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Olghina provides an interesting testimony of the Prince’s personality and convictions as he entered his twenties. She knew a passionate young man, who liked fast cars, motorboats and girls, although he never forgot his position. He was, she said, ‘very serious albeit no saint’. She declared that ‘he wasn’t at all shy, but was rather puritanical’ and that ‘he was always very honest with me’. He disliked women whom he considered too calculating or ‘of less than stringent morals’. His puritanical streak was perhaps typical of a Spanish young man of his generation – it did not prevent him ardently pressing on her his ‘hot, dry and wise lips’ nor spending nights in hotels with her. He was also very generous, even though he didn’t have much money at the time. Interestingly, Olghina claims that Juan Carlos disliked hunting – one of Franco’s favoured pastimes – because he had no desire to kill animals.
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When the interviewer suggested to Olghina that Juan Carlos’s letters gave the impression that he had been more attached to her than she to him, she replied that this wasn’t the case. The problem was, rather, that she was aware that he would never marry her. As a result, she tried to keep her distance from him. Juan Carlos, she said, ‘was very clear on the fact that his destiny was to give himself to Spain and that, in order to achieve this, he needed to marry into a reigning dynasty … Juan Carlos was convinced that he would be King of Spain.’
(#litres_trial_promo) It was later suggested that Olghina di Robilant blackmailed Juan Carlos. She was allegedly paid ten million pesetas by Juan Carlos for the letters, at which point she sent the originals to him but kept copies, which she then sold for publication.
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Despite his close relationship with Olghina, Juan Carlos had María Gabriella di Savoia’s photograph in his room in the Zaragoza academy. He was ordered to remove it from his bedside table on the grounds that: ‘General Franco might be annoyed if he visited the academy.’ This ridiculous intrusion of the Prince’s privacy may have been an initiative of the director of the academy rather than of Franco himself. However, Franco knew about it. That there was no respect for Juan Carlos’s privacy would be seen again in 1958. When the Prince visited the United States as a naval cadet on a Spanish training ship, he took a fancy to a beautiful Brazilian girl at one of the dances organized for the crew members. He wrote to her, only to discover later that all his letters had ended up on Franco’s desk. Again, in late January 1960, having been informed that Juan Carlos still had María Gabriella’s photograph on his bedside table, the Caudillo would call in one of the Prince’s closest aides, Major Emilio García Conde, to discuss the matter. Clearly preoccupied by the significance of the photograph, Franco said, ‘We’ve got to find a Princess for the Prince.’ He then went on to list a series of names whose unsuitability was pointed out by García Conde. When the latter suggested the daughters of the King of Greece, Franco replied categorically, ‘Don Juan Carlos will never marry a Greek princess!’ He had two objections – the fact that they were not Roman Catholics and his belief that King Paul was a freemason.
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The Caudillo felt that he had a right to interfere in the Prince’s romantic affairs. He told Pacón that he regarded María Gabriella di Savoia as altogether too free and with ‘ideas altogether too modern’. Newspaper speculation abounded about the Prince’s relationship with María Gabriella, and Juan Carlos remained keen on her for some time. It was rumoured that their engagement would be announced on 12 October 1960 at the silver wedding celebrations of Don Juan and Doña María de las Mercedes. The Prince’s choice of bride had enormous significance both for the royal family and the possible succession to Franco. The chosen candidate, irrespective of her human qualities, would have to be a royal princess, preferably of a ruling dynasty, financially comfortable and acceptable to General Franco. Sentiment would always take second place to political considerations. Some days before the anniversary party, the matter was discussed at a session of Don Juan’s Privy Council. On the basis of having enjoyed herself rather publicly at the previous spring’s Feria de Sevilla, María Gabriella was denounced as being frivolous – which José María Pemán thought ridiculous. In any case, Don Juan told Pemán: ‘I don’t think Juanito will be mature enough for at least a year or two.’
