Chapter 2: La cucaña presidencial
With Franco’s death, the future of Spain was open wide. This was not lost on anyone: The opposition become more organised and mobilised, the bunker sought to maintain the regime and the reformists within and around the regime sough to transform it – largely by replacing Arias Navarro with a more adequate successor. Indeed, Arias Navarro had proved himself to be neither what the hardliner that the bunker and El Pardo hoped for nor the reformist that the press had seen in him on February 12th, 1974. Instead, he had proven himself as a man lost in the contradictions between his brutality and his poor approach to politics reigning over several cabinets that were deeply divided between the reformists and the hardliners, both before and after Franco’s death. His real failure would not become apparent, however until early 1976.
That being said, as early as 1975, Juan Carlos had tried to get rid of Arias Navarro right before the death of Franco, but after he was too sick to realise anything. The attempt, known as ‘Operación Lolita’ had been devised by the palatine entourage in Zarzuela, and sought to replace Arias with the young technocrat José María López de Letona [1]. However, Arias refused to give in, arguing that Franco has chosen him for a period of five years, and threatened to resign in the difficult situation of the Caudillo’s twilight while revealing the ‘scandalous’ travels of the General Díez Alegría [2] to Estoril to meet with Juan Carlos’ father, the Count of Barcelona.
Facing such political danger, the King-to-be backtracked and was forced to allow Arias to continue. But Arias, who had a cruel streak [3], took note of the King’s opinion toward him. That changed very little Arias’ opinion of Juan Carlos, which can be described, if one is being nice, as very low. So much in fact that after Franco’s death, Arias failed to symbolically resign, as was the political convention since the
Restauración. In exchange, on December 6th, Zarzuela [4] sent a communiqué to the press informing that the King “confirmed Arias in his post”, which is to say that he did not confirm his ministers. This forced the ministers to resign. The new governments would be his undoing.
Three days before that communiqué however, what is perhaps the most event piece of the Transition took place. The President of the
Cortes, Rodríguez de Valcárcel [5] term ended on November 25th and as a result, a replacement had to be selected. The
Consejo del Reino had to name three candidates from which the King picked. This was largely a formality under Franco, as usually to fill in positions, the counsellors put in the name of Franco’s designation and another two important figures.
In this case, it was pretty much the same. The King has told Arias Navarro that he desired Torcuato Fernández Miranda [6] to be the President of the Cortes and the
Consejo del Reino. Arias Navarro, who thought the old professor one of his few real political adversaries, was more than happy to place him there, as the Cortes were compliant to the Government’s will – or could be made to be compliant.
As a result, on the 3rd of December, the
Consejo del Reino drafted a list with three names: Torcuato Fernández Miranda, Licinio de la Fuente and Emilio Lamo de Espinosa. Torcuato was chosen President, obviously. [7]
Torcuato became the main ally of the King in the slow process of bringing down Arias, and bringing in democracy. The first evidence is his role in crafting the first government of the monarchy with Arias.
The usefulness and role played by Fernández Miranda in order to put forward the King’s agenda was evident in the composition of the first government of the monarchy. Arias originally expected to be ‘borboneado’ and forced to fight against the King’s attempt to impose his ministers upon him. Nothing farther from the truth. In fact, the Prime Minister was surprised when Fernández Miranda agreed to all of Arias’ proposals with one exception. Fernández Miranda suggested that Adolfo Suárez should be given the post of minister-secretary of the Movement. Arias refused, alleging that the incumbent, José Solís [8] had been appointed by Franco personally and he could not, in good faith, remove him. Instead, a compromise was reached whereby Suárez would take over Solís’ portfolio while Solís would be named Minister of Labour, replacing the reformist Fernando Suárez González [9], who would be designated
procurador [10].
The new Arias Navarro thus consisted of what Gregorio Morán classified into four groups: Arias’ rivals, the lightweights, the ‘institution-men’ and the ‘nobodies’.
From left to right: Carlos Arias Navarro (PM), Manuel Fraga, Jose Mª de Areilza and Torcuato Fernández-Miranda
The two main rivals and heavyweights in the cabinet were Manuel Fraga (Interior) and Jose María de Areilza (Foreign Affairs) [11].
