I like the idea of Bush being the second longest serving President. Hope that does happen.
Blue Skies in Camelot: An Alternate 60's and Beyond
- Thread starter President_Lincoln
- Start date
More like the fact that he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. But he could be thinking that as well.
Funny story about that picture: when I was doing a DC internship back in 2015, I was at a National Press Club event where the original photographer spoke. Said photographer, just after having realized the picture he had taken, decided he wanted to preserve the moment. He did this by saying, "Hey George!"
Wee question about Argentina here, how stable are they here? If doing better than OTL, this might be a chance as they are hosting the world cup here, we might see an expanded tournament from 16 to 24 teams as demonstrated in this excellent football TL. 
Might be an idea to include later on.
Might be an idea to include later on.
Wee question about Argentina here, how stable are they here? If doing better than OTL, this might be a chance as they are hosting the world cup here, we might see an expanded tournament from 16 to 24 teams as demonstrated in this excellent football TL.
Might be an idea to include later on.
That's a great idea, @QTXAdsy!
Argentina is in a similarly rough spot ITTL as it was IOTL. President Isabel Martinez de Peron is (as per OTL) being strongly advised by the country's minister of Social Welfare, Jose Lopez Rega, a right-wing authoritarian, who is advising her to increasingly curtail civil liberties in the name of "combating leftist influence". American President Bush has expressed his dislike of Rega's policies in press conferences, but he and Secretary George Schultz at the State Department have invested few resources in actively combating Rega's influence in the country. With strong U.S. allies in Brazil, Venezuela, and Chile, Argentina's fate is not seen as such a high diplomatic priority at the moment, especially when compared to the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Hopefully President Peron can either step aside in favor of a stronger leader, who surround herself with advisers who are less destructive than Rega, but only time will tell if this can be the case.
Chapter 92
Chapter 92: Fight the Power - Freedom Comes to Iberia
Above: Portuguese soldiers participating in the bloodless overthrow of the Estado Novo Regime in Lisbon on April 25th, 1974 (left); The funeral of Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco (right).
As 1974 dawned over the Iberian Peninsula, the sheer weight of nearly a half century of totalitarian rule weighed heavily on the people of Portugal. After a coup-d'etat back in May of 1926, the country was placed under the role of an authoritarian government founded on integralism and social Catholicism to repress the masses. In 1933, the regime was reshuffled, made more fascistic and nationalistic in nature and named “the new state” or “Estado Novo”. Antonio de Oliveira Salazar was Prime Minister of the nation for decades until his eventual death in 1968, and by ‘74, the new PM in his stead, Marcello Caetano, was having difficulty managing the affairs of the nation. Due to its fierce anti-communist stance, the Estado Novo regime was initially tolerated by its fellow NATO members, including the United States of America. Elections were rarely contested, and when they were, the Opposition prefered to use the election period to protest, then withdraw the names of their candidates so as not to lend legitimacy to the regime’s hand picked and predetermined winners. As a result of these tactics, Portugal was not popular in the international community and the regime’s relationship with its supposed allies began to change with the election of American President John F. Kennedy in 1960. A staunch champion of liberal democracy throughout the world, JFK considered the Estado Novo regime to be “among the authoritarian world’s most repugnant practitioners ” and he began to distance the United States from Portugal diplomatically. The Kennedy State Department threatened to encourage independence movements in Portuguese colonies if the Estado Novo regime aided Rhodesian insurgents during the United Kingdom’s war there in 1967, and as he prepared to leave office in the first month of ‘69, Kennedy called on the people of Portugal to demand greater freedoms and their own self-determination.
Protests and civil unrest grew in Portugal throughout the late 60’s and early 70’s in the wake of Kennedy’s call to arms. Rather than fleeing the country to avoid conscription, possible imprisonment, and even torture, left-wing activists and student protesters instead rallied around JFK’s sentiment and began to develop an underground movement to actively oppose the regime at every turn. Portuguese Academia, which had for decades preached unwavering loyalty to and support of the Portuguese colonial empire, found itself increasingly challenged and delegitimized. This was only the beginning of the regime’s problems, however. The clunky, bloated corporatist economics employed by the regime, as well as the decades long colonial wars putting down nationalist insurgents in the colonies had begun to severely dry out government coffers in Lisbon. As the world economy took a turn for the worse in the early 70’s, foreign aid from the west was virtually nonexistent, and the calls for change, reform, and freedom grew louder and louder.
