141. Second Esplà Ministry (1963-1967) -2-
  • 1280px-F-104G_Starfighter_%28Museo_del_Aire_de_Madrid%29_%286%29.jpg

    A Lockheed F-104G Starfighter of the Spanish Air Force, where it was called C-8.
    The Ala (Wing) 12 was the first unit to be equipped the C-8. All in all, Spain bought 18 F-104G and 3 TF-104G
    which remained in service until 1972, when they were replaced by 36 F-4C Phantom II.

    141. Second Esplà Ministry (1963-1967) -2-

    The death of King Federico I (February 6, 1965) and the smooth succession of his elder son to the throne as Federico II of Spain, the last monarch of the country, would have gone unnoticed but for the coverage of the press. Federico, who had reigned for almost 40 years (since March 14, 1925), had been the almost invisible head of the state and had remained outside from the public eye but for the most important official ceremonies, like the opening of the Cortes. However, his son was not to be so measured and cautious. However, nothing of that was obvious in 1965 and the rise of the new king to the throne was widely celebrated all over the country.

    It was around this time when Esplà opened his new international policy by visiting the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia and the United States, which led the Spanish Prime Minister to state in the press the full support of his government to London and Washington in their fights for freedom, both in Africa and Asia, which signalled a new stage in the Spanish international policies. from 1965 onwards. Esplà was also to increase his efforts to create legal equality for women and to bring official bilingualism in the Basque Country and Catalonia into being. In 1967, just before the General Elections, both Basque and Catalan were made official language in their respective areas, and the Spanish government provided services in both Spanish and Basque/Catalan, something that raised a great controversy in the right wing of the conservative party.

    In addition to this, Esplà made another effort to bring back to life the Mancomunidad Hispana. This time, he included in his proposal a single currency to all the members of the Union, a measure that was not too liked by the Latin-American presidents which were invited to discuss the topic in Madrid during the Spring of 1966. Eventually, only the Argentinian and Chilean prime ministers, Arturo U. Illia and Eduardo Frei Montalva, supported Esplà. Over the course of a meeting celebrated at Buenos Aires (1967), the three governments agreed to fix their exchange rates during ten years before launching the new common currency. However, the establishment of a single currency caused a political storm in Spain as it was against the Spanish economic orthodoxy, which stressed the importance of national control over monetary supply; thus, the common currency was inmediately and bitterly opposed by the conservative Democratic Party (PDE).

    Sensing some disconfort about this issue in the Spanish society and fuelling with claims that the Liberal Party was giving too much privileges to the local Catalan and Basque governments, Martínez's PDE, hoping to capitalize the social unrest in the incomming elctions of 1967, pressed the government and accused Esplà of surrendering the intertnational independence of Spain, as it would be tied by her compromisese in the Mancomunidad Hispana. It was then when the Catalan and Basque leaders (Tarradellas and Ajuriaguerra) annouced the creation of the Alianza Democrática (AD - Democratic Alliance), a federation of the Nationalist Catalan, Basque and Gallician parties: ERC, PNV and BNG, which would join forces and take part together in the next General Elections.
     
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    142 . The General Elections of 1967
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    142 . The General Elections of 1967

    The Spaniards voted for a change in 1967 and, ten years later, Sánchez Albornoz was back into power. The elections were marked by the devastating defeat of the Liberal Party and the rise of the PDE, which had to inmediate effects: the resignation of Esplà. The search for a suitable candidate to replace him would open a deep crisis in the party, as we shall see. The elections also proved to be a disaster for the PSOE. Llopis finally resigned in the Congress of Toulouse (August 1967), being replaced by Nicolás Redondo, marking thus the turn of the PSOE toward a strict marxist position, which brought the party closer to Rome but causing some inner criticism from the reformist faction led by Felipe González.

    Meanwhile, the PDE and his leader, Alfredo Martínez, emerged from the elections reinforced after their outstanding perfomance, even if the Socialdemocratic majority meant that their parlamentary group would meant little in the votations in the Cortes. However, the good results of the Basque/Gallician/Catalan coallition (Alianza Democrática -AD- / Democratic Alliance) were to make Martínez to charge against the "separatist" danger, muddling the parliamentarian watters of the time.

    The AD, on its part, played, with great success, with their populism mixed with a moderate nationalism and social conservative slogans, proving to be very strong in Catalonia and the Basque Country. Amazingly, in spite of the best efforts of Esplá to expand the autonomous governments of the two regions, Taradellas, the leader of the coallition, based the nationalist campaign in denouncing the government indifference towards the Basque, Galician and Catalan citizens, reaping a great sucess in the elections with the 3 MP, one more than the two that ERC and PNV had together.

    Ironically, the elections of 1967, which broke havoc over the Liberal and Socialist parties, were also to prove a turning point the history of the USD even if, for the best part of the following decade, no one noticed how the party began to change from within into a more conservative formation, as we shall see, too.

    Party
    Seats
    %+/-
    Unión Socialdemócrata (USD) (Sánchez Albornoz)155/26545.37+48
    Partido Liberal (Esplá)72/26531.43-59
    Partido Demócrata Español (Martínez)35/26521.38+14
    Alianza Democrática (AD) (Tarradellas)3/2651.30+3
    Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) (Llopis)1/2650.42-4
     
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    143 . The Second Sánchez Albornoz Ministry (1967-1971)
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    1969 Spanish Grand Prix in Montjuich

    143 . The Second Sánchez Albornoz Ministry (1967-1971)

    One of the advantages of Sánchez Albornoz as prime minister of Spain was his popularity. His record, based on his first time as primer minister (1957-1962) and his previous time as university teacher in Madrid, made him a popular figure in Spain. When he defended in the Parliament the universal health care and regional development programmes, he was hailed in the progressive press as the "saviour of Spain". However, he was hardly liked in Catalonia and even less in the Basque Country. During his first tenujre, his cabinet carried out a deep reform of the Cortes. Its proceedings were updated and the whole body was made more efficient. Furthermore, he trimmed the Prime Minister's office and reduced too the civil service while substantially expanding the social-welfare programs beyond the boundaries set by the Liberals.

    His efforts to win the sympathies of the Catalans, however, failed in spite of his best efforts, something that blinded him to the Basque and Galician demands for too long. Thus, even if Sánchez Albornoz doubled the powers of the Catalan government and implemented the Catalan and Spanish as the co-equal official languages of the local government, the Catalan public opinion remained quite critical about him, even more when the government was flooded by Basque complaints that they were being ignored by them. Even worse, the conservative part and some sections of Spanish society were worried about those changes, specially when radical newspapers claimed that spanish speakers were in disadvantage in Catalonia after the reforms. This piece of propaganda, that was easily proved to be a lie, was to firmly believed by the Spanish nationalists, as strongly as the Catalan nationalists were sure that "Espanya ens roba" (1).

    Thus, when Sánchez Albornoz claimed that Spain was a "multicultural state" in 1969, he came under fire from both the Spanish nationalists, who claimed that the prime minister was slowly destroying the Spanish identity and soverignty, and from the Catalan and Basque politicians, who believed that both Catalonia were nations within the Spanish country. This would eventually explode in the June Crisis of 1970, when a Basque Marxist group, a group called Euskal Herritarrok (EH - Basque Citiziens) began a non-violent civil rights campaign in Bilbao. On June 24, the civil rights movement held its first civil rights march on the streets of Bilbao, and many more marches were held over the following months in several Basque cities. Unionist groups attacked some of the marches and held counter-demonstrations. The lack of police reaction to those attacks badly hurt the government and the Basque nationalists accused the police as backing the unionists and allowing the attacks to occur. On October 1970 the Spanish police beat the civil rights marchers in San Sebastian without provocation, and more than 60 people were injured. The international standing of Spain suffered a hard hit when the incident was filmed by television news crews and shown around the world and further angered the Basque nationalists. Soon Barcelona was flooded by marches organized by the Catalan parties in support of their "Basque brethern".

    Sanchez Albornoz reacted by offering some concessions, but these were seen as too little by the Basque nationalists and too much by the Unionists, and the marches went on. On 1 January 1971, a march from Bilbao to Vitoria was repeatedly harassed and attacked by unionists, further damaging the government. The marchers claimed that police did nothing to protect them and that some officers helped the attackers. When the next weeks the houses of several nationalist politicians were attacked, the Basque nationalists retaliated. Soon the streets of several Basque cities were blocked with barricades to keep the police out. In the end, Sánchez Albornoz met with local leaders in a conference in San Sebastian, offering them the same political arrangement given to Catalonia (a charter of rights and bilingualism). While the moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) accepted the agreement, EH rejected it.

    In foreign affairs, the prime minister kept Spain firmly close to Great Britain but less to the United Statess, even if from 1970 onwards he pursued an independent path in international relations to alleviate the national pressure caused by the Basque crisis. He would establish Catalan diplomatic relations with Italy and with Filde Casttro, the leader of the Communist Cuba, even before London did. Thus. with the economy healthy and her government continuing to be popular in spite of the Basque troubles, Spain went to elections in 1971,

    (1) Spain steals from us.
     
    144 . The Elections of 1971.

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    144 . The General Elections of 1971.

    Even if the USD entered the election high in the polls, it soon lost steam and the popularity of Sánchez Albornoz worn off due to the troubles in Catalonia and the Basque Country, plus the shaky economy. The Liberals, with their new leader, Fernando Casado, the former major of Madrid, focused on the shortcommings and failures of their rivals and soon began to rise in the polls. On his part, Martínez and the PDE campaigned on the slogan "Spain is Strong", but they only managed to end second in Valencia, Aragón and Extremadura in the polls; soon Martínez came under fire because he was unable to develop any topic outside his nationalistic speeches. Then the party was hit hard when fifteen of their representatives in the Cortes left the party and went to the so-called "Grupo Mixto" (1). This move, led by Jesús Barros de Lis, was an open protest against the bombastic campaigning of the PDE, seemed to further damage the party, which, in spite of this, from this moment onwards, would improve gradually its results in the polls. Eventnually, none of the former members of the PDE would keep their seats in the parliament. Their own protest crushed them them.

    Meanwhile, the Liberal Party seemed to recover from its internal crisis with his new leader. However, it was just a temporary peace. The popularity of Casado as former major of the main Spanish city seemed to unite the party behind him and to close ranks. However, had the party failed in this elections, there is no doubt that it would broke into pieces in the following "Night of the Long Knives" between the different factions of the group.