The lightweights:
- Alfonso Osorio (Presidency) [12]
- Juan Miguel Villar Mir (Finances)
- Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo (Commerce)
- Virgilio Oñate (Agriculture)
- Rodolfo Martín Villa (Trade Unions)
- Francisco Lozano (Housing)
- Antonio Valdés (Public Works)
- Adolfo Suárez (Secretary of the National Movement)
The ‘institution-men’, who either represented the most important Francoist institution, the Armed Forces, or had such a long political career that they were political dinosaurs, too big to be ignored but too old to be actual rivals to the President.
- Antonio Garrigues Díez-Cañabete (Justice) [13]
- José Solís (Labour)
- Lieutenant-General Fernando de Santiago (Deputy Prime Minister for Military Affairs)
- Lieutenant-General Félix Álvarez-Arenas (Army)
- Admiral Gabriel Pita da Veiga (Navy) [14]
- Lieutenant-General Carlos Franco Iribarnegaray (Air Force).
And lastly, the political nobodies:
- Carlos Robles Piquer (Education) [15]
- Adolfo Martín Gomero (Information and Tourism)
- Carlos Pérez de Bricio (Industry)
Both in terms of age – a large degree of ministers belonged to the last generation of Francoist politicians – and of political leanings – the majority were reformists – the cabinet belonged more to the King than Arias, whom after all was in the minority in his government. In fact, he was largely overshadowed by the Areilza, as the reformist media’s darling and Fraga, known for his reformist pedigree and considerable intellect [16]. Indeed, soon the government would be adrift as Arias sought to at least make it until the end of 1976, if not his five year term (1973-1977).
In that, the President was very wrong. Ever since the King had failed to depose Arias following Franco’s terminal illness in October and November 1975, both the monarch and Torcuato Fernández Miranda had commenced an operation to increase the pressure on the Prime Ministers as well as neutralising him until he was weakened enough that he could be dismissed by the King, as it would eventually happened. This operation took place between late 1975 and the summer of 1976, and can be summed up in four main parts:
The
búnker, the Francoist hardliners, had to be neutralised so that they could not use their considerable institutional influence to stop any liberalising moves, like they had done in the period between 1973 and 1975. Obviously Franco was dead so that was one less obstacle. The main one way to obtain this neutralisation was through the change in the operation of the
Consejo del Reino under Fernández Miranda. By meeting every 15 days as opposed to only when called to meet, in order to get a new Prime Minister all it had to happen was to time it with the meetings of the Council and don’t allow any time for the hardliners to organise and lobby. Secondly, Torcuato in his role as Speaker of the Francoist Cortes would introduce a new legislative mechanism, the ‘
procedimiento de urgencia’, whereby any law the Government presented through this procedure would bypass the commissions – controlled by the hardliners – and of straight to the plenary for a single reading. The plenary was thought to contain a reformist majority, and if not, it could be changed so that it would.
Secondly, the King sought to become a closer figure to the Spanish people, thereby seeking to extricate himself from Franco and his Prime Minister and gaining the legitimacy only public opinion could provide him, as after all, the King lacked the dynastic legitimacy [17]. By bypassing the security detail imposed by the Prime Minister and winking at a democratic future by talking about a constitutional monarchy in Asturias or dabbling in Catalan in Barcelona, the King increased pressure on Arias Navarro. The King would also meet in public with the main figures of the more moderate opposition, like the Christian-democrat Gil Robles or Álvarez de Miranda. Clandestinely however, the King would establish links with the Communist and Socialists through Nicolas Franco, the Caudillo’s nephew.
Lastly, the King would increase the pressure from abroad. As Franco himself once remarked, one had to say things abroad for the foreign press that differed from those that were said inside Spain. But he certainly never intended for that principle to be used to attack the political system, as the King did. On April 1976, Newsweek published an interview with the King where he deemed Arias an “unmitigated disaster”.
In response to the interview, Arias Navarro would jump ahead and announce the nation on television that the plans for political reform were well advanced and he would soon present them to the people. This was false.
In fact and despite the fact that Suárez had proposed an 18-member Mixed Commission [18] for Political Reform, little had been accomplished. Especially due to the Prime Minister himself, who had made it very clear that the only constitutional innovations that he would tolerate were those that did not compromise its Francoist character, that is to say, that he would allow little to nothing.
