Spain Moves Backward

...he believes that even today "there is excessive political freedom" in Spain and that the information media should continue to be instruments in the service of the state...

...After flirting with the Soviet bloc, threatening to promote Mediterranean neutralism and inspiring anti-American articles in the Madrid press, in the hope of loosening American pursestrings, the government has had to be content with a new U.S.-Spanish agreement that falls ludicrously short of the logistic and financial targets it publicly set itself...

...After much delay, during which the official secrets act was extended to cover the affair, a serious legal inquiry is in progress...

...Franco still looks as well as a man of 77 can expect to look...

...most of them are members or associates of the wealthy secretive lay order, Opus Dei...

...Three former ministers--one of whom resigned recently from the governorship of the Bank of Spain--have been inculpated, and the Foreign Minister and Minister of Education are under investigation...

...Repression and unrest continue in the Basque country...

...The Falangists, too, are divided...

...After proclaiming that its aim was nothing less than association with the European Economic Community, the Spanish government has settled for a modest preferential trade agreement...

...The government's main worry, though, over the last few months has been the Matesa affair, said to be the biggest financial scandal in Spanish history...

...one section has urged the Army to sweep the regime clean...

...Foreign Minister Lopez Bravo is the Globetrotter of the Year...

...When the magazine Sabado Grdfico disagreed, and expressed the disappointment of those who had hoped for an improvement in Spain's political climate under the new Cabinet, it was heavily fined and suspended for four months...

...It has failed to establish a positive rapport with the Spanish people, or even to convince them that it has any positive ideas beyond self-preservation and the perpetuation of the regime after Franco's death...

...The labor situation is now less tense, but the illegal workers' commissions are regaining strength, and the government is not helping itself by deciding to go ahead with a new sindicato law which will keep the labor unions firmly under official control...

...Ray Alan's recent book, Spanish Quest, was published by Macmillan...

...If its members were democrats and reformers they would not be serving the Caudillo...

...The Cabinet's whole political performance has been inept...

...Franco is a stubborn man, though, and the more people say changes are inevitable the longer he will delay them...

...Egyptian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Riad paid a lengthy visit to Spain the week before President Gamal Abdel Nasser died...

...Spaniards who met him were unimpressed by his simplistic overpropagandist exposition, and they say he appeared to consider Spain a mere booster station for the relaying of Egypt's views westward...

...Madrid's many government and municipal employes were turned out into the streets to swell the crowd along the motorcade route, and private firms were asked to give their staffs time off...

...Diplomatic correspondents have predicted splendid Spanish initiatives to neutralize the Mediterranean or mediate in the Middle East...

...In practice, the new ministers' authoritarianism has proved quite crude, and they appear to believe as firmly as any old-style Franquista in the political immaturity and gullibility of the Spanish people...

...But his other achievements are meager...

...In Navarra, the Carlist monarchists, who played an important part in subverting the Republic, are now split by the dynastic issue: A few weeks ago one faction bombed the offices of the other's newspaper in Pamplona...

...What Spanish good offices might achieve in the Middle East has never been clear...

...No competent observer expected this government to promote democracy or major reforms...

...The Falangists, jealous of Opus Dei's predominance in the government, have naturally drawn attention to this coincidence...

...The democratic opposition interpreted Nixon's performance as meaning that Washington has written off Spanish democracy and will back the authoritarian continuists after Franco...

...In theory, Franco is himself head of the government as well as Chief of State...

...Matesa's president and some others involved were connected with Opus Dei...

...The present Minister of Information, Sanchez Bella, has stressed the need to maintain a ban on "defeated ideologies" such as liberal democracy...

...Admittedly, the economic situation is disquieting...

...but the Cabinet has aged terribly...

...This hope was disappointed...

...Men like Ruiz-Gimenez and the Count of Motrico, who once thought it possible to democratize the regime from within, have long since left the government and gone over to the opposition...

...Today's ministers prefer to be considered "technocrats...

...Carrero wants the premiership in order to formalize his position, but he is disliked by some senior Army officers who consider him a "fresh-water admiral," better at navigating political currents than the high seas...

...Prices are rising faster than productivity, exports barely cover 50 per cent of imports, and the balance of payments is unhealthily dependent on precarious capital transfers...

...For once government circles were hoping that the opposition was right...

...so were the "economic" ministers and the governor of the Bank of Spain at the time...

...Only recently a Basque nationalist set fire to himself in the presence of General Franco at a pelota championship...

...The government's first real foreign policy bonus was President Nixon's visit in October...

...General Franco has been urged by some of his most faithful supporters in the Army, the church and the press to make political changes that will clearly dissociate the regime from the scandal, and a Cabinet shuffle seems inevitable...

...Leading economists have embarrassed the government by saying that the peseta may have to be devalued within the next few months...

...When they are made, Franco is expected to appoint a prime minister...

...The government likes to be able to demonstrate to Spaniards that it is taken seriously in the outside world, and here was the head of the mightiest state on earth praising the Caudillo and his works...

...General Franco has given a high priority to cultivating the Arabs, but he has little leverage among them--chiefly because he has not recognized Israel...

...During the past summer, in defiance of the law, workers went on strike in Madrid and other industrial centers...

...in Granada three were killed and 80 wounded in clashes with the police...

...Spasmodically, the government has sought compensation for domestic setbacks by striking "dynamic" attitudes in international affairs...

...in fact, Admiral Carrero Blanco, his Vice President and confidant for many years, is the government's effective head...

...Matesa is a textile machinery firm whose principal directors are alleged to have misappropriated government export credits and engaged in currency smuggling on a massive scale...

...Only a few months ago, in the Right-wing daily ABC, a senior personality of the regime (he is believed to be Vice President Carrero Blanco) wrote that to give Spaniards a democratic regime would be like allowing a violent alcoholic free access to drink...

...From the government's point of view the visit was a success...

...And while Spain's "special relationship" with the Arab states is as rich as ever in rhetoric, it has failed to avert an embarrassing quarrel with Morocco and Algeria over the phosphate-dusted future of the Spanish Sahara...

...But they are educated, civilized men, and many people hoped they would at least introduce a new style--a more enlightened handling of the press and dissent...

...FAILURE OF THE TECHNOCRATS Spain Moves Backward BY RAY ALAN Madrid It is now 15 months since General Franco proclaimed Prince Juan Carlos his eventual successor, and one year since he appointed what most people expected to be the Cabinet that would oversee the succession...

...Editorials in the controlled press have explained that Spain is the lynchpin of Western defense or the favorite of the uncommitted world or the bridge between Europe, Africa and the Americas...