    The results of the elections left a minority government led by the Social Democrats, who were unwilling to pact a coalition with any other party, but only to have temporary agreements upon several topics, without allowing themselves to be cajoled into accepting the demands of their rivals. The Liberals managed to recover some of the lost ground and Casado became determined to keep offering in the Cortes an image of moderation and patriotism above partidisms, in a sharp contrast with the PDE, which seemed to have being grown stronger from their internal split.

    The elections of 1971 would be the last one for Sánchez Albornoz, even if the prime minister was not aware of this yet.

    Party
    Seats
    %+/-
    Unión Socialdemócrata (USD) (Sánchez Albornoz)109/26538.42-38
    Partido Liberal (Casado)97/26535.02+24
    Partido Demócrata Español (Martínez)31/26517.83+10
    Alianza Democrática (AD) (Tarradellas)7/2658.30+4
    Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) (Llopis)1/2651.42=


    (1) Mixed Parlamentarian Group - it's a part of the Spanish parliament which includes those parties that had not enough representation to have a group of its own.
     
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    145. The Third Sánchez Albornoz Ministry (1971-1974)
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    The Spanish Prime Minister in Madrid.

    145. The Third Sánchez Albornoz Ministry (1971-1974)

    The third and last premiership of Sánchez Albornoz was marked by its unstability, as the prime minister was unwilling to rely on the Liberals if that meant moving away from his political agenda. Initially, he had little trouble with his bilingual policy in Catalonia and the Basque Country, in spite of the attacks suffered from the PDE. Thus, by March 1972, he made public his plan to reform the federal system with a new charter of rights which included bilingualism in those two provinces and he began to negotiatiate wiwth the president of all the local governments. The beginnings of the talks were promising, but when Tarradellas demanded to include in the charter a guarantee of a veto of constitutional amendments, the dialogue came to a sudden halt. It was made even worse when Taradellas repeated his request in La Gaceta, a national newspaper, and his position was endorsed by the Galician, Navarrese and Basque governments. Eventually, all sides reached an agreement (October 1972) after long and delicate negotiations, which evolved into the Ley de Reforma Federal de 1972 (1972 Federal Reform Bill); however, parts of the bill were declared unconstituional by the Supreme Court (March 1973) and the Bill became dead in the water.

    The collateral dam,age of the bill, however, wcame not form the courts, but from the streets. The popular blacklash caused by the initial refusal of Sánchez Albornoz to negotiate with Tarradellas was used by the Catalan leaders to press the Spanish government with several demonstrations taking place in the main Catalan cities from late April 1972 onwards. The demostrations were to spread to the Basque Country in May. By then Alfredo Martínez and the PDE were using Taradellas' words to claim that the Spanish government was surrendering to the demands of Catalan and Basque nationalism which endangered the Spanish nation. As they could neither block the Bill in the Cortes nor win the support of any disgruntled Socialdemocrat or Liberal parlamentarian, they called the "people" to show their anger to the "betrayal" of Albornoz. What came next surprised both Martinez, Tarradellas Ajuriaguerra and Sánchez Albornoz.

    First in Barcelona and then in Bilbao, "spontaneous" loyalist counter-demonstration began to take place. in April in the first city, in May in the second. The were led a chore of members of the PDE which were former soldiers. Initially, the demonstrators of both sides did not meet and their marches ended pacefully, but in early June, several offices of the AD party in Catalonia and the Basque Country were attacked with petrol bombs. Then, a loyalist group, calling themselves the Acción Nacional Española (ANE - Spanish National Action), claimed the autorships of this attacks and declared themselves at war with the "separatists that plan to ruin Spain" and anyone helping them, which seemed to include the Spanish government, too, even from then on the bombing campaign began to looses team and peace returned to Catalonia and the Basque countries by August as ANE faded into a dark corner of Spanish history without too much ado. Once the Bill was passed by the Cortes and blocked by the Supreme Court, all sides involved seemed to forget about the issue and let it to quietly drop. The Prime Minister made a vague promise to rewrite the unconstituional parts and nothing would be heard about it for a few years.

    Another topic tht was very criticised from the right was the establishment of relations with Italy. In October 1973, and elderly Sánchez Albornoz became the first Spanish Prime Minister to pay an official visit to the Italy, where he met the First General Secretary, Fausto Guilo . The government was optimistic about the chances of the Spanish firms entering into the Italian market, first, and then the ones of its allies and satellites. However, Guilo was busy reversing some of the "liberal" reforms of Mussolinni and, even if normal diplomatic relations were established between the two countries in 1974, the trade negotiations went to nowhere. It would take the best part of the next decade to build a bridge over this question.

    When Sánchez Albornoz returned from Rome, he found a party shaking from within. His popular image had been damaged by his few inerviews on the television while he was abroad. All the newspapers commented how old and frail the prime minister seemed to be. Sánchez Albornoz (who was 78 years old by then) was no longer a credible leader for his own party and thus he was plainly told about it. His position had been damaged by the failed negotiations with the Liberal Party, as he had been unable to press Casado while, at the same time, his position was undermined by José María de Areilza, leader of the most conservative faction within the Liberal ranks. Thus, when Sánchez Albornoz returned to Spain, he was blunty told by Areilza, Íñigo Cavero (leader of the social democratic wing that was evolving into christian democratic positions) and Eurico de la Peña tht he had to share his control of the party (with them, mainly), the storm broke out within the Social Democratic Party as Sánchez Albornoz refused to give in. Thus. in June 1974, a full rebellion broke out in the ranks of the PSD.

    As we shall see, the events that followed transformed the Spanish political scene and changed the course of the country.
     
    146. Sheer Heart Attack: The crisis of the Spanish political scene (1970-1984)
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    Freddy Mercury and the hairdresser of the Ritz Hotel of Barcelona,
    when Queen visited the city for his first concert in the city (December 13, 1974)

    146. Sheer Heart Attack: The crisis of the Spanish political scene (1970-1984)

    The first cracks in the surface of the "unalterable" political parties of Spain began to appear after the elections of 1967. When Alfredo Martinez began to move away from the moderate nationalism and social conservative lines that his party had followed since his creation, the most orthodox factions began to feel uneasy by the populist turn of the PDE. When this was clearly seen after the elections of 1971, it was too much for many. In the Congress of 1972 (March 19-31), Martínez came under attack. José Pedro Pérez Llorca and Emilio Attard were the first to censor the demagogic style of the leader of the party and to walk out from the PDE, much to the astonishment of the party itself and the public opinion. A few months later, Pérez Llorca and Attard created the center-right Partido Popular (PP - Popular Party). The problems for Martínez did not end there. The split of the party was used by Laureano López Rodó to plot against Martínez and to create around himself a group that included a third of the members of the parliamentarian group of the PDE, among them Gonzalo Fernández and Federico Silva Muñoz. Their aim was to force Martínez to move to more moderation positions. However, to the surprise of many, Martínez resigned at the end of the Congress (March 31) and withdrew from politics. López Rodó found himself in the right position at the right time to make a bid for the leadership of the PDE and, after the chaos and disorder that followed, he offered a chance to redress the situation. Thus, that very day, López Rodó became the new president of the PDE. Eventually, López Rodó would resign in 1979 from his post, after greatly helping to reform the PDE into the lines of the old Conservative party, which would return to new with the New Conservative Party, led by José María de Areilza.

    The traditional party of Spanish socialism, the PSOE - Spanish Socialist Worker's Party - was undergoing a crisis: its limited success in the elections ment that the party had lost its position and seemed unable to recover with Rodolfo Llopis as its leader. From within, Enrique Tierno Galván emerged as the most suitable candidate to replace Llopis, as he had established links during the 1950s and 1960s with the other democratic forces, droppign the anti-monarchist stance of the PSOE, something that caused a division between Tierno's followers and the hardliners. Eventually, when Rodolfo Llopis finally resigned in April 1971 and was quietly and smoothly replaced by Tierno, it meant the beginning of a new age for the Soclalists. Tierno gave a new breath of life to the party, mainly through his charism and his "pragmatic" Socialism. Tierno Galván moved the PSOE away from the hardliner Marxist views imposed by Rome into what, later on, was called "Comunismo Hispano" (Hispanic Communism), something that would cause a split in the party, as the Marxist ways were gradually dropped (1971-1974) and replaced first by the so-called "Comunismo Hispano" and then by Tierno's version of the socialdemocracy in the Congress of 1976. It was then when Felipe González, leader of the "pure" Socialists, bitterly attacked Tierno for his "betrayal". González and his radical anti-monarchist faction would left the PSOE in 1977, creating the Partido de Acción Socialista (PASOC - The Party of Socialist Action), as the PSOE became a middle-class socialist party, winning the support of the German SDP; ironically, Tierno's PSOE, which took a technocratic and professional approach to politics, would be the creaddle of two future leaders of the PASOC: Pablo Iglesias Turrión and Juan Carlos Monedero. The PASOC would remain a minor party in Spanish politics, even if Marxism was dropped as its ideological core in the 1982 Congress, achieving its better result in 1997 when they were voted by 11.468 Spaniards.

    Meanwhile, the USD would undergo a slow turn to the center-left positions between 1971 and 1974, something that began to take shape after its 1972 Congress, when Francisco Fernández Ordóñez attacked Sánchez Albornoz for his weak leadership and his unwillngness to pact with the Liberals, which had introduced a degree of incertainty in Spanish politics unknown since the dark days of the November Revolution. Fernández Ordónez's barrage opened a fight for the leadership of the party as soon Sánchez Albornoz saw himself without any kind of support within the party and finally annouced his resignation as president of the party. Adding insult to injury, Fernández Ordónez was selected to become Sánchez Albornoz's replacement. Ironically, the new president would not only not open talks with the Liberals but he would turn the party to center-left position that allienated the leaders of the center-right faction, Rafael Arias Salgado and José Ramón Lasuén, who would leave the party in 1973. In 1977 Arias Salgado would join the Liberal Party and Lasuén would return to politics with the new Conservative Party in 1982.