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Olghina di Robilant’s view that, already by the late 1950s, Juan Carlos believed that he would succeed Franco and thus take his father’s place on the throne was, of course, precisely the plan of Laureano López Rodó. On the reasonable assumption that there would be a monarchical succession to Franco, the Opus Dei was consolidating its links with both of the principal potential candidates. Thus, just as Rafael Calvo Serer remained close to Don Juan, so Juan Carlos was central to the far-reaching political plans of López Rodó.
In the wake of the internal dissent provoked by Arrese’s schemes, the Barcelona strike, serious economic problems and the push for an accelerated transition to the monarchy that had culminated in the death of Bautista Sánchez, Franco reluctantly decided that the time had come to renew his ministerial team. His hesitation was not just a symptom of his lifelong caution but was also a reflection of his inability to react with any flexibility to new problems. The cabinet reshuffle of February 1957 was to be a major turning point in the road from the dictatorship to the eventual monarchy of Juan Carlos. It was to open up the process whereby Franco would abandon his commitment to economic autarky and accept Spanish integration into the Organization for European Economic Co-operation and the International Monetary Fund. The weary Caudillo was ceasing to be an active Prime Minister and turning himself into ceremonial Head of State, relying ever more on Carrero Blanco as executive head of the government. The recently promoted admiral, no more versed than Franco in the ways of governing a modern economy, relied increasingly on López Rodó who, at 37 years of age, had become technical Secretary-General of the Presidencia del Gobierno.
(#litres_trial_promo) The long-term implications of López Rodó’s growing influence could hardly have been anticipated by Franco or Carrero Blanco, let alone by Don Juan and his son.
The detail of the cabinet changes reflected Franco’s readiness to defer to the advice of Carrero Blanco who, in turn, drew on the views of López Rodó. Indeed, such was López Rodó’s closeness to Carrero Blanco that his own collaborators came to refer to him as ‘Carrero Negro’.
(#litres_trial_promo) Having witnessed the ferocity of internal opposition to Arrese’s proposals, Franco now went in the other direction, clipping the wings of the Falange. The Falangists he appointed could scarcely have been more docile. Other key appointments saw General Muñoz Grandes replaced as the Minister for the Army by the monarchist General Antonio Barroso. While hardly likely to become involved in conspiracy, Barroso was infinitely more sympathetic to Don Juan than the pro-Falangist Muñoz Grandes. Most important of all was the inclusion of a group of technocrats associated with the Opus Dei. Together, López Rodó, the new Minister of Commerce, Alberto Ullastres Calvo, and the new Minister of Finance, Mariano Navarro Rubio, would undertake a major project of economic and political transformation of the regime. The implications of their work for the post-Franco future would dramatically affect the position of Juan Carlos.
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That was made clear in some astonishingly frank remarks made by López Rodó to the Conde de Ruiseñada shortly after the cabinet reshuffle. López Rodó claimed in effect that the marginalization of Franco was one of the long-term objectives of the technocrats. He told Ruiseñada that the ‘Tercera Fuerza’ (Third Force) plans of Opus Dei members like Rafael Calvo Serer and Florentino Pérez Embid (the editor of El Alcázar) were doomed to failure since, ‘it is impossible to talk to Franco about politics because he gets the impression that they are trying to get him out of his seat or paving the way for his replacement.’ He then made the revealing comment that ‘The only trick is to get him to accept an administrative plan to decentralize the economy. He doesn’t think of that as being directed against him personally. He will give us a free hand and, then, once inside the administration, we will see how far we can go with our political objectives, which have to be masked as far as possible.’
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At the end of March 1957, shortly before the first anniversary of the death of Alfonsito de Borbón, the Conde de Ruiseñada had a bust of him made and placed in the grounds of El Alamín. A number of young monarchists were invited and Luis María Anson, a brilliant young journalist and leader of the monarchist university youth movement, assuming that the bust would be unveiled by Juan Carlos, expressed concern that the occasion would be too painful for him. Anson was astonished to be told by Ruiseñada that the Caudillo had already instructed him to ask Juan Carlos’s cousin, Alfonso de Borbón y Dampierre, to preside at the ceremony. ‘I want you to cultivate him, Ruiseñada. Because if the son turns out as badly for us as his father has, we’ll have to start thinking about Don Alfonso.’ Anson reported the conversation to Don Juan. Until this time, the pretensions of Don Jaime and his son had not been taken entirely seriously in Estoril. Henceforth, there would be an acute awareness of the dangers of Franco applying the Ley de Sucesión in favour of Alfonso de Borbón y Dampierre.