On top of that, the Commission was deeply divided between opponents of any reform (military ministers, Girón and others), the limited reformists, like Fraga who sought the reform of the institutions into a British-inspired bicameral system with a corporative upper chamber without legalising the PCE or the nationalists and lastly, the defenders of a deep reform, like Areilza, who sought the constitution of a true democracy, legalising all parties.
This was not the only project undertaken at the time to push forward a very timid political liberalisation, it also included a less restrictive – but very restrictive nonetheless – law on public meetings and the right to meet in public and the Law of Political Associations, defended by Suárez before the Cortes and the corresponding change in the Penal Code, which would be defeated on June 9th due to/with the excuse of the news of ETA’s murder of Luis Carlos Albo, the chief of the
Movimiento in Basauri, Biscay.
Adolfo who?
But the most important part of these reforms was not so much their scope, given their limitations, the fact that they were being negotiated with Francoist hardliners instead of a democratic opposition says much about that. What mattered was who sold them to the Cortes. That person was Adolfo Suárez, a little-known politician from Ávila, (little) known for having been the political protégé of Fernando Herrero Tejedor [19] and for having built a political career without stepping on anyone or making enemies. Suárez delivered the speech on June 9th that motivated the Francoist
Cortes to pass the Political Associations Law.
But before coming to describe Suárez’s important role in the approval of this important reformist piece of legislation, it’s best to go back to 1975 to understand Suárez’s strange rise to the presidency in 1976.
In 1975, Suárez’s political career appeared to be dead when on June 12th 1975, his mentor, Herrero Tejedor died in a car crush after only 100 days in his post. Suárez was his right-hand, the deputy minister-secretary of the Movement. Herrero Tejedor was a politician for the future, a direct competitor of Fraga or Arias Navarro, who had already set up the UDPE [20] – the
Unión del Pueblo Español, the main political association within the
Movimiento Nacional. Herrero Tejedor had already commenced talks with the moderate opposition by then and considered himself as potential replacement for Arias Navarro before his death.
With his death after only 100 days in office, Suárez had had no capacity to create a network of friends or confidants from which to continue his political career nor to make anything noteworthy. As a result, it seemed like his political career might be over, especially as Herrero Tejedor’s successor dismissed him.
But not all was lost, and thanks to the support of both Don Juan and the future King, Suárez manage to be nominated both ‘Politician of the Month’ in June 1975 by the prestigious magazine,
Blanco y Negro and become the coordinator of the UDPE.
In 1976, royal support became once again indispensable as it was thanks to it that he became a minister, occupying the portfolio once held by Herrero Tejedor. By then, Suárez had already found a new mentor in Fernández Miranda. In fact, it can largely be said that Suárez was more Fernández Miranda’s candidate than the King, as the latter, despite liking him, was afraid that Suárez was too duplicitous [21], Fernández Miranda instead thought that to be precisely his greatest asset.
The choice of the candidate was however the result of Suárez’s capacity and ability to manage complicated situations, as proven by his handling of the
Sucesos de Vitoria and the Montejurra shooting. Both affairs that should have been handled by the Interior Minister, who was however abroad or the Presidency minister – who was in the funeral of his father-in-law for the former – were instead handled by Suárez.
Vitoria is the traditional capital of the Basque Country, and despite being the least Basque of all the Basque cities, it was nonetheless a hotbed of radicalism, like much of Euskadi. Until the summer of 1976, had experienced considerable worker agitation demanding working, regional and political rights in the shape of a strike that had started in
Forjas Alavesas for over 50 days only to become a general strike on March 3rd . During the strike, the leaders of it met in the church of Saint Francis of Assisi [22] from where the police demanded them to exit. As the strikers did not obey, the police forced its way in and in the confusion, they opened fire. The result was a massacre: 5 dead and over a hundred wounded, 45 from gun wounds.
Demonstrators carrying the coffins of the dead Vitoria strikers
The first reaction of Arias – of course – was to seek to impose the state of exception, thereby giving the provincial governor a free hand on imposing order by suspending whatever little rights Spaniards had under the
Fuero de los Españoles. Suárez managed however to convince him not to in order to deescalate the situation while micromanaging the situation from Madrid to prevent any further outbreaks of violence by preventing a mass funeral for the dead strikers. Suárez’s capacity to handle such a complicated situation without resorting to the typical Francoist approach of “matar moscas a cañonazos” [23]
Montejurra was another example of Suárez’s sangfroid. During the traditional Carlist celebration of the
via Crucis in the mount of Montejurra, the differences between the Titoist socialist followers of Carlos-Hugo de Borbón and the far-right partisans of Sixto de Borbón exploded when, with the likely help of the Guardia Civil, the latter shot two men and injured several defenders of Carlos-Hugo’s dynastic claim as they made their way to the peak of the mountain. Once again, both Osorio and Fraga were absent, and Suárez had to pacify the situation.