    The last "traditional" party, the Liberal. also underwent its own "crossing of the desert". In spite of the good results in the last elections, Fernando Casado came under fire from those who had hoped to replace Esplà. However, the support given by Joaquín Garrigues Walker, who had been the rival of Casado in the contest for the leadership, and of Fernando Álvarez de Miranda and Íñigo Cavero, the main leaders of the Demochristian faction, were enough to silence for while the critics, who would try it again in 1979, after the Liberal defeat in the General Elections (1), and, for the last time, after the Liberal debacle of 1984 (2) which left the party terribly weakened and finished the political career of its then leader, Miguel Boyer. The old party would take ten years and a complete upheaval to recover from the shock. The new Liberal formation that emerged from the ashes of its former self had little to do with the traditional party, as it was dominated by a younger generation of Liberal politicians (José Vicente Herrera, María Jesús San Segundo, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría and Jordi Sevilla) , even if by then neither them nor the party was termed "Liberal", as we shall see.


    (1) Sorry for the spoiler.
    (2) Sorry again.
     
    147. The Zenith of a Giant: China (1960-1970)
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    Nguyen Van Thieu sworn-in as President of South Vietnam


    147. The Zenith of a Giant: China (1960-1970)

    The survival of Minh's regime became cause of concern to both the United States and China, but for very different reasons. For Chiang, Minh was nothing but an American puppet placed too close for comfort. Thus, for him there was no difference between Minh and Diem and "bussines" remained as usual. For Washington, Vietnam was another source of friction with its British ally. After Attlee’s departure in 1955, there were none pro-American figures in No 10. Eventually, London saw no reason of continuing a close cooperation that could harm its own plans and projects. The causes of the final split were twofold. The unilateral solution of the Cuban problem and the increasin pressure of the White House to No 10 to support the American internevion in Vietnam were the final nail in the coffin. It was not surprise for anbody, as the split had been on the making since the end of the Second World war. By 1960, there were no reasons fora British alliance with the United States. Good relations would be maintained, even if in Commonwealth issues the British government kept a fully anti-American line. An exception to the rule was Australia, as its government was following quite closely the events unfolding in Vietnam, as any development there worried the nearby Australians to no end, so Australia closely worked with the White House on this issue. By the April 1965 there were almost 200 Australian military personnel in the Republic of Vietnam. On 29 April 1967, Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt announced that the government had received a request for further military assistance from South Vietnam and thus sent an infantry batallion to Vietnam.

    Thus, Washington was left to its own devices in Vietnam even if President Jackson devoted his strenght to the reestablishment of friendly relations between the United States and the United Kingdom (and with France, as we shall see) while attempting to stabilize Vietnam without employing US ground troops. This would change in 1965, when Nelson Rockefeller became the 36th President of the United States. He would order the deployment of 25,000 ground troops to Vietnam as well as further military aid to the country. Increased Italian and Chinese funding had emboldened the North Vietnamese and their Southern allies. However, the Viet Cong had suffered heavy losses and this forced Giap to send thre NVA divisions along the ‘Ho Chi Min’ trail, a logistical network of roads and trails that ran from North Vietnam to the South through Laos and Cambodia. However, in spite of this reinforcements, South Vietnam held. The MRC had been replaced in 1962 by the Government of President Tho and General Nguyễn Cao Kỳ , which had not only estabilized the country but calmed tensions between the different factions that made the complex South Vietnamese society. Part of this success was due to General Edward Lansdale. After successfully ending the left-wing Huk insurgency in the Philippines and building support for Magsaysay's presidency, CIA director Allen Dulles instructed him to "do what you did in the Philippines [in Vietnam]." He had also trained the French forces on special counter-guerrilla tactics, and, from 1954 to 1957, he was the head of the Saigon Military Mission and trained the Vietnamese Army and its irregular forces. President Jackson send then again to Vietnam in 1961, where he remained until he withdrew from the USAF in 1963 as the head of the Multinational Assistance Command-Vietnam (MACV). His success led Jackson to persuade him to return to South Vietnam in 1965 (when the number of US ground soldiers in Vietnam had risen to 70,000), as part of the United States Embassy, working there until 1968,

    Even if by the beginning of 1967 Giap had transferred over fifteen divisions to the South, a further three in reserve in southern Laos and eastern Cambodia, South Vietnam held against the might of Hanoi, even if the government had to deal with the need for a functioning economy that produced something and so-to-speak "pay the monthly bills". Thus, the regime began encouraging the growth of light industries such as textiles and transistor radios. Then, in 1968, General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu replaced Tho as President of the Republic and Trần Văn Hương became the new prime minister, even if Thiệu held the true power in the country. Even with the ongoing war, this period saw explosive growth in education at all levels, even if many critics of the regime stated that the full implementation of the educational system shaped the mind of the students to turn them into obedient citizens. The students protests of 1971 where to prove them wrong. The Third Education Law came into force on December 31, 1965: its most important aspect was the introduction of compulsory education at the primary level. This requirement led to widespread school construction; by 1972, primary-school enrollment had risen to 90%. The economy, however, remained deeply troubled in spite the best efforts of the United States and Saigon. A land reform was carried out that solved little until large landholdings were obliged in 1968 to divest most of their land; this helped Thiệu to create a new class of independent, family proprietors was created. By then, he had fired Houng, who was replaced by economics professor Nguyễn Xuân Oánh as the new prime minister.

    Then, in 1970, Chiang, whose mental health was beginning to decay, decided to support Hanoi in a daring attempt to crush South Vietnam for good.

     
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    148. News of the World (1965-1975): Russia
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    Lev Yashin, called the balck Spider and the true heroe of Wembley,
    when Russia defeated England (2-4) and won the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final

    148. News of the World (1965-1975): Russia

    In the late 1960s began the slow decay of the Liberal Party as it gradually lost popular support with the Russian society modernising and the traditional values at its ideological core became less appealing to the population. Thus, many options to keep its control over the parliament were considered, like an opening to the left, that is, the Socialist (SP) and the Social-DemocraticParty (SDP). In the end, this alliance lasted until 1968, when the Liberals won the general elections (May 19) with slightly better results and felt brave enough to avoid any definitive compromise with neither the SP nor the SDP nor anyone else. It was an illusion that lasted for six months, until December of that year, when the unstable Republican, Socialist, Social Democrat and Liberals government collapsed and was replaced by an alliance of the Republican Party (RP), the SPD and the Liberals, as the internal crisis of the SP led to a split and the creation of the Unified Socialist Party (USP), a minor social-democratic political party that would vanish in the early 1990s.

    The Russian Prime Minister, Leonid Ilich Brézhnev (1906-1980), was a peculiar character. Born into a Russian worker's family in Kamenskoye, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire, he received a technical education, at first in land management and then in metallurgy, and flirted with the SP during his youth. He graduated from the Kamenskoye Metallurgical Technicum in 1935 and became a metallurgical engineer in the iron and steel industries of eastern Ukraine. Brezhnev came close to join the SP in the 1920s, but after he returned from his compulsory term of military service (1935-1936) he gradually drifted into Liberals positions until he joined the party in 1939. His rise to power would begin in 1956 when he became a member of the parliament and jockeyed his rise during the rise and fall of Premier Nabokov, becoming in the process part of Poniatoff`s entourage. In May 1960 he became Minister of Agriculture, but, from 1962 onwards, he grew more erratic and his performance undermined the confidence of Poniatoff and, in 1964, he was removed from the government. However, he managed to return in style when the crisis of the alliance with the SP and SPD in 1968 throw the party into disarray. In the chaos that followed Poniatoff's unexpected resignation, Brézhnev became the only replacement that the party could rely on.

    During his first term as Prime Minister, a number of progressive reforms were carried out. A law of October 1969 extended access to higher education to all students holding a higher secondary school diploma and then, in April 1970, a new bill extended the pension program, increasing the maximum pension and creating a social pension to those over the age of 65 with low incomes. In foreign policy, Brézhnev refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (January 1969), as he wanted to keep all the possibilities open for Russia, even if that meant a blacklash in the relations with the United Kingdom and the United States. In August he reformed his goverment by breaking the alliance pact and leading a Liberal-only government that lasted for only 45 days before he had to form a new coalition with the Socialist, Republican, and Democratic Socialist parties until July 1970. The chaos that Brézhnev had created (no law was passed between August 1969 to July 1970) forced his resignation and replacement by Oleg Bogayev, who demoted Brézhnev to Interior Minister.

    Bogayev also began with a number of progressive reforms (the housing reforms of 1971) but he was forced to calle for elections. In May 1972 the Liberals under Bogayev won with around 38% of the votes and the Prime Minister tried to continue his centrist strategy and a reapprochement policy with the United States, the Arab Countries, Spain and Greece, but his attempt only lasted a year as he was undermined by the opposition within his own party led by Brézhnev. He fought bravely this critics and in August he extended health insurance to citizens over the age of 65 in receipt of a social pension. However, his refusal to accept legal divorce and abortion, eventually forced his resignation in July 1973. Brézhnev returned then, leading a coalition composed of Christian Democrats, Socialists, Republicans, and Democratic Socialists until March 1974. After this government collapsed, he reformed it and, two weeks later, formed a shaky alliance with the Socialists and Democratic Socialists that end on until October. During this period, the government was marked by its inoperacy, passing only one law in August 1974 which extended hospital assistance to all those not previously covered by any scheme. This lack of any perceived activity was to cause the final fall of Brézhnev and his withdrawal from Russian politics. Vasili Vasilyevich Kuznetsov would be the new Liberal prime minister of Russia. He would have to face the darkest period of Russian history, when the monarchist extremist groups attempted to force the return of the Czar with violence.
     
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    149. News of the World (1965-1975): Germany
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    Rudi Dutschke, the leader of
    the students protests of 1968

    149. News of the World (1965-1975): Germany

    An unexpected c hange in the course of Germany history took place in 1965, when Erwin Rommel became the president of the German Republic. Initially, Rommel and the new Chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, worked well together. The Chancellor reduced tensions with the Communist bloc and established diplomatic relations with Romania and Yugoslavia. He also ennacted some reforms, extending the coverage of pensions in 1967, new grants for the students and a constitutional reform in 1969 which reinforced the federal government in educational planning. One of his low points as Chancellor was in 1968 when the widespread protests by students and workers came close to paralize the country, and led Rommel to met with the High Command of the Army to discuss the possible army intervention against the protesters. Eventually, Rommel resigned in 1969 and was replaced by Gustav Heinemann. Thankfully for him, the troublesome Bavanarian nationalists Willi Ankermüller and Volkmar Gabert were to embark in a political feud against each other that lasted until 1975, thus vanishing from the political scene of Germany.