In February of 1974, Prime Minister Caetano decided to remove General Antonio de Spinola from the Presidency, as punishment for Spinola’s growing discontent over the promotion of military officers and the direction of Portuguese colonial policy. Following this controversial and unpopular act, several prominent and high-ranking military officers who were opposed to the Portuguese Colonial War formed the MFA, a clandestine revolutionary brotherhood, to overthrow Caetano’s government in a military coup. Headed by several figures, but especially Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, the movement was aided by other officers who supported the former President Spinola or wanted democratic civil and military reforms. The coup had two secret signals for initiation triggers. The first was the 10:55 pm airing of Paulo de Carvalho's "E Depois do Adeus", Portugal’s 1974 Eurovision Contest entry, on Emissores Associados de Lisbon. This alerted the rebel captains and soldiers to begin the coup. The second signal came on April 25th, 1974 at 12:20 am, when Rádio Renascença broadcast "Grândola, Vila Morena", a song by Zeca Afonso, a popular political folk singer who was banned from Portuguese radio at the time by the Estado Novo regime. At the time of the signals, the MFA ordered their allies in the military to seize points of strategic importance, and effectively neuter the regime’s ability to fight back. It was a massive, total success.
Six hours later, the Caetano government relented. Despite repeated radio appeals from the "captains of April" (the MFA) advising the population to stay in their homes for their own safety, thousands of Portuguese citizens took to the streets – mingling with, and celebrating with, the military insurgents. A central gathering point was the Lisbon flower market, then richly stocked with carnations, which happened to be in season at the time. Some of the insurgents put carnations in the soldiers’ gun barrels, an image broadcast on television worldwide and would thereafter give the largely bloodless revolution its distinctive name. The entire event was watched closely by the neighboring Spanish State, who were beginning to plan the succession of dictator Francisco Franco, who was in critically failing health. In order to prevent another junta or authoritarian regime from taking power, the new government led by the MFA called for general elections to be held by April of 1975. Some of the officers who were given newly minted positions of power were reluctant to potentially be voted out and so called for a “transition period” before full democracy could be instituted. The threat of a popular communist-backed uprising occurring if moderate, democratic reforms were not instituted however, was enough to get these officers to change their tune and endorse the elections. Portugal’s first free election in decades was finally held on April 25th, 1975, to write a new constitution to replace the Estado Novo one of 1933. A second election was held that November, and the country’s first constitutional government, a centre-left coalition headed by Socialist Mario Soares was swept into office in a landslide. Soares’ new government spent the remainder of 1975 establishing order and trust in the new public institutions, as well as passing a series of laws guaranteeing freedom of speech, assembly, and the press. Freedom was ringing once more in Lisbon, and the people rejoiced.
…
By most working definitions, a ghost is a being whose spirit has lingered on this Earth long after it should have. Its physical companions are gone, dead, buried beneath the rubble of history, and yet they persist, they hang over the rest of the living like a phantom, unable to rest and depart for where they belong. According to these definitions, Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his regime in Spain definitely fit the bill of being ghosts. They were spectres of a bygone era, when strong-men and dictators freely dominated much of continental Europe - when the free world and the communist one stood united against a dark, authoritarian common enemy. Though Franco did not aim to create a purely ideologically fascist state as Hitler and Mussolini did before him, he did turn Spain into a right-wing nightmare, with his bizarre trappings of monarchism and religious conservatism being both malleable and situational, key justifications for his iron fisted rule. For nearly four decades, Franco was synonymous with Spain’s government. He was the country’s head of state, its Prime Minister, commander in chief of the armed forces, and the cult of personality that justified, explained, and surrounded almost forty years of unjust rule. The Cold War world had almost moved on too fast for Spain to keep up. While most nations were concerned with an increasingly hostile struggle between capitalism and communism, Spain was clinging to a mostly abandoned “third way” that was ever more untenable. Foreign trade was practically nonexistent, as most countries significantly distanced themselves from Franco’s brutalistic regime. Spain hadn’t even been invited to join the United Nations until 1955. And despite Franco’s continued staunch opposition to communism, even the western bloc had largely ignored him, with the U.S., UK and their allies holding little for the dictator but contempt. Here was the man who had allowed the travesty at Guernica. Here was the man behind countless massacres on leftists, the man who had been opposed by the heroic freedom fighters and volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln brigade and internationale battalions, he was a bona fide political monster. And yet, he was just, at the end of the day, a mortal man. And as the adage goes, all men must die. Franco knew his time was nearing by 1975, and he began to make arrangements for his succession.