But perhaps the important question is that why was Suárez chosen over either Areilza or Fraga. Both men were clearly more intellectually prepared than Suárez and had had more brilliant political careers. However, they also had many enemies whereas Suárez had avoided making them. But perhaps more importantly, Torcuato hoped that Suárez, who had no absolute set political beliefs [24] but was charming and seemingly competent would be easier to mould than either Areilza – too much of a public figure and too linked to Don Juan, hence too liberal – or especially Fraga, whose approach to politics was very academically sound and detailed but he had very clear character flaws in his inability to go beyond his mental paradigms and incapacity to compromise.
Primero de Julio
With a clear candidate and following a campaign of pressure on the President from abroad and within his cabinet, the moment to strike was ready. On July 1st, the King meets with Arias Navarro in the Royal Palace for what the President expected to be a routine session. Instead, the monarch thanked him for his services in a very nervous mood, and before he could dismiss him, Arias resigned.
That afternoon, the
Consejo del Reino was to meet, and as a result, there was very little time for the opposition to organise, as the Council had seven days to propose 3 candidates to the King. The government is informed at 8 of Arias’ resignation.
Unlike in the past however, neither the King nor Fernández Miranda make it known to the councillors whom they want to be their real candidate. Instead, the 16 members of the Council first seek to make an ‘ideal profile’ of the next President. In the meantime, Fernández Miranda, alongside Miguel Primo de Rivera [25] work to dismantle the creation of a bloc of Falangist councillors.
The method used to select the three candidates was devised by Fernández Miranda so that only the most innocuous of candidates – like Suárez – would pass the successive selection rounds: Firstly, every councillor writes down 3 candidates. There were 32, which became 30 as the representatives of the Army asked for the officers included to be taken out.
Then, 13 candidates were rejected almost unanimously. The rest required to obtain more positive than negative votes, thereby eliminating another 7 candidates [26]. By the end of the morning of July the 3rd, there are only nine candidates left.
In the last round, every councillor must write down 3 names, and the three names with the most votes would be presented to the King. The three candidates are Federico Silva Muñoz (15 votes), Gregorio López Bravo (13) and Adolfo Suárez (12) were the chosen ones. Silva had almost obtained the unanimous support of the 16 members, but Primo de Rivera voted instead of Álvarez Miranda in order to prevent the potential friction between the monarch and the institution had they supported Silva unanimously and the King chosen a different person. But perhaps more importantly to Suárez was the fact that the 7 members appointed by the head of state all voted the same way, including Suárez. They probably knew where the wind was blowing.
By 14:50, the meeting is over and Torcuato Fernandez-Miranda announced the press that he would be able to give the King what he had asked of him.
By 17:00, Adolfo Suárez, nervously at home, afraid of being ‘borboneado’, receives a phone call from Zarzuela.
***
[1] López de Letona, whose surname gives away the upper class origin, held the Ministry of Industry between 1969 and 1974, under the monocolor government and the Carrero Blanco cabinets. He was one of the key persons behind the creation of the CEOE.
[2] General Manuel Díez-Alegría. Chief of the CESEDEN (military intelligence agency) and later of the Alto Estado Mayor – the coordinating organism linking the three branches of the Armed Forces during the Francoism). He would be dismissed in 1972 after meeting with Santiago Carrillo in Bucharest. Díez Alegría was perceived as a liberal – insofar as a Francoist officer could be, that is to say that he believed the Army should be entirely professional and apolitical.
[3] Makes sense given that he was known as the butcher of Málaga. He probably used cruelty to mask his lack of political weight.
[4] Zarzuela is the private residence of Juan Carlos I and now his son, and a short hand for the Royal House. The official residence is the Royal Palace in Madrid, however no one has resided there since Manuel Azaña was President of the Republic.
[5] Who, at the time, was dying of cancer.