    The victory of the CDU in the elections of 1969 did not win the party the Chancellorship and again Willy Brandt became prime minister of Germany (10 July 1968 – 20 June 1969) as Kurt Klesinger became the new President of the Republic until his death (April 28, 1969 - May 27, 1974). Brandt had to deal with the blacklash of the protests of 1968, which left a strained and conflicted German society, as prime minister. Brandt attempted to heal the damage with what he called a "new society", based on dialogue between the different social forces in Germany. However, he had to resign due to health problems and a shift in the political alliances led to the rise of Chirstian Democratic Gerhard Schröder. In his second term, Schröder, oddly enough, followed with the "new society" plan of his predecessor. He relaxed the control of the government over the mass media was relaxed as legislation was passed to increase the social coverage for the poor and elderly, which consolidated Germany as a welfare state. In addition, regular increases were made to the minimum wage which prevented greater wage disparities and ended the unrest in the industry. This was to cause a crisis in the CDU, as Schröder came closer to the SPD, and this caused him troubles with the "conservative" wing of the CDU/CSU. Eventually, he would clash with President Klesinger, who accused him of trying to weaken the presidency in favour of himself. In 1972, Schröder won a a vote of confidence in the Parliament, but this did not end Klesinger's attempts to force his resignation. Only the death of Klesinger would put an end to this rivalry.

    Schröder would ran for the presidency himself, but he was defeated by the Liberal Walter Scheel, of the Freies Deutschland Partei (FDP - Free Germany Party) and, again, affter another cabinet crisis and another change in the al liances, Brandt became prime minister. The General elections of 1973 meant a bitter victory to the CDU/CSU, which lost one third of its parliamentary seats due to the growth of the SPD; even then, they were strong enough to make Rainer Barzel the new prime minister, but the pressure upon him (he had to act both as chancellor and as de facto president of Germany due to Klesinger's illness) made him to resign on May 29, 1974, being replaced by Helmut Kohl, who had to face the destabilizing effects of the attempted return of Schröder to the high ranks of the CDU/CSU. Furthermore, Kohl's troubles with President Scheel over their respective powers would also become an enduring feature of this term, which would end with the resignation of Kohl in August 1976.

    As Germany seemed to came to an end of its economic "miracle" (5% per year in average since 1959). The economic growth was mainly due to productivity gains, to an increase in the number of working hours and to the growing working population. If in 1950, the average income in Germany was 55% of a British, it reached 80% in 1973. Among the major nations, only Japan and Spain had faster growth in this era than Germany. This process was aided by a sharp increase in human and physical capital accumulation, a pro-growth government policy, and the effective utilization of the education sector to create a more productive work force. This was also helped by the reforms introduces by Brandt's minister for economics, Karl Schiller, who psuhed strongly for legislation that would give the federal government greater authority to guide economic policy. In 1968 the Bundestag passed the Law for Promoting Stability and Growth (which remains in effect although never again applied as energetically as in Schiller's time), which provided for coordination of federal, Land, and local budget plans in order to give fiscal policy a stronger impact. The law was also uysed, albeit in a more modest and restricted way, by Schröder in his version of the "new society" plan. Thus, we can say that Schiller's laws led the German economy from 1968 to 1976.
     
    150. News of the World (1965-1975): France
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    Jacques-Maurice Couve de Murville and Willy Brandt
    seeing here during one the diplomatic meetings of
    the first attempt for a German-French rapprochement

    150. News of the World (1965-1975): France

    Many were surprised when Jouhaud called for elections in 1965. Not so many were surprised by the right-center victory, though. Jacques-Maurice Couve de Murville
    had been able to form a suitable coalition rangin for the center of the right to almost the right of the center politician into a viable party. For the first time since the end of the war, the Conservatives were trully united and able to articulate a message that appealed to most of the French voters. Thus, de Murville became the new prime minister and as the foreign minister. Soon it was clear that the de facto head of the government was Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, as de Murville focused on the international relations.

    Giscard, listening to those in his party and in the industry who were frustrated by the contradicting policies of previous governments, which, in his opinion, forestalled the development of the French economy, In spite of Giscard's good intentions, he had only one term in office to carry out his plans, but he achieved remarkable results. He launched a massive modernization plan of the French railways, which led to an impressive expansion of the railroad system. He also launched a reshaping of the industry as a whole with a big program of privatizations and then embarked into a tax-break bill to encourage French industries to invest in new technologies and sites. This measure would come to bit him back, as the modernization of many industries led to many thousands of wrokers to loose their jobs. Thus, for many, Giscad is remembered as a man who attempted to modernize France. However, his terrible social policies -or, better said, the absence of social measures- and the rising unemployment led to the collapse of the Conservative government in the elections of 1970.

    Murville's successor, the Socialist François Mitterrand is source of a long lasting controversy. For many, he was a champion of social justice. For many others, he divided France and opened an abyss that still divided the country in two. Mitterrand agreed with Giscard in the need of modernsing France. The methods were where they departed ways. For Miterrand the answer was not in the industry, but in the French society. He began with the School Bill of 1971 and went on. In short, private education was greatly reduced in France, in spite of the oposition from the conervative parties, and classic education was replaced by more technical studies, too. Then, the French economy came to a sudden halt when most of its industry overextended itself in their modernization process and had to cut losses. Even this crisis could not stop Mitterand, who won the General Elections of 1974 with a healthy majority in the French Parliament and with good opinion polls. However, as the crisis made itself deeper in the following, the French society turned fast against him and his own party decided to remove him from power to cut losses as his government collapsed amidst internal quarrels of its members. It was just a question of time that a vote of no-confidence ended Miterrand's suffering.

    Thus, France would return to the polls in 1976 just as Fausto Guilo announced to the world that Italy was going to open a process of "openness and transparency", and France would change forever, again.
     
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    151. News of the World (1965-1975): United Kingdom
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    British SAS "unoficially" deployed in Mozambique
    to secure the embargo against Rhodesia

    151. News of the World (1965-1975): United Kingdom

    In spite of the repeated Laborist success in the elections since 1949, the United Kingdom had not undergone an orgy of nationalizations as many had feared. Labour governments had promoted cooperation with the firms instead of direct control, an idea that had even been copied and adapted by the Liberals. High tech industry replaced the old and traditional heavy industries in the 1950s-1960s had transformed not only the British economy, but also its society as the traditional jobs were replaced by the new ones. Thus, 1965 would mark the beginning of the gradual transition from fossil fuels to nuclear and renewable energies, something that would make the UK the world leader in nuclear and clean energy by the late 1970s.

    However, the Laborist foreign policy was to offset his great achievements. As the Rhodesian moderate and pro-civil rights government headed by Garfield Todd had managed to introduce modest reforms in the education of the black majority but at the expense of angering the white Rhodesian property owners, who were taxed to pay for the black schools. Thus, Todd was able to double the number of primary schools and to introduce secondary school and pre-university courses for blacks. However, this and the progressive expansion of the franchise to blacks and the support of the civil rights movement lead by Joshua Nkomo had pushed many conservative white settlers towards the white supremacist Rhodesian Front Party (“RF”) led by Winston Field. Eventually, Todd was defeated in the first Rhodesian general elections of 1962, which were won by the RF. Field's government began to implement the Rhodesian version of the South African "Apartheid" At the same time, a white supremacist paramilitary group known as the "Black Boots" began a campaign of violence to terrorize the Black community. Even if Field denied any official relation with the "Black Boots", its lack of enthusiasm to end the violence and the use of military weapons by the paramilitaries began to raise many doubts about Field's denials. Eventually, Field, who was deemed to be too "soft" by the white supremacists, was replaced by John Gaunt, a former Federal MP for Lusaka, in the spring of 1964.

    Not willing to see Rhodesia going the same bloody path that had wreaked havoc to Lumumba's Congo (1), a meeting of prime ministers of the Commonwealth took place in London in early 1965. The British Prime Minister, George Brown, clearly stated that his government was in no position to grant independence to any colony of with a population of European settlers except under conditions of majority rule. Of course, Gaunt initially balked at the suggestion, and he refused to accept those conditions and withdrew from the meeting, followed by Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, the South African prime minister whose refusal to grant Namibia its independence had incensed Downing Street in 1964. Later on, Brown, who was against drinking too heavily, lost his temper during a meetin gwith the press after the end of conference and launched a vicious attack against Gaunt and Verwoerd and 'their bloody and shameful institution' [the Apartheid]. It goes without saying that such an outburst, Brown not only seriously damaged the British relations with Rhodesia and South African relations, but also finished Brown's political career.However, Verwoerd's actions were not left unpunished. Until then, the Commonwealth had an unofficial "Big Five" council within its structure made by the prime ministers of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, South Africa and India. When the council met again during the conference, Verwoerd was replaced by Mumtaz Daulatana, the Pakistani prime minister. Even if this was a short lived solution -Daulatana would be removed from power by the 1967 Pakistani coup d'etat led by Air Marshal Asghar Khan), it was not only a show of Commonwealth unity and strength but also a clear indication to Pretoria that it should stand down or else. However, Verwoerd was not impressed by this and, in March 1966, South Africa became a Republic and abandoned the Commonwealth. From then on, the National Party would move even further to the extreme right under John Vorster, who became the new South African prime minister in September 1966, and began to send military aid and supplies to Rhodesia.

    Meawnhile, Gaunt was replaced by a hardliner, Ian Smith, who in September 1966, visited Lisbon, where Portuguese prime minister António de Oliveira Salazar promised him 'maximum support' if he should declare independence. A Rhodesian Trade Office was opened in Lisbon in order to co-ordinate breaking the anticipated sanctions in the event of a unilateral declaration of independence. In its turn, it also functioned as a de facto embassy and caused tension with London, which objected to Rhodesia conducting its own foreign policy. Salazar's promises gave Smith more grounds for self-confidence in his talks with London and refused to accept the proposed principles ofr independence. Then, a referendum on independence was held in Rhodesia on 5 November 1966. The result was a landslide for the "yes" vote, which was the choice of over 90% of voters. Then, On January 1st, 1967 Smith's government made a Unilateral Declaration of Independence, making the country a de facto independent state. The British Government did not accept the Rhodesian independence as they did not view the referendum as representative of all of Rhodesian citizens, and it was immediately denounced as an 'act of rebellion against the Crown'. London called on the Commonwealth members to sever economic ties with Rhodesia, recommending sanctions on petroleum products and military hardware and then dispatched a Royal Navy squadron to monitor oil deliveries in the port of Beira in Mozambique, from which a strategic pipeline ran to Umtali in Rhodesia. The warships were to deter "by force, if necessary". The United States made it clear that Rhodesia would not be recognised 'under [any] circumstances'. Even Portugal, although sympathetic, did not recognise Rhodesia as an independent state, maintaining only a Diplomatic Representative in Salisbury. Only South Africa recognised the new state.