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In May 1957, speaking with Dionisio Ridruejo, a Falangist poet who had broken with the regime, López Rodó revealed his concerns about the fragility of a system dependent on the mortality of Franco. López Rodó wanted to see the Caudillo’s personal dictatorship replaced by a more secure structure of governmental institutions and constitutional laws. Allegedly declaring that, in the wake of the recent cabinet changes, ‘the personal power of General Franco has come to an end’, López Rodó hoped to have Juan Carlos officially proclaimed royal successor while Franco was still alive. It was rather like Ruiseñada’s plan, except with Juan Carlos instead of Don Juan in the role of successor. Until 1968, when the Prince would reach 30, the age at which the Ley de Sucesión permitted him to assume the throne, Franco would remain as regent. To prevent the Head of State, King or Caudillo, suffering unnecessary political attrition, there would be a separation of the Headship of State and the position of Prime Minister.
(#litres_trial_promo) López Rodó’s optimism in this respect would be seriously dented in November 1957. At that point, he came near to being dismissed when Franco noticed that the decrees emanating from the Presidencia del Gobierno were limiting his powers.
(#litres_trial_promo) López Rodó’s plans for political change had to be introduced with extreme delicacy if the Caudillo were not to call an immediate halt to them. That, together with the hostility of the still powerful Falangists to the concept of monarchy, ensured that the realization of his programme would take another 12 years.
On 18 July 1957, Juan Carlos had passed out as Second-Lieutenant at Zaragoza. After showing off his uniform in Estoril, he went to visit his grandmother in Lausanne. While in Switzerland, he gave a press interview in which he stated that he regarded his father as King. His declaration of loyalty to Don Juan annoyed the Caudillo. Franco commented to Pacón, ‘just like Don Juan, the Prince is badly advised and he should keep quiet and not speak so much.’ Shortly afterwards, Juan Carlos visited Franco and the three military ministers of the cabinet. It may be supposed that the Caudillo’s displeasure at his comments to the Swiss press was communicated to him because it was a mistake he would never repeat.
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On 20 August 1957, Juan Carlos entered the naval school at Marin, in the Ría de Pontevedra in Galicia, an idyllic spot marred only by the stench from the nearby paper mills. After facing initial hostility from some of his fellow cadets, his easy-going affability and capacity for physical hardship won them over.
(#litres_trial_promo) While at Marín, he met Pacón, who wrote: ‘I found him an absolute delight. It is impossible to conceive of a more agreeable, straightforward and pleasant lad.’
(#litres_trial_promo) The Prince was unaware of López Rodó’s schemes for his future. By now, the Catalan lawyer had been asked by Carrero Blanco to draw up a set of constitutional texts which would allow the eventual installation of the monarchy, yet still be acceptable to those who wanted the Movimiento to survive after the ‘biological fact’, as the death of Franco was coming to be called. The question of the transition from the dictator to an installed monarch, and López Rodó’s draft texts, were discussed interminably in the cabinet. However, Franco had no interest in a process that he regarded as no more than fine-tuning the Ley de Sucesión. In any case, he was in no hurry to think about death.
