Chapter LXII:
Generalissimo Franco is Still Dead
“...by 1971, people were questioning whether Buddy Holly had lost his edge or not, and whether his “New York School” would even survive the winter. One must remember that this was some weeks before Bob Dylan came with Nero’s Neptune, ending his second experimental wave and starting the Sync-rock Movement...
...The second boon of 1971 came when Brian Wilson and Bill Blythe, who had left the Weathermen on December of 1970, formed the Weather Underground with the Fogerty brothers, John and Tom, thus gutting the last remnants of the Second Wave and the Psychedelic of the 1960s and bringing more men to the new Sync movement that the New York Project was starting in the 1970s, perhaps one of the last and best known Gambles of Buddy Holly’s career, and one that would prove to pay off very well, starting with the arrival of John Lennon and his 1970s group, the Watchmen to New York, which they’d make their home for 16 years...”
[
Taken from…A History of Rock: 1958-1968 by D. Blanchette and M. Marion, Ed. Lune 1998 ]
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“...We were all keeping an eye on the French elections that year, everyone silently rooting for Mitterrand. It had become a custom for us to check on foreign affairs and root for the ‘good guys’, especially under the watchdogs’ nose. Had they known how many of us were now, especially if we had to compare to how many of us were in 1967, there would have been some real panic in the Ministry of Defence. For the past ten years we had seen how the world moved on without us. First Argentina, where the students and the workers finally reclaimed their place in the world and brought about real change, a real revolution; then in France, Mexico, Czechoslovakia, even in the United States, but Spain was always an immovable rock, isolated in the sea of time.
A Few of us had said enough in 1967, and we tried to rally against the forces of oppression like they had done in France and Mexico, like it had been done in Argentina in ’64, but nobody cared. Everybody had it ‘too good.’ The people didn’t want revolution, they didn’t want change: they wanted a Seat in the parkway and a nice holiday in the sunny beaches of the Baleares or Valencia. “That looks nice” the entire nation thought as they watched Argentina and Mexico throw away the shackles of oppression “we should have something like that...some day.”
Well, the day was right there and then. The Argentineans had kicked their generalissimo ten years ago, Willy Brandt had kicked the crooked Conservatives out in 69 and Jenkins had done the same in Britain in ’72. And then on that glorious morning of May we heard it: Mitterrand had won. Seven years later, and the men and women that took the streets on May of 1967 had won” [1]
[
Spain: 1967-1987: Memories of the Spanish Transition and the Road to Democracy]
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MATHIAS CALLS AMERICA TO CROSS THE NEW FRONTIER
California Governor and Republican Presidential nominee, Robert Mathias has today in a rally in his home state called American Citizens to forget the old party politics, left aside all differences and walk to the future together. His appeal to forget old party politics has been considered a direct reference to his opponent, Massachusetts Senator and former Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Robert Kennedy, who many portrait a symbol of the old Democratic Party apparatus and a typical Washington insider…[2]
[Taken from…The Washington Post, September of 1976]
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“The news of Franco’s’ dead took most of us by surprise. Some in my family even wept in joy. We were all ecstatic, but as we would soon learn, the dead of one man, even the most powerful man in Spain is not enough to bring down a corrupt and oppressive structure. Structures, institutions, bureaucracies, those are more stronger than the people that build them, and we’d have to learn that very painful lesson in that very year”
[
Spain: 1967-1987: Memories of the Spanish Transition and the Road to Democracy]
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VIETNAMESE PRESIDENT DIEM ASSASSINATED
Ngo Dinh Diem, President of the South Vietnamese Republic, was today assassinated in the Vietnamese capital of Saigon, as the Presidential motorcade was bombed by unknown party or parties. Although the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Vietnam is suspected, others have put the blame on former Vietcong elements or even dissident Buddhist organizations, victims of Diem’s fiercely anti-Buddhist policies for the past 20 years. [3]
[
Taken from…the New York Times, April of 1974]
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“Perhaps we shouldn’t have rejected the first
Aperturismo when they offered it to us in the 60s, I don’t know. We all thought that with Franco dead, the people would take the streets in celebration and bring about a revolution; I don’t know what we were thinking. We had seen Peron fall in Argentina; we thought it was a pretty good model: crooked military dictatorship ruled by war criminals, strong opposition in exile and a determined youth on the inside. We should have looked at Mexico instead. If one cog breaks down, it’s replaced and the machine keeps going.
Thankfully there were enough moderates with the King that year to stop Madrid from turning into a battlefield. The unions were disorganized or they didn’t care, the Student organizations were equally disorganized and lacked both a real purpose and course of action. Many of us ended up in prison for the better part of that year and the reactionaries within the Bunker [4] used this as a proof to convince the King that reforms were dangerous; Bastards.
The thing really got serious near Christmas, when ETA decided to try and up the ante by murdering General Jaime Milans de Bosch in Madrid, with collaboration of the Maoists and other small group I don’t remember now. What a stupid thing to do…
[
Spain: 1967-1987: Memories of the Spanish Transition and the Road to Democracy]
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W. Cronkite: Now, Mr. Rusk, can you assure us beyond the shadow of a doubt that this administration had nothing to do with the events in South Vietnam?