[6] Fernández Miranda has known the King for at least 20 years, as he had been one of his tutors and professors in his youth, particularly of constitutional law.
[7] I don’t think I have anywhere to put this in the actual description. But Fernández Miranda made for a great President of the Cortes (or Speaker if you will), as despite being a Francoist politician himself, he was obviously rather disgusted by the political class. One noteworthy anecdote took place when he asked, ironically, the Count of Godó, not a nobody, whether he was voting or just passing by (¿Ústed vota o transita?) as he was taking his time in getting to the podium to vote.
[8] José Solís Ruíz was known as ‘la sonrisa del Régimen’ (the Regime’s smile), known for always knowing which the winning side of Francoism’ internecine conflicts was. A Falangist, Solís had led the Movimiento Nacional between 1957 after Arrese’s dismissal until 1969.
[9] No family ties with Adolfo Suárez González however.
[10] Term used to refer to the ‘deputies’ of the Francoist legislature. Franco associated the term diputado with the much maligned liberal-democratic tradition and sough a medieval name, so he picked that used to refer to the delegates to the mediaeval Cortes, Spain’s equivalent of the États-generaux.
[11] José María de Areilza, Count of Rodas and jure uxoris Count of Montrico (the preferred term to refer to him when insulting him) was a Basque ambassador and Foreign Minister. Areilza started his career as a member of Falange in 1934 and a volunteer during the Civil War. Areilza would however walk the road of many Fascists towards liberal democratic positions by the 1960s, when he joined Don Juan’s entourage in Estoril, only to betray him and return to the political mainstream in the 1970s in the last Arias Navarro government. He would create the first Partido Popular (not the OTL one that’s in power), one of the seeds of the UCD.
[12] Alfonso Osorio was an important Christian democrat figure, linked to the Ybarras by marriage and to the Grupo Tácito (Christian-democratic reformist intellectuals) who would help Suárez craft his first government before falling out with him. Osorio was considered the King’s man in the last Arias government.
[13] Father of the two Garrigues-Walker, important UCD ministers belonging to the liberal sector of the party.
[14] Pita da Veiga will have a large role during the Suárez premiership due to his reaction to the legalisation of the PCE during the 1977 Holy Week.
[15] A fraguista.
[16] Chapter 1. The 1966 Ley de Prensa.
[17] At least until Juan Carlos’ father either renounced his rights to the Crown or he died.
[18] Formed by the Government and members of the Consejo del Reino in equal amounts.
[19] Fernando Herrero Tejedor was a Falangist linked to the Opus Dei (something rare and both groups were adversaries) and Suárez’s mentor as well as a political heavyweight in the late 1970s. He and Suárez met when the former was the governor of Salamanca and Suárez was a (mediocre) student of Law whom he hired as his personal secretary.
[20] Originally, UPE was used, until the members realised it was acronym used by Miguel Primo de Rivera’s Unión Patriótica Española, the single party of the dictablanda, 1923-1931. The aim of the UDPE was to transition towards a democratic Spain in which however, the UDPE, by consolidating the post-Francoist vote, would have a similar position to that of the PRI in Mexico, aka hegemony.
[21] «¿Tú crees, Torcuato, que un hombre con tanta doblez es nuestro hombre?» «Por eso mismo, Majestad, por eso mismo.»
[22] Churches and other buildings owned by the Church were the only place were groups larger than 10 people could meet legally under the very restrictive Francoist ‘civil rights’ legislation. As a result, churches became the centre of the worker movement’s leadership.
[23] Killing flies with cannon volleys. I’d say it’s a pretty self-explanatory idiom.
[24] In 1976, Suárez recriminated Fraga for making a too liberal draft of the law of associations, as it would permit their creation outside of the framework of the Movimiento Nacional because it could open the door to the future legalisation of the PCE. In 1977, against the political advice of Torcuato, the King and several ministers, Suárez legalised the PCE.
[25] Nephew of the founder of Falange and a well-known aperturista, but linked by blood to the important Oriol family, two of whom sat in the Council. He convinced them to include a “young man” in the final proposal of 3 candidates.
[26] Fraga (11 against, 5 for), Areilza (idem), Licinio de la Fuente (12 vs. 4), Alfonso Osorio (13 vs. 3), Castiella (14 vs. 2), Fernándo Suárez (idem) and Martínez Esteruelas (10 vs. 6).