To have and have not: Spain 1975-1982

1. Prologue: December 20, 1973.

Around 08:30 am the president of the government, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, leaves his home in a black Dodge 3700 GT to go to mass.

After mass he leaves the church at 09:25 and goes back to his house in his car. Ten minutes later the Dodge 3700 GT turns the corner of Juan Bravo street with Claudio Coello street followed by another Dodge 3700 GT with the bodyguards of the Admiral.

The driver, José Luis Pérez Mógena, notices a small car, an Austin Morris 1300, which is doubled-parked, forcing him to slow down. A few seconds after Carrero's Dodge leaves the car behind and when the following Dodge 3700 GT is slowing down to avoid the Austin Morris, it vanishes in a thundering light.

The street tembles while a sudden rain of stones, and bits of a car began to fall. The personal bodyguard of the Admiral, Juan Bueno Fernández, shouts to Pérez Módena to press the gas and the Dodge leaves Claudio Coello street with a mighty roar of its engine.

Well, shit.

I applaud this recent trend.

Ok, so Carrero Blanco isn't shot into orbit by the blast, missing an ocasion to become Spain First Astronaut ?
Waiting to see where this go. Carrero Blanco was Franco heir at the time.

I'll be watching where you're going with this classic Pod in the Spanish counterfactual history.

Quick, to Wikipedia to find out about this man!

...Oh dear.

All the best! I can't wait for the excrement to hit the ventilator.

I guess General Franco is not quite dead! (to paraphrase Chevy Chase on SNL)

Well, well, the granddaddy of Spanish PODs. Let's see how you run with it.

Cool, another panish TL. Also, cool, grim scenario.

Looking forward to this.

Dr. Strangelove said:

Well, shit.

I applaud this recent trend.

Click to expand...

No need to panic!

Yet...

Archibald said:

Ok, so Carrero Blanco isn't shot into orbit by the blast, missing an ocasion to become Spain First Astronaut ?
Waiting to see where this go. Carrero Blanco was Franco heir at the time.

Click to expand...

Yes, he missed it, narrowly, i must add...

You'll see...

Tom Colton said:

Quick, to Wikipedia to find out about this man!

...Oh dear.

All the best! I can't wait for the excrement to hit the ventilator.

Click to expand...

No need for waiting!

arrowiv said:

I guess General Franco is not quite dead! (to paraphrase Chevy Chase on SNL)

Click to expand...

In the next update he'll be absolutely dead... and he will remain so.

Xenophonte said:

I'll be watching where you're going with this classic Pod in the Spanish counterfactual history.

Click to expand...

Thank you!

Dan1988 said:

Well, well, the granddaddy of Spanish PODs. Let's see how you run with it.

Click to expand...

With care, just in case...

Nanwe said:

Cool, another panish TL. Also, cool, grim scenario.

Looking forward to this.

Click to expand...

Not so grim... it could be worse...

2. When you look into an abyss... :

Spain, November 21st, 1975

One of the many recurret jokes that plagued the life of many Spaniards after November 20th, 1975, is that Franco was alive. He was not dead, the joke went. He was trying to beat the Guiness record of holding one's breath.

This joke was, somehow, representative of the mood of Spain in the last days of November 1975 (and perhaps even longer). The event that so many people had waited eagerly and so many people had, first, considered it impossible to happen, and, then, feared its arrival, had finally taken place.

The impossible was possible, very possible, indeed: The Generalisimo was no more.

However, some people didn't seem to notice it.

While it was taking place the gathering of the Consejo de Regencia (Regency Council), made up by the president of the Council of the Realm, don Alejandro Rodríguez de Valcárcel, thre archbishop of Zaragoza, monseñor Cantero and lieutenant-general Salas Larrazábal, and a tearful president Carrero Blanco annouced the event to the country with the now famous words:

-Españoles... Franco... ha muerto (1).

... no one in Spain knew for sure what was going to happen.

Apparently, bussiness went as usual.

As Franco had stated in 1969, when he designated Prince Juan Carlos de Borbón as his heir-apparent, the prince (now the king), after taking the regal name of Juan Carlos I, swore fidelity to the Principles of the Movimiento Nacional, the sole legal party of the Franco era; took possession of the crown before the Francoist Cortes Generales; and promised to respecte the Leyes Fundamentales del Reino (Fundamental Laws of the Realm) for the appointment of his first head of government. Only in his speech before the Cortes did he indicate his support for a transformation of the Spanish political system.

However, this transformation was going to take a while to happen as many obstacles laid in the way.

Spain was not in a pleasant situation:. The opposition to Franco's regime grew stronger and more active. The international economic crisis had its worse effects over spanish economy in the late 70s, the unemployement and inflation were skyrocketing and Spain became the european country with the largest number of strikes and social conflicts while several terrorist bands began to act.

Not even the regime itself was at peace. The old feuds between the different factions that made up the regime resurfaced as Franco's health began to decline. And to this turmoil there was the duel between the reformistas (the reformers) and the inmovilistas (those in favour to keep the regime as it was, without moving an inch from its origins).

And in the center of this turmoil was Luis Carrero Blanco.

(1) "Spaniards... Franco... is dead"

Really good. But one small detail. It's not the Ley Orgánica del Estado to which he swore fealty, but rather to the Leyes Fundamentales, the 5 or so laws that determined the structure of the Francoist state, its Constitution so to say.

D'Oh!

My mistake.

Kurt_Steiner said:

D'Oh!

My mistake.

Click to expand...