    Five months later, the first units of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), having received prior training in Romania, crossed into Rhodesia from Zambia. It was the beginning of the "Bush War". 1968, the Rhodesian army, with South African support (and Portuguese backing behind the courtain), was able to regain control of most of the country but proved unable to defeat the ZANLA in the countryside. Then, in August 1968, Salazar suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died. His authoritarian regime did not survive him and, on April 25 1969, the military overthrew the regime in the Carnation Revolution, which was followed the withdrawal of Portuguese administrative and military personnel from its overseas colonies. Hundreds of thousands of Portuguese Africans returned to Portugal. Angola and Mozanbique (along with East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe) became independent nations, furher isolating Rhodesia and South Africa.

    The Tory victory in the General Elections of 1970 was to be the last hurrah of the Conservative Party. The new Prime Minister, Edward Heath, reformed Britain's system of local government, reducing the number of local authorities and creating a number of new metropolitan counties. In 1973 he joined the Treaty of Paris with Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to regulate their industrial production. Six years later, an attempt to further extend this collaboration into forming a regional organisation that aimed to bring about economic integration among its member states would fail when it was rejected by both Paris and London. Heath had to deal also with the rising of tension in Northern Ireland, which led, also in 1973, to the August riots and the deployment of British troops in Derry and Belfast to restore order. It was the beginning of Troubles (1973-1998); another battlefront for the prime minister were the miner's strikes of 1972 and 1974, which greatly helped in the Tory's defeat in the general election in October 1975, which were won by the Liberal Margaret Thatcher.



    (1) The Congo Crisis goes more or less like IOTl.
     
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    152. News of the World (1965-1975): the United States
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    152. News of the World (1965-1975): the United States

    1965 is most remembered by the gruesome murder of George Wallace by the deranged Charles Manson (August 8, 1965), who had recently escaped from McNeil Island. As Manson later own claimed, he had killed Wallace because the Democrat politician intended to start a race war that would eventually developed into a full nuclear war. Mason would be executed in the gas chamber of San Quentin State Prison on September 18, 1969.

    Two years later, President Jackson, who had won the elections riding the victorious wave that followed the short Cuban War (1961), found himself facing the so-called "Sarajevo Spring", which broke out in 1967 in Yugoslavia. After the unexpected death of Tito (July 23, 1965), Konstantin Popović had attempted to keep his legacy, but the more prosperous republics of Slovenia and Croatia wanted to move towards decentralization and democracy. As the rapid economic growth that Yugoslavia knew with Tito suddenly stalled, the politics of austerity brought to the fore tensions between the well off "have" republics like Slovenia and Croatia versus the poorer "have not" republics like Serbia, this led to the resignation of Popovic, who was replaced by Mika Špiljak, who attempted to push ahead a pack of liberal reforms to the socialist state. The economy was slightly decentralized, some liberties restored to the general populace, and the border was opened to Austria. Rome send furious demands to the Špiljak regime to return to the Marxist ortodoxy, but when the negotiations collapsed after only a week, a quarter of a million Italian, Hungarian, Romanian and Bulgarian troops waited at the borders for the order to invade.

    However, Špiljak was deposed in a bloodless coup d'etat (January 5, 1967) and replaced by Džemal Bijedić, which led, two weeks later, to widespread popular protests on the streets and. by January 12, Yugoslavia seemed to be on the verge of civil war as, on February 23, a Provisional Government led by Mitja Ribičič declared the independence of Slovenia, When the government enacted martial law, violent protests took place in Croatia and Bosnia (February 26-28). Then, Croatia declared also its independence on March 2 and, that night, Rome took matters in its own hands when General Secretary Fausto Guilo ordered 200,000 troops and 2,000 tanks to enter the country. The first crack in the Communist unity came a few minutes later, when the Hungarian and Romanian premiers refused to join the military intervention and withdrew their forces from the Yugoslavian border. Romanian Prime Secretary Nicolae Ceauşescu gave a speech critical of the invasion, in front of a crowd in Bucharest on March 5, where he objected furiously the Italian intervention , That same day, President Jackson recognized the independent states of Slovenia and Croatia and demanded the withdrawal of the invading forces. Canada, Denmark, France, the United Kingdom and Germany requested a meeting of the United Nations Security Council. Eventually, on March 9, Guilo ordered this forces to withdraw from Yugoslavia.

    The crisis would be solved a few months later (September 1967, when Slovenia and Croatia became Socialist Republics under the "guidance" of Rome. To say that the Rome Pact had been shaken by a political and diplomatic turmoil was an understatement. The standing of Guilio had suffered a heavy hit, to such an extent that the Italian Communist Party began to consider his replacement. then, misteriously, half of the Italian Politburo suddenly withdrew from politics by their own volition or due to a sudden decay of their health, while Palmiro Togliatti and Giorgio Napolitano where found dead in their homes after suffering both a massive hearth attack. With Togliatti and Napòlitano out of the picture, Guilio promoted men of his trust to replace them: Giuseppe Di Vittorio, chief of the communist trade union Italian General Confederation of Labour. and the Italian Socialist Party national secretary, Pietro Nenni. Thus ended the "Sarajevo Spring" crisis.

    In the elections of 1968, Lyndon Johnson defeated with ease the Republican nominée, Nelson Rockefeller and, on top of this, the Democrats dominated the Senate. It was with LBJ that the social measures taken under Jackson were pushed ahead, as the social help to less favoured members of the American community, those ignored by the "American Dream". However, under Johnson, the United States began to take a conservative turn. His first action surprised friends and foes alike: the nomination of the quite unpopular and divisive George Harrold Carswell as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to replace Hugo Black. And then, in 1968, the US economy entered in the red zone when inflation skyrocketed (5.25%) alongside the unemployment rate (8.1% by 1968). Furthermore, interest rates were at their highest in a century. LBJ launched himself to correct this mistake. However, he was unwilling (and unable) to reduce the military commitment of his country in Vietnam, even if the Vietcong had been utterly crushed in their failed Tet Offensive of 1968 (1) and South Vietnam was rising to its feet. Thus, LBJ took the old New Deal out of the closet.

    He gave new life with a series of government subsidies to the industry and placed a tariff levy on foreign manufactured goods that, eventually, threatened to create a "trade war" with the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. However, by 1970, inflation and unemployment began to stabilize and by late 1972 to go down as the B-52s pawed the advance of the ARVN towards Hanoi, which surrended by late 1973. However, by then LBJ had been replaced as Democratic nominée by George Wallace, who became the 37th President of the United States after defeating by a very narrow marging the Republican Pete McCloskey in the 1972 elections. Slowly, Wallace continued with the healing of the economy of the country, when a foreign affair dereailed his plans: the Iraqi coup d'etat of 1973.

    On May 27, 1973, King Faisal II was deposed when part of the army and the Baathist Party led by Saddam Hussein rose against him. Demonstrations against Faisal commenced in 1970, rapidly intensifing in 1973, paralyzing the country. Faisal II left Iraq in exile on June 3, 1973. Hardly two months later, on July 24, Hussein was deposed and killed as guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed the Baathist troops in armed street fighting. By the end of the month, a new theocratic-republican regime replaced the old kingdom. Two months later, the Sunnis and their Shias counterparts were battling each other all over Iraq. As the civil war raged on and threatened to engulf Iran and Syria, Wallace took a fateful decision: to invade Iraq.

    On September 22, 1975, just as the first Iranian soldier crossed the Iraqi border, the first B-52 bombers began to launch their payload over Bagdad.

    iraq.png




    (1) After TTL Tet Offensive, the status of the Viet Cong was similar to the state of the Army Group Center after OTL Bagration.
     
    153. The General Elections of 1974
  • 1974.png


    153. The General Elections of 1974

    The so-called "Garrigues Miracle" saw the Liberal Party not only recovering the lost ground, but also achieving a majority government thanks to the internal crisis of the USD (soon to become the PSD) and the PDE, even if Lopez Rodó's party suffered the most of the two while Tierno Galván gave new life to the party even if loosing voters in the process The alliance of Basque and Catalan nationalists also suffered badly and began to loose ground, opening the way to the dissolution of the alliance in the early 1980s.

    In the end, what determined the outcome of the elections was the issue of inflation, that soon became key during the campaign. Fernández Ordoñez proposed a "60-day price freeze" to cut down inflation, but Garrigues Walker soon counterattacked claiming that this policy was an intrusion on the rights of businesses to set their own prices. Ironically, ini 1975 Garrigues Walker would introduce his own prince control system, which was extended to include salaries. In spite of this, polls kept projecting that the USD would win a minority government. However, reality bit hard, as the lost fourteen seats. Another damaging factor was the poor perfomance of Fernández Ordónez in his interviews, The most damaging factor was his complete failure to explain in a meaningful way his policy to redress the Spanish economy. Bearing in mind that the Socialdemocrat candidate had a very good reputation as an economist. Nevertheless, those mistakes were to cost him the elections.

    The PDE, under his new leader and full of hope, suffered a bitter defeat as it lost less than two-and-a-half percentage points in the popular vote, but lost almost half of their seats in the Cortes. It was the worst result in the party's history up until that point. They were hurt principally by the collapse of their vote in Castile-León; if they had won the popular vote and most seats in the autonomous community in the past elections, in 1974 they were almost totally wiped out there, loosing all but two of their seats and finishing a distant third behind the Liberals and Socialdemocrats. Their poor showing was blamed primarily on López Rodó, who, nevertheless, stuck to his guns and ignored the critics, even from within his own party and defied them to win a vote of no confidence. When it came the time to vote in the PDE's ranks, López Rodó received the support of 94% of the members of the party. However, the Castillian catastrophe could have been caused not by any fault of the leader of the PDE but for the massive support of the right and right-center voters to the Liberals in order to keep the Socialdemocrats out of power there.