Rusk: Walter, I can swear to you that this government has not had any interest in that country since the Knowland Administration. President Mansfield is a firm believer in the principle that this country should bring democracy to the world, not spread tyranny.
W. Cronkite: yes, the Mansfield Doctrine, but even then, given the disaster following the assassination of Diem and the attempted coup by his brother, do you think that such a dangerous situation should be left to evolve on its own?
Rusk: that is the best that we can do, yes. This administration will never, ever, recognize Ngo Dinh Nhu or the Can Lao Party. Both are dangerous and anti-democratic influences in South Vietnam and the Region, even more so than North Vietnam was in the 1960s.[5]
W. Cronkite: Do you anticipate a diplomatic solution to the South Vietnamese civil war? Both France and the People’s Republic of China have offered to mediate.
Rusk: we can only hope that peace can be restored before this situation is out of control. Neither the forces of Ngo Dinh Nhu or the Military Junta that sought to replace Diem represent the type of democratic government that the People of South Vietnam deserve or need. This new civil war threatens to be even bloodier than the one in the 1960s, even without our intervention, and we cannot guarantee that North Vietnam or China will not interfere.
[
Interview with Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, Dean Rusk, November of 1974]
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RUPTURA O REVOLUCION
BASTA DE SABLAZOS
TRABAJADORES DE ESPAÑA LEVANTAOS
EL GENERALISIMO FRANCO SIGUE MUERTO [6]
These were some of the graffiti that covered the walls of Madrid, Barcelona, Cadiz, Santiago de Compostela, La Coruña, Bilbao, Ciudad Real and several other cities were a radicalized student movement was finally being coordinated by the exiled Socialist and Communist exiled leaderships. The change of course did not come without a fight, this time between those that stood with the King’s Moderate Government and believed in a slow but continued process of democratic reform with the base of the existing institutions, and those who wanted a direct rupture with the entirety of the Francoist Government, power structures and the last 40 years of history.
Between 1975 and 1981 three major groups operated in terror activities on Spanish Soil: the ETA, representing the Basque Nationalist Movement, the New Left, representing a radicalized Socialism and Communist movement through groups such as GRAPO, FARAF and VAJAR[7] amongst others; and those representing the Far Right, as Francoist or neo-Francoist groups set up and run by the Intelligence services of the Armed Forces and Government.
Kidnappings, bombings, political assassinations were the common currency of such groups, and once ETA and the New Left groups began to cooperate in increasingly violent attacks in the aftermath of the death of General Franco and General Milans de Bosch, the Intelligence Services funneled even more money and weapons to their own groups, which could do the dirty job without implying the police or the Armed Forces in terrorist activities.
[
Taken from…Construyendo la España Moderna: crónica de la Nación en el Siglo XX]
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STANFIELD REELECTED; RED TORIES EXPAND MAJORITY
Prime Minister Robert Stanfield has today surprised most of the country’s political experts, voters and perhaps himself, achieving an unexpected victory over Trudeau’s Liberals, the second in four years, by a margin of 400,000 votes and 45 seats. Despite the lingering effects of the 1975 recession and Oil Shock, and several polls and studies that showed Trudeau as the clear favorite, Prime Minister Stanfield and his Red Tories’ performance in this election has…
[
Taken from…the Globe and Post, October of 1977]
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“…and now, listeners, one of my old favorites from the 70s, from a man you’ll sure remember: Mr. John Lennon, and his band, the Watchmen, with the 1973 hit: Revolution on Third Street…”
[
WAAL radio Broadcast, August of 2002]
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“…I still think it was the fascists the one who did it, the bastards tried to pin it on us. Trying to kill Suarez and Fraga was far from the purposes or methods of the Maoists or ETA, even if they were anti-government, they knew who to target and I maintain that the fascists had the most to gain by killing those two, and had they died, who knows what they might have tried next. Although given what they tried later, I suspect that it couldn’t have been much worse…
[
Spain: 1967-1987: Memories of the Spanish Transition and the Road to Democracy]
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CHINA THREATENS NORTH VIETNAM OVER INTERVENTION IN SOUTH VIETNAM’S CIVIL WAR
The Indochina crisis has taken a turn to the worse this week, as the Government of the People’s Republic of China has denounced the belligerent and interventionist attitudes of Hanoi in regards to the South Vietnamese Civil war, which now threatens to extend to a regional conflict as the Governments of Cambodia, North Vietnam and China continue to struggle and find a way to isolate the conflict…
[
Taken from…the Washington Post, January of 1975]
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Following the failure of the 1976 Political Reform Referendum and then of the Political Reform Bill on the Francoist Cortes, the attempted assassination of Minister Manuel Fraga and Prime Minister Adolfo Suarez and the successful assassination of veteran Communist leader Dolores Ibarruri, it seemed as if the Reform process had been dealt a death blow and the proponents of outright Rupture with the Francoist Government had won the day: the opposition had all but rejected the timid reformist proposals and the Government’s insistence on the need of a general amnesty. Even those who had first supported the King and his overtures were mostly adamant in their resolve to see the executors of the Francoist Regime pay for their crimes, not only those of the civil war, but also those of the 1960s and 1970s. The senseless death brought upon by reluctant and die-hard members of the Francoist Government had already resulted in several mutinies and pro-government marches in northern Spain, as well as outbreaks of violence between military and paramilitary groups with subversive organizations.