No problem By the way, since Valcárcel had cancer was going to be replaced at some point. Who will be appointed TTL? Torcuato Fernández-Miranda will remain Deputy Prime Minister, so it can't be him I guess

I think Admiral Blanco will become a major pain in the butt for Juan Carlos and the democratic transition. And of course there was the 23 February 1981 aborted coup. Wonder what Blanco will do during that coup. If the plotters use him as a major figure, perhaps the coup wouldn't abort, and then Spain would be in major trouble ?

Archibald said:

I think Admiral Blanco will become a major pain in the butt for Juan Carlos and the democratic transition. And of course there was the 23 February 1981 aborted coup. Wonder what Blanco will do during that coup. If the plotters use him as a major figure, perhaps the coup wouldn't abort, and then Spain would be in major trouble ?

Click to expand...

I think 'the democratic transition' is off the table now. Certainly, an event 6 years in the future is butterflied too.

Juan Carlos I

Regarding to the Spanish Monarch, despite his role in the transition and today we know of his reformist intentions ... at the time it was not at all clear and was mostly unknown to his contemporaries, for whom it was perceived as the guarantor of the continuity of the regime.

At the same time despite their legal position as head of state and commander in chief of the Spanish armed forces, its real power and influence are under construction at best the cases.

Perhaps in this TimeLine, the Monarch becomes worthy of the nickname given to him by his detractors of Juan Carlos I 'short', in reference to the probable length of his future reign !! Besides depending on how events evolve, it can probably be affected by butterflies resignation of his father, the Count of Barcelona, to its historical dynastic rights and the headquarters of the Royal Family in the person of Juan Carlos, (of course in this OTL happened on May 14 1977 once it was realized and accepted his inability personally access the Spanish throne).

Finally remember that the conflicting factions, which for convenience we call Reformists and Continuist were neither monolithic nor homogeneous in political positions of their constituents and that the so-called reformists who could only be well defined by its opposition to maintain unchanged
the sociopolitical status quo Spanish, diverging in the extent and radicality of the change in urgency, as well as in their midst. Along with these features visible political leaders that included new generations of technocrats and bureaucrats made up and the regime of course.

@Nanwe: You'll know about that in the very next update

@Archibald: Well, Carrero was, after all, one who helped to put Juan Carlos on the throne and, even if it is true that, before seeing Spain to hell, he prefered a coup d'etat, I think that he would had stood by the king, unless something very weird happened to take place.

@Meadow; Perhaps is not so off, but the butterflies are, of course, on the loose.

@Xenophonte: Indeed, as the same Juan Carlos said about that, he was the king just because Franco had put him there and because the same system he wanted to replace was giving him the tools.

You rise several interesting points (I agree with many of them). About which ones and how everything goes on... we shall see...

2. Sparks fly: a cabinet reshuffle

One of the first "test" of the relation between the King and his president came in relation with the Council of the Realm, as there was a vacant post. Alejandro Rodríguez de Valcárcel, who was the president of the Council, died on November 22, 1975, and several names were proposed to replace him, among them Torcuato Fernández-Miranda. He had been entrusted with the political education of Prince Juan Carlos by Franco himself and had the trust of the King.

He had been named speaker of the Cortes (the legislature) and now the King was suggesting him to be also the president of the Council,too. Futhermore, he had been Carrero Blanco's principal deputy prime minister and one of the top candidates to succeed Carrero. Thus the Admiral, a loyal servant of the King, proposed the name to the Council of the Realmt that, on his meeting of December 1st, gave its approval to Carrero's proposal.

At the same time, the first dissapointment came at this very juncture of time. Since the failed murder attempt by ETA, Carrero had been waiting for the chance to replace Carlos Arias Navarro, the interior minister, for his less than illustrious role in the mentioned affair. However, even if now looked as the right moment, there was a difference between the King and his president, as Juan Carlos suggested the name of Manuel Fraga, then ambassador in London, but Carrero couldn't stand him and was more than happy to have him far away.

The King prefered to have Fraga close and at hand, that angered and away, but, in the end, Carrero got the upper hand and Arias Navarro was replaced by José García Hernández, a budget expert and former civil governor of various provinces, including Lugo and Las Palmas. In exchange, the king could push some of "his" men into the new cabinet: José María de Areilza and Antonio Garrigues Díaz-Cabañete, and some "minor" figures, as Adolfo Suarez and Rodolfo Martín-Villa, even if he couldn't have Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado as one of the vice-presidents of the new cabinet.

"Never mind", thought the King. "Time is on my side".

However, another, and stronger, disagreement rose between Juan Carlos I and Carrero Blanco: the question of the political parties. It took place at an unformal meeting when, just at "random", Fernandez Miranda mentioned the question. It is not possible for us to know if Carrero Blanco reminded at once a meeting that took place on November 1973 when Fernández Miranda also suggested the topic, but his reaction now was quite similar to the one he had two years ago.

Even if Fernández Mirada was quite "tactful" about the issue and refered just to "political participation" and did not say a word about political parties, Carrero jumped at once. Even if he agreed that something had to be done (his words were "Tal como estamos no podemos seguir" -1-), he was not as concerned about that there were not real political parties but to the fact that Movimiento Nacional (2) meant little to many Spaniards. Thus, he began to play for time and to drag out the while issue as much as he could.

Of course, the King thought otherwise.

(1) "We cannot go on in the present way".
(2) The Movimiento Nacional was a mixture of a single-party state (Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista ),
the trade union organization, called Sindicato Vertical and the civil service, so to speak. A wonderful mess in the Francoist way of doing things, if you ask me.

Here it comes! Go JC!