    Party
    Seats
    %+/-
    Partido Liberal (Garrigues Walker)141/26543.15+45
    Unión Socialdemócrata (Fernández Ordóñez)92/26535.46-14
    Partido Demócrata Español (López Rodó)16/26515.44+15
    Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Tierno Galván)11/2655.06+10
    Alianza Democrática (Tarradellas)5/2650.89-5
     
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    154. Football in Spain (1943-1965)

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    The Spanish League from 1943 to 1953

    154. Football in Spain (1943-1965)

    The history of the Spanish football changes in 1954 when the Argentinian player Alfredo Di Stefano signed a 4 year contract wtih Real Madrid C.F. Di Stéfano's first few games with them were unimpressive, even if he scored three goals in four games. Furthermore, as the Argentine champion did not adapt to European football, but imposed his own style, playing all around the field with speed and keeping the ball low on the ground, he began to have problems with the rest of the team and with his mister. Eventually, by early 1955, President Santiago Bernabéu became exasperated with the unruly player and was determined to replace him with Adolfo Pedernera. Eventually, as only F. C. Barcelona was able (or willing) to buy the expensvie player, Bernabéu accepted the offer, thinkin that he was cheatin his great rival. History would prove him wrong as Pedernera, who was 35 years old, only played ten matches with Real Madrid without scoring a goal while the "unruly" Di Stefano would become a legend in Barcelona along with his team mate Lázsló "Lazsly" Kubala.

    1601112064466.png

    Kubala and Di Stefano (1)
    Bernabeu would also make another mistake when missed the chance to have Ferenc Puskás in his team. Thus, in 1958, Puskás (31 yearls old then), who Bernabeu considered to be "too old and too fat" (perhaps the president of Real Madrid was still smarting of the Pedernera's fiasco), would sign up for four years with Real Club Deportivo Español, where he would play until 1966.

    Until 1954, the Spanish league had witnessed the rise of FC Barcelona, as the Catalan team dominated that decade, even if, towards the end of it, seemed as if Real Madrid could become a worthy rival. Then, the Bernabeu mistake ensure the primacy of FC Barcelona. just as the Basque football teams almost dissapeared from the top positions, a crisis that was extended to both Betis and Valencia, as Barcelona was joined in his bid for the primacy by the two teams from Madrid: Real Madrid and Atlético de Madrid (2). And then, Di Stefano arrived to Barcelona. The 1954-1955 season was quite evenly, with Real Madrid and Barcelona fighting toe to toe for the first place until the Madrid-Barça match in Madrid, when an incredible Di Stefano broke the match with an incredible shot just five minutes before the end of the first half of the game. The match would end 2-3 for Barcelona and, from then on, the Catalan team took the lead, never to leave it, ending the season with five points more than the Real Madrid, that finished in the second place.

    1955 saw the return of Athletic de Bilbao. With a seasoned team, Bilbao fought for the first position with FC Barcelona until the very end, when the last match decided that the championship would land that year in Bilbao. The same situation repeated iself the following year, but this time with FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, and it ended in the same way, with Barça claiming the championship in the very last match. The next five years would see the Madrid-Barça duel reaching its high water mark in that decade, until the chain of sucess moved to Madrid and gave three championships in a row to teams of the city: one to Atlético and two to Real Madrid.

    Sin-t-tulo.png

    The Spanish League from 1954 to 1965
    1954-1965 is proudly remembered by the followers of FC Barcelona, the so-called "culés". In those years, their team won the championsip five times and two European Cup (1957-58 and 1959-1960 against Milan and Eintracht Frankfurt), even if the defeat against Benfica (1960-1961) was a bitter pill hard to swallow, partilly compensated by the bad luck of the Real Madrid, which was also defeated by Benfica (1961-62) and by Inter de Milan (1963-64).

    The rise of the Atlético and Real Madrid just when the decline of Di Stéfano started. He turned 36 in 1962 and he was not the same fast player. Di Stéfano explicitly criticized the tactics designed by Barcelona coach (ironically, his old "rival" in the blaugrana spearhead, Ladislao Kubala, who he retired as a player at 34 in 1961). The relationship between Kubala, who had the support of Presiden Enric Llaudet, and the Argentine player was already frayed. Llaudet offered Di Stéfano a place on the Barça coaching staff instead of renewing the player's contract. Di Stéfano refused Bernabéu's proposal and he moved to Real Espanyol. After 206 goals in 272 matches with Barcelona, Di Stefano would still play with Espanyol for the next two seasons, Ther, he scored 11 goals in 47 matches. When Di Stéfano played his last match on April 3, 1966, an age of the Spanish football came to its end.


    (1) This photo is not the result of a cleverly done photoshop- It was taken on January 26, 1955, during a friendly match between Barça and Bolonia.
    (2) I have kept most of the Spanish league as it was in that decade. I've attempt some changes, but I found little reason to change the historical development ,so I've only changed two minor things, rising Celta and Barcelona to the third position in 1946-1947 and 1949-1950 (they ended in the 4th position).
     
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    155. First Garrigues Walker Ministry (1974-1979)
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    HMS Ark Royal enters the harbour of Barcelona
    (Summer of 1978)

    155. First Garrigues Walker Ministry (1974-1979)

    In spite of his best efforts, Garrigues Walker's promised reforms had little effect on the growing rate of inflation. Even worse, his ministers kept giving him conflicting advice and solutions and contradicting each other (Eduardo Carriles - Treasury; Carlos Pérez- Industry; José Lladó - Trade); thus, on July 4, 1975, there was a cabinet reshuffle that changed little. Juan Antonio García replaced Lladó; Fernando Abril Martorell did the same with Carriles and Alberto Oliart became the new Minister of Industry. Then in September, hardly a few months later, the popular Finance Minister Fernando Abril Martorell resigned over a perceived lack of support for his measures. Even if he returned in October, and forced the introduction of wage and price controls by passing the Anti-Inflation Bill, after having promised that wages would not be controlled, the damage was done. Even worse, as the new legislation entered into conflicto with some powers traditionally carried out by the local governments, caused a political storm in Catalonia, Valencia, Navarra and the Basque Country, which was only defeated with a royal decree which upheld the legislation as an emergency measure. The measure, that gave way to a deep intervention of the state, created a long-lasting distrust among the rising neoliberal business leaders. Then, Garrigues Walker managed to win the sympathies of the most liberal sectors of the Spanish city when, on July 18, 1976, after long and emotional debate, the death penalty was completely abolished in Spain in all cases, including the military law.

    The Catalan and Basque challenges, already damaged by the Anti-Inflation Bill and the confrontational attitude of the Tarradellas government. Garrigues Walker saw Tarradellas' attitude as a provocation against the government's bilingualism and constitutional initiatives, and the relation between the two leaders became soon frozen. This would go even worse when Tarradellas called for a surprise election in 1977 which led to a landslide victory by Esquerra Republica de Catalunya (ERC - Republican Left of Catalonia) led by Frederic Rahola, which was even more radical than Tarradellas, who had been removed from the leadership of ERC and replaced by Rahola in an unexpected "coup d'etat" in his party. As Rahola had promised during the electoral campaign a referendum on independence to be held within his first mandate, it was clear that the relations Madrid-Barcelona were not going to be friendly at all. The unexpected rise of the Catalan nationalism was a cold shower for the Spanish Prime Minister. His public outbursts when the topic was raised led to a growing feeling of uneasiness about Garrigues Walker, who, from 1978 onwards, began to plan with more care and less anger his moves towards Catalonia. His popularity would suffer even more when he had to introduce several spending cuts to quell the large deficit of the country.

    IIn foreign relations, Garrigues Walker was in no better positions, as a series of trade disputes with France, the United Kingdom and Canada damaged not only the international standing of Spain but also its economy. However, from 1978 onwards, the critical situation of the Spanish economy led to an improvement of the relations with London and Ottawa (while the Paris-Madrid axis became almost non-existent) and Spain more than ever welcomed British investments just as inflation and unemployment skyrocketed in the late 1970s. Garrigues Walker was to be heavily criticised by what was perceived as his "lackey" attitude towards the United Kingdom, and he was termed the "yes-of-course-man" for his too friendly attitude towards the British Prime Minister, the Liberal Margaret Thatcher. However, the British help had a price: Spain had to swallow hard austerity programs to get their finances in order. Even if by 1979 both inflation and unemployment began to recede, showing the success of Garrigues Walker policies, the Spanish population was quite angered with his government. Even if the inflation rate went down from 16.68% (December 1978) to 9.76%. (April 1979) and unemployment went down from 8.7% (September 1978) to 7.3% (March 1979), Spain suffered two General Strikes (1976 and 1979), the first strikes since the November Revolution. However, the recovery of the economy seemed to cool down the popular anger.

    It was then when Garrigues Walker gambled and called for new elections.
     
    156. The General Elections of 1979
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    156. The General Elections of 1979

    What determined the result of the General Elections of 1979 was the recovery of the Spanish economy. Suddenly, all the ills and pains were forgotten and a thing of the past. This was felt in the first electoral surveys published in the press. As the Socialist party plummeted in the surveys due to their vicious criticism of the government, López Rodó and Fernández Ordoñez changed at once their strategies. First, they reduced their attacks against Garrigues Walker's cabinet and began to place more emphasis in their own alternatives to the Liberal government. Only Tierno Galván remained unmoved aobut the press. In the end, he and his party paid dearly for the mistake.

    Then Fernández Ordoñez made a mistake by anouncing that, if he government, he would rise the taxes to reduce the government's deficit. It was something that the voters did not want to hear about. In the end, it gave a small advantage to Garrigues Walker, big enough, however, for the Liberals to win the elections, winning 6 more seats than in the 1974 election. That enabled the Liberals to form a majority government.

    Fernández Ordoñez's Socialdemocrats had campaigned under the slogan, "A real change deserves a fair chance" saw themselves without a chance bu, with the change in the parlamentarian system, they won two more seats than the Liberals. It was good, but not enough. His mistakes were to cost him dearly: he would be replaced by Josep Borrell seven months later.

    The wrong strategy of Tierno Galvado caused the virtual annhilation of the PSOE in the Cortes. However, when he presented his resignation after blaming himself for the less, it was refused at once. The Socialist representatives and the Socialist voters stil trusted Tierno in spite of the catastrophe. Thus, he would try again in 1984.