The Generalissimo decided a decade before to name a monarch to succeed his legacy. However, simmering tensions between the Carlists and Alfonsists from forty years before persisted, much to Franco’s chagrin. In a bid to avoid a repeat of the Carlist Wars, Franco offered the throne to the Archduke Otto von Habsburg. In doing so, Franco believed that he could eliminate the question of the Bourbon succession entirely since the Habsburg Family had ruled Spain in its Golden Age, and had a claim to the Spanish throne from before the War of the Spanish Succession. A wrench was thrown into his plans however, when Archduke Otto declined, citing his belief that he would be a “German ruling Spain” and would be unable to shake his Austrian heritage. Thereafter, in 1969 Franco nominated Prince Juan Carlos de Borbon, who had been educated by him in Spain, to be his heir apparent, granting him the new title “Crown Prince of Spain”. This nomination came as a shock to the Carlist pretender to the throne, as well as to Prince Juan Carlos’ own father, Don Juan, the Count of Barcelona, who had a superior claim to the throne, but Franco feared would be too liberal. The dictator then began to prepare the young prince for leadership, and by 1973, Franco had surrendered the position of Prime Minister, continuing to serve only as head of state and commander in chief of the military. Throughout Franco’s final years, tensions and conflict between disparate factions of the government started to consume Spanish public life, as the various political groups jockeyed for power and position to influence the nation’s future after Franco’s inevitable demise. The Assassination of Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco on December 20th, 1973, and the Carnation Revolution in neighboring Portugal in April, 1974 both finally gave an edge to the liberalizing faction. In July of 1974, the Generalissimo fell ill from his various health problems, leading Prince Juan Carlos to take the reins as acting head of state. Though he would go through illnesses of varying severity over the next several years, Franco would never again take power from Juan Carlos. The dictator made his final public appearance on October 1st, 1975, giving a weak, shrill-voiced speech from the balcony of the Royal Palace in Madrid. By the end of the month, he fell into a coma, and his family made the decision to take him off of life support. Franco officially died on November 20th, the same date as the death of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Falange. The Generalissimo was 82 years old. Franco’s body would be interred in the Valle de los Caídos, a colossal memorial built by thousands of political prisoners through forced labor to honor the casualties of the Nationalist side of the Spanish Civil War. His funeral was attended by Prince Rainier III of Monaco, but no other world leaders, due to his poor reputation abroad. U.S. President George Bush, when asked about his passing by reporters during a press conference, called Franco’s passing “a blessing for the people of Spain and believers in freedom all over the world.” Immediately following Franco’s death, the Monarchy was restored in accordance with his will, and the Prince was crowned King Juan Carlos I of Spain.
The King’s accession was met with little to no opposition in the houses of parliament, though some particularly right wing politicians were disappointed, then outraged when they learned that the Monarch was insistent on charging ahead with his democratization policies. First, Juan Carlos removed Prime Minister Carlos Arias Navarro, a devout Francoist nationalist, from power and replaced him with known liberal reformer Adolfo Suarez, who would thereafter go on to win the first constitutionally sanctioned democratic elections since the 1930’s in Spain and become the new Constitutional Monarchy’s first democratically elected leader. Suarez’s premiership brought sweeping changes to Spanish political life, allowing for freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and even the legalization of the socialist and communist parties, something which would have been thought impossible in even the very recent past. Juan Carlos’ father, the Don Juan of Barcelona further helped to secure his son’s legitimacy and national stability when he officially renounced any claim to the Spanish throne and recognized his son as the one true head of the Spanish royal family. The Spanish people loved their King and he became renowned the world over for his restraint, humility, and for stepping aside from the chance at absolute power and choosing instead to hand that power back over to the people of his country. Though virtually unknown at the time of his appointment by the King, the young, handsome, charismatic Prime Minister Juarez would, with the help of the King, make Spain a free, democratic nation, ripe for economic development and rapprochement with the rest of the world once more. Juarez carefully navigated Spain’s partisan politics by governing decidedly as a centrist and would eventually be raised to nobility for his efforts.
Next Time on Blue Skies in Camelot: Vice President Reagan, the CIA, Left-Wing Terror, and Aid for New York City
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Not familiar with Spain or parts of Latin America, but, great update. Many of these are the same as OTL, if I'm not mistakin.
Great update. Really like learning about Spain and that they now have a king. The title for your next update has me really excited.
Nice to see that Spain and Portugal threw out their dictators and that Spain is now a democracy...
