secure[15] what is often erroneously[16] referred to as the first interview with the general after the coup.

Allen presented Franco in rather unsympathetic though prophetic terms as an excessively self-confident "midget who would be a dictator",[18] the person consumed by anti-Masonic and anti-Marxist obsession.

Other episodes, reportedly either witnessed by or referred to Allen, included executions of children, random killings on the streets and the organized action of burning the corpses.

Thanks to his friendship with Rodolfo Lópis, at the time sub-secretary in the newly formed Largo Caballero government, he managed to secure interview with José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the Falange leader imprisoned since March and held in the Alicante prison.

[28] According to the publication, José Antonio expressed dismay that traditional interests of the Spanish establishment were taking precedence over Falange's aims of sweeping social change, though some scholars speculate that the prisoner exaggerated to curry favors with his jailers.

[12] Allen was last seen in Spain in May 1937, when in Bilbao[31] he interviewed a shot down German pilot, who earlier had taken part in the bombing raid over Guernica.

Eventually Allen was sacked and replaced with the onetime Tribune correspondent, George Seldes, who managed the short-lived magazine during the next few months to come.

[33] In 1938–1940 Allen resided in New York and was engaged in correspondence related to Spain, e.g. he propagated rumors that at the front the POUM militiamen played football with the Nationalists.

The meeting was cancelled at short notice; eventually Negrin met Eleanor Rosevelt and Allen managed to forge a friendly relation with her.

[36] He also toyed with an idea of writing a history of the Spanish Civil War; he worked with Herbert Southworth and Barbara Tuchman compiling data.

[5] Some time in 1940 Allen became engaged with Emergency Rescue Committee, an American NGO set up to assist endangered individuals trapped in the Vichy France.

[5] Eventually following 4 months behind bars he was exchanged for a German correspondent arrested in New York[42] and in August 1941 Allen was back in the United States.

[5] The suggestion advanced is that since FBI and Hoover personally considered Allen a Communist supporter[45] – the charge he denied[5] – he might have been subject to some harassment.

[47] Allen followed scientific debate on recent history of Spain and at times attended related seminars, e.g. the one of 1964, organized in Stanford by the Hispanic America Society.

[54] However, Allen was somewhat skeptical about Hugh Thomas, who reportedly refused to take sides and was "terribly fuzzy about a lot of things";[55] he remained also cautious about Burnett Bolloten.

[57] Some authors present Allen as a rare case of professional, impartial press journalist active during the Spanish war, as “dispassionate correspondents were nearly impossible to find”; the Badajoz article is listed as example of his craft.

They made enormous impact, also globally, and until today they serve as key first-hand sources when discussing personality of Franco (shooting half Spain if necessary)[60] or Nationalist atrocities (bull-ring blood orgy and 4,000 killed in Badajoz).

[68] He appears as dictatorial, bossy and arrogant man, bullying and disdainful towards Americans who were supposed to be his subordinates; some scenes portray a hysterical person losing control and indulging in outbursts of fury.

The operations he planned are depicted as amateurish and endangering rather than helping people; his own capture and the collapse of his Oran scheme are referred as “too perfect an end for a boasting, blustering fool not to give observers the moral satisfaction of seeing someone reap his just rewards”.

It was “too volatile” Fry, not Allen, who remained obsessed with his own status and desperately tried to cling to his position against clear orders from the ERC board back in New York.

[5] Moreover, Fry is pictured as a narrow-minded manager, who when executing rescue missions focused merely on people of his own class, artists and intellectuals, while Allen had a broader view and was keen to help all anti-Fascists.

[5] Allen's intention to run the Marseilles mission by proxy does not result from his incompetence, cowardice or laziness, but is a mark of his professional caution and far-sightedness.

The ERC success of getting thousands of refugees to safety – including Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Heinrich Mann, Hannah Arendt and many others – is credited to Allen as his work.