    The elections of 1979 were the first with the new Cortes (from 265 seats to 282) and the Senado (from 170 seats to 105). It was an attempt aimed at better representing the nation while reducing the costs of the Parliament. However, both in Catalonia and the Basque Country the change was seen as an attempt to reduce their presence in the Cortes. Thus, when the nationalist Alianza Democrática vanished from the Spanish parliament after the elections of 1979, it placed into motion a process of change that would shake the country in a way unknown since the Revolution of November.

    Party
    Seats
    %+/-
    Partido Liberal (Garrigues Walker)147/28244.34+6
    Unión Socialdemócrata (Fernández Ordóñez)103/28232.45+8
    Partido Demócrata Español (López Rodó)32/28219.77+16
    Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Tierno Galván)0/2822.50
    Alianza Democrática (Tarradellas)0/2821,1-5
     
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    157. Second Garrigues Walker Ministry (1979-1984)
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    The Spain national team that won the European championship of 1984
    by defeating France (2-0)

    157. Second Garrigues Walker Ministry (1979-1984)

    The second tenure of Garrigues Walker was marked by his reforms and the troubled relations with Catalonia and the Basque Country. To this troubles, we mus also the two government shuffles (August 1982 and September 1983), a rare thing in Spanish politics, but a recurrent feature from then on. Until then, the ministers had never resigned or been replaced in block. Thus, Garrigues Walker opened a new age in The one thing that saved the prime minister from utter collapse by late 1983 was its uncanny popularity. Since he made an incredible recovery from a bout of leukemia, Garrigues Walker became the darling of the Spanish public opinion. especially young women. Eventually, his illness would forcing out of politics and he would not look reelection in 1984 due to this fact, dying a few weeks after the Genereal Elections of that year.

    In spite of his frail health, he fought vigorously to push his reforms forward and battled with all his might the Nationalist offensive. His dream of making Spain a "Free and Just Society" gave him unexpected strength, thus reinforcing his popular support. He also battled hard to expand the newly implemented universal health care and regional development programmes. His popularity rose to new hights when he visited Barcelona in September 1981, during the celebration of the National Day of Catalonia, the Diada (September 11) , somethig that was perceived as a provocation by the Catalan nationalists. Thus, when he moved forward to offer the traditional wreat to the monument of Rafael de Casanovas, he received a hard welcome, that included some bottles being thrown at him by some radical members of the Youth wing of ERC. However, Garrigues Walker refused any protection or to let someone else to carry ot the offering and did it himself, something that was, later that day, praised even by his political rivals both from the Left and the Catalan side.

    One his worst mistakes was to stall the Bilingual Reform that would have made Basque, Catalan and Galician the co-equal official languages of the federal government. His intention was to force the Basque and Catalan politicians to stand down in his blockade of Garrigues Walker's attempt reform of the regional governments to reinforce the powers of the national government. This only helped to worsen the relations with Catalonia and the Basque Country which were non-existent by late 1981. Even if he reversed his policy and pushed for the Reform in 1983, the damage was already done. Furthermore, he was viciously attacked by the Lopez Rodó and the Conservative as they claimed that his reform would put in disavantage the Castilian speakers in those regions. Furthermore, even if inflation was kept below 10% by the beginning of 1980, unemployment rose from 7.3% (March 1979) to 9.5% (March 1981). Unemployment was particularly bad in the north of Spain, mainly in the closing naval yards of Galicia, where nearly 20% of the adult population was out of work. Over the spring and summer of 1981, a wave of rioting broke out in that area, which came close to force Garrigues Walker to declare a state of emergency and deploy the army in an attempt to enforce order. Even if in the end this was not necesary, those were the darkest days of the second tenure of the Spanish prime minister. The winter of 1981-82 was a gloomy one in the UK: dominated by industrial unrest and government failures, it soon came to be known as the ‘Winter of Discontent.’ Thus would result in the cabinet shuffle of August 1982, when the ministers of Trade (Juan Antonio García Díez), Employment (Rafael Calvo Ortega) and Environment (José Enrique Martínez Genique) were fired by the prime minister. On June 1, 1983, the Spanish passed the "Ley para la Reforma Militar" (Military Reform Bill 1982). By 1983, the armed forces were to be transformed into a professional army without conscripts and the number of land troops was to be cut from the then standing of 400,000 to 150,000.

    The big failure of Garrigues Walker's second tenure was caused by his pragmatic approach to foreign politics. After the ultra-conservative wave that had enfulged South America in the eraly 70s that exploded in the Chilean coup d'etat of 1973, followed, three years later, by the Argentinian military takeover of 1976, Spain turned his back to those authoritarian regimes, in line with the British attitude, that hardened its stance towards these two countries and with South Africa after the bloody reprisals against the Durban strikes of 1973 and the Soweto Students Uprising of 1976, along with the misterious deaths of Steven Biko and Nelson Mandela. As Madrid moved closer to London and disregarded the diplomatic solutions proposed by the old members of the almost defunct Mancomunidad Hispana, the Spanish diplomatic relations with Latin America reached its lowest point since 1812, which would sink even more after Garrigues Walker supported Great Britain during the Falklands War (1983). The cabinet shuffle of September 1983, which included the first female minister in the history of Spain, saw three changes in Labour, Industry and Culture and the new faces of Santiago Rodríguez-Miranda, gnacio Bayón and Soledad Becerril. A few weeks later, the Decreto de Emergencia (Emergency Law) was passed on November 27. It gave the government the powers to implement by decree the measures necessary to stop hyperinflation. Then, on December 20, as it was expected, the new leader of the PDE, Jorge Vestrynge, presented a motion of no confidence against the cabinet. Even if it failed, as it was expected, it damaged the standing of Garrigues Walker for the incomming elections of 1984.

    To counter this, the government launched a wide range of progressive social reforms in the last bit of 1983. For instance, Joaquín Ruiz-Giménez was appointed Ombudsman, the first one in holding this office in Spain (1982-1987). Then, the Organic Law 9/1984 adopted on January 5, 1984, induced abortion was legalized in three cases: serious risk to physical or mental health of the pregnant woman, rape and malformations or defects, physical or mental, in the fetus. Eventually, abortion laws were further liberalized in 1995, to allow abortion on demand during the first trimester. Also, the Youth Welfare Act of 1984 obliged all municipalities and states to set up youth offices in charge of child protection, and also codified a right to education for all children. In 1984 a housing construction program was approved that, between 1984 and 1991, was to lead to the construction of over 2 million new homes and a further 195,000 modernised.
     
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    158. The General Elections of 1984
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    158. The General Elections of 1984

    The withdrawal from politics of Garrigues Walker plunged the Liberal Party into a crisis. When Óscar Alzaga was proposed as the new Liberal leader, it caused a split in the party as the social-liberal faction of the party lead by Adolfo Suárez left the party in protest for the conservative turn that Alzaga meant, creating a new party called Unión Social Centrista (USC - Center Social Union) which had a very short life (1984-1989). Thus, with Alzaga as its new leader, the Liberal Party underwent a series of immediate changes in an attempt to rebuild the Liberals' struggling reputation. However, the Liberal Party had lost favour with Catalan voters, and the latter developments had only worsened this process. Alzaga's Catalan tour was an attempt to rebuild support in that region, but it failed in an spectacular way, as the Liberals held only one seat for Catalonia.

    However, the Catalan (and Basque) disaffection did not mean a rise in voters for the USD. Fernández Ordoñez was hardly a charismatic leader and his campaign was no better. Thus, a great number of voters in those regions remained at home on election day, as it also happened in Andalucia and Aragon. When Alzaga reacted by trying to court moderate Catalan and Basque nationalists, it only succeeded in damaging his popular standing. Thus, Jorge Verstrynge's moderate program found wide support from the very beginning of the electoral campaign, as the polls reflected. To the surprise of many, the Progressive-Conservative party (that is, the new name of the former PDE) rose to become the second party of the country (at least on paper) as the Liberals plummeted and the USD hardly stood their ground. Soon it became a race between Verstrynge and Fernández Ordoñez as Alzaga was sidelined even by the press.

    However, Fernandez Ordoñez made several prominent gaffes and began to sound patronizing for many Leftish voters. Even more when he blamed the unemployed for losing their jobs, the USD began to lose steam fast in the polls, giving a chance to Alzaga to recover a lot of the ground lost. However, when the press published that Abril Martorell, the Treasury Ministry, had "gifted" the UGT trade union with 10 million pesetas, the scandal crushed Alzaga's chances. Thus, Alzaga's inability to overcome the alleged mistakes of his predecessor, combined with his own mistakes and the Abril Martorell scandal, resulted in a debacle for the Liberals. They lost over a third of their popular vote from 1979, falling from 44 percent to 28 percent. Their seat count fell from 147 (135 after the split) to barely 50, the worst defeat of a sitting government in Spanish history at the time.

    On his part, Verstrynge made a fine use of his enemy's mistakes and won even more votes by denouncing alleged corruption in the Liberal government, which resulted in a major windfall for Alzaga, as we have seen. Thus, the Progressive-Conservative had its better result in history when they won 181 seats. They won both a majority of seats and the popular vote in every region, thanks to the low participation. However, the Progressive-Conservative remained a minor force in both Catalonia and the Basque Country. This result was favoured by an unexpected event: the utter disaster of the USD, which fell down to 30 seats.

    Meanwhile, the return of Alianza Democrática, now under the leadership of Miquel Roca, which entered the Cortes with 20 seats, spelt hard times for the government while it's "Progressive-Conservative" stance would be the source of endless jokes and witticisms in the press and in the streets.


    Party
    Seats
    %+/-
    Partido Demócrata Español (Versytrnge)181/24245.03+149
    Partido Liberal (Garrigues Walker)50/28228.02-97
    Unión Socialdemócrata (Fernández Ordóñez)30/28218.81-73
    Alianza Democrática (Tarradellas)20/2827,50+20
    Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Tierno Galván)1/2820.9+1
     
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    158. First Verstrynge Ministry (1984-1988)
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    Prime Minister Verstrynge and his Anglophile
    Foreign Minister, Manuel Fraga.