The assassination of Admiral Blanco has been seen as "the only good thing the ETA ever did" in the eyes of many people in Spain; BTW, here's a Cracked article that discusses how the assassination was pulled off: https://www.cracked.com/article_20033_5-ridiculous-assassination-plots-that-actually-worked.html. The fact that the ETA (which were a Basque separatist group that formed as a response to Franco's repression) managed to pull it off was amazing, considering all the blunders that happened (this would probably make a good Coen brothers movie), such as having to pose as art students (and were smuggling explosives, which ain't art supplies), not being good at constructing tunnels (until they read a manual), the fact that one of the commandoes was claustrophobic (which is not a good idea when you're constructing a freaking tunnel), and they were battling sewage-contaminated soil and noxious gasses (which affected their health). The fact that they managed to create an explosion large enough to flip Carrero Blanco's car over a five-story church is amazing, IMO (1).
BTW, this eliminated Blanco as Franco's successor and caused him to appoint Juan Carlos, who basically restored Spanish democracy (that's why many Spaniards think that was the only good thing the ETA did; a lot of people in Spain hated the repressive regime in Spain). BTW, I'm surprised you didn't end the Spanish update with "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.", which was one of Saturday Night Live's best bits in the first season (which is saying something, considering that SNL's first season (2) had many funny bits)…
The song "Fight the Power" was sung by the Isley Brothers and released on May 31, 1975, so congrats for continuing the pattern, @President_Lincoln, and waiting for more, of course...
(1) Blanco has one of the more spectacular demises for an assassination victim on record...
(2) In its first season, it was called NBC's Saturday Night, so as not to compete with the show Saturday Night Live With Howard Cosell (which, interestingly enough, featured a crew of comedy performers known as The Prime Time Players, consisting of Bill Murray, Bryan Doyle-Murray, and Christopher Guest; in response, Saturday Night called its performers, famously, the Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time-Players. Interestingly, all three appeared on NBC's Saturday Night Live after Saturday Night Live With Howard Cosell was canceled; Bill Murray replaced Chevy Chase).
The assassination of Admiral Blanco has been seen as "the only good thing the ETA ever did" in the eyes of many people in Spain; BTW, here's a Cracked article that discusses how the assassination was pulled off: https://www.cracked.com/article_20033_5-ridiculous-assassination-plots-that-actually-worked.html. The fact that the ETA (which were a Basque separatist group that formed as a response to Franco's repression) managed to pull it off was amazing, considering all the blunders that happened (this would probably make a good Coen brothers movie), such as having to pose as art students (and were smuggling explosives, which ain't art supplies), not being good at constructing tunnels (until they read a manual), the fact that one of the commandoes was claustrophobic (which is not a good idea when you're constructing a freaking tunnel), and they were battling sewage-contaminated soil and noxious gasses (which affected their health). The fact that they managed to create an explosion large enough to flip Carrero Blanco's car over a five-story church is amazing, IMO (1).
BTW, this eliminated Blanco as Franco's successor and caused him to appoint Juan Carlos, who basically restored Spanish democracy (that's why many Spaniards think that was the only good thing the ETA did; a lot of people in Spain hated the repressive regime in Spain). BTW, I'm surprised you didn't end the Spanish update with "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.", which was one of Saturday Night Live's best bits in the first season (which is saying something, considering that SNL's first season (2) had many funny bits)…
The song "Fight the Power" was sung by the Isley Brothers and released on May 31, 1975, so congrats for continuing the pattern, @President_Lincoln, and waiting for more, of course...
(1) Blanco has one of the more spectacular demises for an assassination victim on record...
(2) In its first season, it was called NBC's Saturday Night, so as not to compete with the show Saturday Night Live With Howard Cosell (which, interestingly enough, featured a crew of comedy performers known as The Prime Time Players, consisting of Bill Murray, Bryan Doyle-Murray, and Christopher Guest; in response, Saturday Night called its performers, famously, the Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time-Players. Interestingly, all three appeared on NBC's Saturday Night Live after Saturday Night Live With Howard Cosell was canceled; Bill Murray replaced Chevy Chase).
You're right about the ETA thing, that does have the makings of a movie.
Very nice update @President_Lincoln seems a sunnier future in the Peninsula can happen. Hope their economies pick up.
Is there any movements for regional independence or autonomy at this time in Spain- Catalonia, Bask etc?
Is there any movements for regional independence or autonomy at this time in Spain- Catalonia, Bask etc?
Nice to see a bloodless revolution, once in a while. Also, I wonder how King Juan Carlos will deal with TTL's different international political climate.