The
Atocha Massacre of 1976, the
Cuartelazo de Ciudad Real of October of 1976, the
Sablazo of April of 1977, the violent suppression of a student march in Bilbao on March of 1977, the massacre at the Vallecas Bridge on January of 1976, the brutal assassination of 16 members of ETA on May of 1978 and 20 suspected members of the Maoist Subversive Group VAJAR on December of 1977 are but a few examples of the great brutality in which the Armed Forces and Paramilitary groups associated with the most reactionary elements of the old Regime were involved.
The Breaking point was nevertheless reached on June of 1978…[8]
[Taken from…C
onstruyendo la España Moderna: crónica de la Nación en el Siglo XX]
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“…when compared to
Dr. Strangelove,
Napoleon or
Foucault’s Pendulum,
Rendezvous with Rama is often underrated, despite its great cult following and many directors being fanatical about it and considering both a masterpiece and in some instances the best movie of the 20th century. Kubrick himself was particularly fond of this movie, although it was never his favorite. This one venture into Science Fiction, in the words of Coppola…”
[
Stanley Kubrick: man and works…on The Classic Movie Channel]
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KING OF SPAIN SURVIVES ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
Juan Carlos I of Spain was the victim of an assassination attempt in Madrid, when a car bomb tried to ram the motorcade in which the King was…
[Taken from…
The New York Times, May of 1978]
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“…the third round of negotiations between the PSOE, the Government and the Francoist ultras thus failed a few days later, the panic following the assassination attempt on the King and the death of Manuel Fraga spreading throughout Spain and especially through the higher ranks of the military, the regime and the opposition, who now came to realize that the situation was untenable.
The scheduled General elections, the first to be held since the fall of the Second Republic and the Civil War, were thus relegated to the backburner once more, and the unions and syndicates and student organizations returned to the streets of Madrid and Barcelona, unknowing of the chaos they’d unleash when General Alfonso Armada in Madrid and members of the Bunker seized the Government on June 8th, taking the army to the streets and proclaiming the retired admiral Luis Carrero Blanco as new President of the Council of Ministers on June 9th…
[
Taken from…Construyendo la España Moderna: crónica de la Nación en el Siglo XX]
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“
The crown, symbol of the everlasting unity and strength of the Fatherland, cannot tolerate, in any form, actions or attitudes that intent to stop by force the progress of peace and the continued democratic process that the Spanish people yearn, nor the use of force to destroy our institutions and threaten the peace and stability that our nation has earned through suffering and hard work…”
[
Address of King Juan Carlos I of Spain to the Nation, June 11th of 1978]
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“…
now we see the first troops retreating from the Palace of la Moncloa, in a repeat of scenes seen earlier today at the streets of Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia…
[
June 11th of 1978 Broadcast, Television Española TVE]
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REFERENDUM FOR POLITICAL REFORM TO BE HELD ON JANUARY 1ST
[Taken from…
La Vanguardia, October of 1978]
Notes:
1. An interesting effect of playing with a reverse 1968 started in South America in 1964 is the one caused by the earlier May of 1968 (1967 ITTL), which gives much more cohesion to the left in the late 1960s and a stronger sense of identity, not to mention a different series of events after deGaulle’s departure, which, unfortunately, there was little time to write upon;
2.
Robert Mathias, IOTL Olympic medalist and California Congressman, is one now part of my regular cast, and will surely repeat his role as Governor of California in other TLs, although not the Presidential role
3. Diem was not overthrown or allowed to be overthrown, to be more accurate, in 1963, and once the United States “win” in Vietnam in 1969, Diem is still in charge; part of this “win” is that Diem managed to create a more stable Vietnam and exterminate the Vietcong, allowing the United States to leave and claim a victory, not knowing that Vietnam was ready to explode;
4. Bunker: name given to the most conservative and reactionary members of the Francoist Regime;
5. Ngo Dihn Nhu, is Diem’s brother, and amongst other things, a lunatic, a drug addict/kingpin and a Hitler worshipper; the Can Lao Party, based on personalism and Diem cult worship is a similarly insane organization;
6. Ruptura o Revolucion=Rupture or Revolution
Basta de Sablazos=No More
Saber-rattling (Saber Noise)
Trabajadores de España Levantense=Workers of Spain, Rise!
El Generalisimo Franco sigue Muerto=Generalissimo Franco is still dead
7. GRAPO: Grupo de Resistencia Armado Primero de Octubre; (IOTL Group)
FARAF: Frente Armado Revolucionario Anti Fascista; (ITTL Group)
VAJAR: Vanguardia Armada de la Juventud Abrilista Radical (ITTL Group)
8. This is based on the idea of a more difficult and violent Transition, caused by the examples of Argentina, Mexico and France, amongst others, and a more radicalized opposition to Franco and the regime in the 1970s;