    158. First Verstrynge Ministry (1984-1988)

    The Conservative impressive victory seemed to give Verstrynge a very formidable position, even more if we keep in mind the small role played by the Conservatives in their several “reincarnations” since the 1920s. On paper, Verstrynge‘s position was such that he could lead Spain in the way he wanted. However, in real terms, his power relied on a shaky alliance that was only united by their common will to recover Spain from the hands of the Liberal and the Left parties. In fact, in spite of naming itself Progressive-Conservative Party, the PCP was de facto a loose federation that amalgamated Right wing Reformists like Manuel Fraga, Center-right liberal like Juan Antonio Samaranch (1), Francisco Queipo de Llano y Acuña (2), Carlos Larrañaga (3), Fernando Dancausa (4). It’s Navarrese and Catalan sections, led by José Ignacio Palacios Zuasti and Manuel Millán Mestre, were highly critical towards Verstrynge (and the PCP)’s policies towards the Basque Country, Galicia, Catalonia and Navarre and, eventually, Millán Mestre would break with the party in 1989 (5). Furthemore, he was pressured by the Catalan politicians (like Miquel Roca) and businessmen (Iike Jordi Pujol) that, even if not formally allied with the PCP, had campaigned for the party in Catalonia.

    Aware of the support he had received in the two Castiles and Extremadura had been critical for his electoral victory, he appealed to those regions for more support with the Programa Nacional de Reformas de 1986 (PNE’86 – National Reform Program of 1986), which included a huge investment in the infrastructure of those regions and included some politicians from those regions in his cabinet. However, his success was not as big as he expected as the Liberals had a large majority in the Senate due to his long tenure in power and, in addition to this, his ministers had little government experience, which resulted in a series of embarrassing conflicts of interest that led to several scandals. Many Spanish businessmen expected patronage from the government once the Conservatives were again in power, and Verstrynge was, without a shred of doubt, aware of this. Thus, he and his ministers made several mistakes related with that patronage that found wide coverage by the national press.

    He also came under fire when his vaunted anti-deficit policies backfired, when, in his first term, the annual deficit increased 20% (1984-1989). Also, his bad relations with the Generalitat and his criticism of the cultural policies of the Catalan government also helped to greatly incense not only the Catalan nationalists but even the more moderate Catalan voters. This was sorely noted by the PCP when, in the Catalan elections of 1988, his seats in the Catalan Parliament went from 14 that the party won in 1984 to barely 5. When he pushed ahead in 1986 with his great electoral promise, a Constitutional reform to reduce the power of the local governments in 1986, he saw his way blocked by the stern refusal of the Catalan, Basque, Navarrese, Galician, Andalusian and Valencian governments to even discuss the topic. As the issue stalled in the Cortes and the PCP suffered heavily in the local elections which took place from 1986 to 1988, Verstrynge saw his hand forced and, eventually, he agreed to devolve some powers in 1987 and to recognize the “special” state of Basque, Galician and Catalans within Spain. However, the opposition of the more conservative wings of the PCP and the Liberals saw this reform frozen until 1992 and sparked a revival of Catalan and Basque separatism.

    His program of privatization of several public corporations and agencies led to the bigger wave of strikes (from 1986 to 1989) that Spain had seen since the 1920s. SEAT (6), ENASA (7) and Trasatlántica (8) y Viajes Marsans (9) were the big names of that privatization policy that gave 2,000,000 million pesetas to the State. This program included non-profitable and profitable companies as well, and it was perceived as a mere program to collect money for the State. Even if Verstrynge stated over and over again that this measure was needed to fight the huge national deficit, his statements found little support and only angered more the already furious strikers. This privatization policy was mingled by a botched attempt to issue environmental protection laws that damaged the standing of the Spanish “Green” ideas as they were linked to the destruction of jobs that took place with the privatization all around Spain, even if this resulted in the Ley de Protección Medioambiental de 1987 (Environmental Protection Act 1987)

    In foreign matters, Verstrynge placed his government at odd with both the United Kingdom and the United States in their foreign policy towards Africa, Asia and Central America (which he termed as “old-fashioned colonialism”), but this won him international respect and he joined Brian Mulroney’s relief program for Ethiopia in response to the 1984 famine. His trade negotiations with No 10 put him in a difficult position as the Liberals blocked the Anglo-Spanish Trade Agreement of 1986, which would become a capital issue in the electoral campaign of 1988. Ironically, Verstrynge found two staunch supporters in the Basque and Catalan presidents, the Socialist Lehendakari, Ramón Jauregi, and the Catalan Conservative Liberal President, Macià Alavedra, who supported Verstrynge as their regions were to reap huge benefits from the agreement.








    1 OTL Spanish sport administrator under Franco (1973-1977) and the 7th President of the International Olympic Committee (1980-2001)
    2 OTL Francoist governor of Palencia (1964-1966) and Navarre (1966-1969)
    3 OTL An Spanish actor that, somehow, became part of OTL PCP
    4 OTL Major of Burgos (1965-1973) and member of the Francoist Cortes (1960-1977)
    5 IOTL 2014, Millán Mestre said in an interview that he regretted his time in the PP, and blamed the Populars for all the political ills of Spain and their anti-Catalan strategies. Keep in mind, though, that Millán Mestre is hardly a Catalan nationalist politician.
    (6) IOTL a Spanish state owned industrial holding company that became the largest supplier of cars in Spain. In 1986 it was sold to the German Volskwagen group by the PSOE.
    (7) IOTL a Spanish vehicle manufacturing company controlled by the state which was sold to IVECO by the PSOE in 1990
    (8) IOTL The Compañía Transatlántica Española SA, also known as the Spanish Line in English, was an ocean line company that was privatized by the PSOE in 1994. It must be said that this company was hardly a shadow of its former shelf.
    (9) IOTL a very important consortium dedicated to tour operations which was privatized in 1985.
     
    159. The Death of a Giant: China (1970-1985)
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    159. The Death of a Giant: China (1970-1985)

    The Tet Offensive of 1970 (January-March) changed the course of the war, but not as Chiang Kai-shek had hoped. More than 80,000 PAVN/VC troops struck more than 100 towns and cities, including 36 of 44 provincial capitals, five of the six autonomous cities, 72 of 245 district towns, and the southern capital. The offensive was the largest military operation conducted by either side up to that point in the war. Hanoi had launched the offensive in the belief that it would trigger a popular uprising leading to the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. Although the initial attacks stunned the allies and even took control of several cities temporarily, the popular uprisisng did not took place and the ARVN/US forces beat back the attacks, and inflicted heavy casualties on PAVN/VC forces. Both sides were shocked, as both Washington, Hanoi and Peking believed that their rivals were on the brink of defeat. Thus, when the United States sought negotiations to end the war, Chiang pressed Lê Duẩn to negotiate. The North Vietnamese premier was also worried by the dwindling support of the Communist block and feared that China would abandon him. Thus, he grabbed the opportunity with both hands. The resulting Paris Peace Accords took three years of hard negotiations that ended on January 27, 1973. One of its main consequences were the Cambodian civil war (1973-1978), which ended with the victory of the Khmer Rouge and the rise of an US-sponsored anticommunist guerrilla. Initially, President Reagan attempted to work with the anti-Communist forces in 1979 and 1980, but it would not be until 1981 when an anti-Communist movement began to be formed along the border with Sotuh Vietnam. Many of the initial Contras were former members of the Sihanouk regime and many were still loyal to him, who was living in exile in France. It would be the beginning of a long war that would last to 1985, until the Bangok Peace Agreement, an initiative in the mid-1980s to settle the military conflicts that had plagued Birmania, Laos and Cambodia for many years and which would lead to the first free democratic elections in Cambodia, which took place in 1990.

    Chiang Kai shek would not live to see that. His death (April 5 1975) was the cause of a great instability in China as his sucessor, his son Chiang Ching kuo proved to be unable to keep the reigns of power in his hands and was eventually forced to open a process of democratization of the country that led to the first elections of 1977, which were won by the Socialist Party led by Hu Cheng. It was to be a short-lived democracy. As the economy was still stagnant in the summer of 1978 and most of the economic reforms were being blocked by the Right-Center coalition led by Chen Cheng, who was afraid of any leftwards movements, which led to riots in the streets as the Armed Forces lost fast their trust in Cheng, as well as a great part of the Chinese population. The new Constitution of 1979 implemente the federalization of China and the Socialist government began to talk a program of economic reform when the tanks rolled onto the streets of Beijing and the main Chinese cities on June 25, 1979. It was a surprise to no one, but for, of course, Cheng and his government. The military coup led by Admiral Song Chang-chih took control of the Beijing after and after a week of confuse combats that left thousands dead. By autumn, it was over. Song had secured the country but, to the surprise of many, his seizure of power was not followed by mass murders, mass flights and no mass atrocities. In fact there were only a few hundred extrajudicial murders as the opposition, who had made a superb show of discipline during the electoral campaign, melted, quite understably, in the face of tanks and airplanes. On June 28, Song appeared on the television in a message broadcasted to the nation, announcing the formation of a civilian caretaker government and the drafting of a new constitution would be drafted. Order would be kept by the Armed Forces. There was not a single word refering to new elections.

    The "caretaker government" would remain in place until 1985. It was led by Hsu Ching-chung and had to rule a country which underwent a severe economic depression, broken consensus, a somewhat placated but still wary military watching over him, and a population that was alternately traumatized, depressed and angry Russia and India still kept troops in high readiness at the borders. Hsu's legacy is seen today as very mixed and complex one: even if he remained silent about the coup and the excesses that followed, he revived democracy with the 1980 general election -even if tehre were no Left parties and the main parlamentarian force was the Kuomintang-. He gradully worked for a democratization of China, pushing for younger and more loyal officers rising up the ladder. The 1980 Constitution turned China into a semiunicameral parliamentary republic with a Prime Minister with ample powers that needed to be approved of by an elected Congress. Plenty of freedoms were recognized, but the Prime Minister had to power of suspending them all by decree. All political parties going against "national values” were banned.

    As the 80's went on, China was more and more isolated, even if diplomatic relations with Britain and began to warm up in 1982 and with the United States in 1984, who gave Hsu the weaponry and the technology to modernize the Armed Forces and to keep the top ranks quiet while he replaced the older generals with younger, less politically motivated and more professional men. In spite of this success, Hsu was despised by the Chinese population, who saw his as the illegitimate leader of an illegitimate regime.
     
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