Spain After Franco
ALAN, RAY
END OF AN ACT Spain After Franco by ray alan Madrid General Franco's balancing act is over. For years, his regime was a political mobile in which every faction and clan supporting him was...
...But personal dictatorship is dangerous, too, a dictator being even more vulnerable to flattery and intrigue than a democratic leader, as Opusites know from experience...
...Democracy?in particular, party politics-Is considered a dangerous irrelevance...
...Unlike petit-bourgeois intellectuals, workers are revolutionaries only when they have nothing to lose...
...Indeed, one of the most bizarre features of Spain's present scene is that the man most people agree will be its next head of state, and the team in control of the Cabinet, would almost certainly be at the bottom of the poll in any normal election or opinion survey...
...Opus Dei spokesmen insist that their members have no common political philosophy...
...The technocrats must be practicing Christians and the regime should ideally be monarchical, so as to insure an orderly succession...
...the Falange can no longer take even its sindicato fief for granted...
...But Lopez-Rodo and his colleagues are obviously dedicated men...
...The main political concern of most senior officers is stability...
...its political demotion was inevitable...
...The proclamation undoubtedly overshadowed the Fal-ange's ritual celebration, complete with wavering fascist salutes and slogans, in the Comedia Theater...
...he's just not bright enough...
...Most educated Spaniards think Juan Carlos will be succeeded by a republic...
...They believe that experts know best-bishops in the religious sector, economists in finance and planning, and so on...
...The Army is Spain's foremost service, and they disliked the fact that he was an admiral-an admiral, moreover, seen navigating political currents more often than the high seas...
...Neither Army nor Opus wants Spain to follow in Greece's wake...
...Carrero Blanco is something of a hardliner-antidemocratic, anti-Protestant and anti-Jewish-but he is by no means a bonehead...
...But, as if to better advertise the Movement's eclipse as a political force, the official announcement was delayed until October 29, the 36th anniversary of the foundation of the Falange...
...Repression and censorship have been grimly effective in scaring people off politics or simply keeping them ignorant...
...The Opus Dei ministers genuinely believe they have something meaningful to contribute to public life...
...A careful equilibrium was maintained, offsetting Falangists and monarchists, Falange and Opus Dei, backward-looking nationalists and tentative "Europeans," visceral and intellectual authoritarians...
...For years, his regime was a political mobile in which every faction and clan supporting him was represented...
...But today Carrero Blanco is clearly the man on the bridge, and it is again rumored that Franco intends to make him head of the government...
...As a Socialist housepainter told me recently, "the day's not long enough" for the politically-minded Spaniard...
...to midnight, and all day Sundays) "you haven't much time for visits, propaganda work or even reading...
...Spaniards are tired of dictatorship, contemptuous of the Falange, and mistrustful of Opus Dei, though unsure what can replace them...
...They won't, these Spanish technocrats believe, if you offer them a fair chance of buying their own apartments, cars, washing machines and seaside vacations...
...Franco's new Cabinet is more homogeneous than any Spain has had since the Civil War...
...There must, of course, be safeguards...
...In a bid for Church support, these gallant officers also retailed a little gossip about the admiral's wife...
...like Juan Carlos, it has little popular support...
...Government changes were long overdue...
...Carrero Blanco has opened door after ministerial door to Opusites...
...The Franco regime has given a high priority to "depoliticizing the workers...
...they want to see Juan Carlos head a regime that will at least pay lipservice to Franco's life-work, not dissociate itself from it...
...They have also contributed powerfully to the progress of Opus Dei...
...Members of Opus Dei-a wealthy and secretive Catholic lay order, widely known as Octopus Dei-now control most important civilian ministries...
...Franco's present Opus ministers appear to favor a paternalistic authoritarianism, liberal-capitalist and controlled by technocrats...
...The more influential Army officers are tired of being considered a South American-style political force, a seedbed for coups and juntas...
...And as he prays, the man giving orders is his closest adviser and Vice-President, Admiral Car-rero Blanco...
...Few people take Don Juan Carlos seriously...
...Franco, meanwhile, has become increasingly preoccupied with religion...
...they would like to be admired for their professional efficiency and to be taken seriously by nato...
...The minister for the Movement and sindicatos, Solis Ruiz, who was to have been master of ceremonies, stayed away, tearfully clearing his desk and preparing to hand over the post to his successors...
...What if the workers refuse to play...
...Jn contrast to the Christian Democrats, who are among their severest critics, they might be called Christian technocrats...
...If a Presidential republic appeared to offer Spain greater stability than an unpopular monarchy, the Army would be disinclined to lend itself to the defense of Juan Carlos...
...those who are neither scared nor ignorant have to contend with frustrating economic conditions...
...The structure was simplified last winter when Franco broke with his Carlist supporters, and again last July when he disappointed the legitimist monarchists and nominated Don Juan Carlos, son of the legitimist pretender, as his successor...
...More than one Spaniard has told me: "The government says the regime will succeed the regime...
...Still, both Falangists and other sentimental Franquistas were shocked by what they considered the "brutal" timing of the operation...
...were this true, it might suggest that Franco's Opus ministers are interested in power only for power's sake...
...Fortunately, in the words of Opus theoretician Rafael Calvo Serer, "there is no need to go to the totalitarian extreme: authoritarianism is sufficient...
...Either he'll soon have to lean on the Army or we'll have a republic...
...But Juan Carlos is not a Franco...
...And Opus Dei could do little to help him...
...seemed likely that Franco would nominate him Prime Minister, a small group of senior Army officers let it be known that they would not welcome the appointment...
...He and his protege and adviser, Laureano Lopez-Rodo, have contributed more than Franco to Spain's political and economic evolution since 1959...
...The plural is significant because the Movement and sindicatos are now the responsibility of separate ministers...
...But greater contact with the outside world and reaction against the conservatism and scandals of the regime are provoking a political awakening of sorts...
...When you've worked nine or 10 hours at your main job, and another three or four at something else," (he is a waiter from 9 p.m...
...Details of the Cabinet changes were widely leaked in advance...
...And there must be safety valves-free discussion for the elite in specialized journals of limited circulation, plus the chance to air reasonable grievances, even in the popular dailies...
...And the hitherto Falangist-dominated Movement (the only authorized party) and sindicatos (the only authorized unions) are today clearly mere administrative tools...
...But they are avid for respectability...
...At the end of last month, the mobile was dismantled...
...Don Juan, the legitimist pretender, has lost his last friends in the government...
...Some Falangists admitted that all motion in the Movement was centrifugal: Few people remained, except those who had to in order to protect their careers...
...Illness, age, incompetence, and scandal had taken a heavy toll of the outgoing Cabinet...
...Last year, when it Ray Alan's new book, Spanish Quest, will be published this week...
...The new Opus-dominated Cabinet and the upper ranks of the Army are overwhelmingly "continuist...
...Their objection to Carrero was based mainly on inter-service rivalry...
...They will be too busy working overtime, taking second jobs and generally tying themselves in financial knots...
...He can't hold together conservatives, Right-wingers, Army and Church the way Franco did, by balancing one faction against another...
...a minister should be appointed because he is an expert, not because of his appeal to morons on tv...
Vol. 52 • November 1969 • No. 22