Throughout the summer of 1957, Ruiseñada and López Rodó both tried to arrange an interview between Franco and Don Juan. Whether their agendas in doing so coincided is difficult to say. In any case, they had not consulted Don Juan previously. From Scotland, where he was on holiday, Don Juan refused on the grounds that he could see no sign of progress or reform in the regime. Indeed, on 25 June, he had sent Franco a letter and memorandum in which he stated that there was no point in a meeting until Franco was prepared to make a major step forward in planning for the future. ‘The time for a new interview will be when Your Excellency judges that the opportune moment has arrived for a significant change. Such an interview should not be limited to a mere interchange of news and ideas but rather, unless you think otherwise, should deal with the fundamental issues of Spain’s political future and this is not something that can be improvised in the course of a conversation.’ It is not difficult to imagine how the Caudillo reacted to the suggestion that Don Juan might be in a position to negotiate about the political future. His role, if any, so far as Franco saw it, was simply to swear an oath to accept the Francoist system in toto.
A reference by Don Juan to ‘the interim status of the present regime’ might also have been designed to infuriate Franco. He was equally irritated by the suggestion that the monarchy under Don Juan would deviate from the essential bases of that regime. He replied in early September: ‘The monarchy should be born as a natural and logical evolution of the regime itself towards other institutional forms of state; from a strong, authoritarian state that safeguards the national and moral values in defence of which the Movimiento Nacional emerged, and at the same time, opens the way to those new kinds of state demanded by the needs of the country and which can assure the consolidation and survival of the monarchical regime.’
Franco took the greatest offence at the implication that the future monarchy might change anything at all about his regime. He described Don Juan’s points as ‘unacceptable’ and reminded him that while constitutional plans were in place for a monarchy, nothing had been settled about the individuals who might sit on the throne. The Caudillo made it clear that there was no question whatsoever of a different conception of the State succeeding his regime. As from on high, the all-powerful master lecturing the recalcitrant servant, he wrote: ‘Herein lies the great confusion that has prompted your memorandum, not only in regard to the needs of the country and to the opinion of great sectors of the nation but also in regard to what it means to be able to forge a new legality. Our War of Liberation, with all its sacrifices, meant that the people won with their blood the situation and the regime that we now enjoy. The Ley de Sucesión came, nearly ten years later, to give written form to the legality forged by the man who saved an entire society, re-established peace and law and order and placed the nation firmly on the road to its resurgence. To call into question this long consolidated legality, to harbour reservations about what has been constituted and to try to open a constituent period, would signify a massive suicide. It would give hope to all the ambitions and appetites of the rebellious minorities and would offer foreigners and enemies from outside a new opportunity to besiege and destroy Spain.’ Such a mixture of arrogance and paranoia left no room for dialogue.
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Don Juan had just returned from his holiday in Scotland and absorbed this thunderous rebuff when López Rodó arrived in Lisbon. He was in Portugal as part of a Spanish economic delegation. At a lunch given by the Portuguese Prime Minister, Marcelo Caetano, journalists asked the Spanish Ambassador, Nicolás Franco, if it was true that the Caudillo wished Don Juan to abdicate in favour of Juan Carlos. He replied in typical gallego (Galician) fashion, ‘I’ve never heard my brother say anything about that. But I think that if he can have two spare wheels, he wouldn’t want to make do with only one.’ There can be little doubt that the exchange was reported back to Villa Giralda and can only have caused Don Juan considerable concern.
López Rodó took the opportunity of the trip to arrange a clandestine meeting with Don Juan in the centre of Lisbon at the home of a Portuguese friend. Unaware of Franco’s high-handed letter, he endeavoured to reassure Don Juan that things were moving within the regime, albeit slowly. Without admitting, as he had to Dionisio Ridruejo three months earlier, that he saw Juan Carlos as the better bet, López Rodó himself explained to Don Juan his scheme for gradual evolution. Their conversation on 17 September 1957 lasted more than three hours. López Rodó told Don Juan that, although Franco wanted to put an end to the uncertainty surrounding his succession, he was obsessed with the fear that, when he died, his life’s work could simply be jettisoned by his royal successor. Thus, in accordance with the Ley de Sucesión, whoever was chosen would have to accept the basic principles of the Francoist State. Don Juan made it clear that for him to take the first step would be, ‘like being forced to take a purgative. I wouldn’t want to be politically compromised.’ As delicately as possible, López Rodó hinted that such an attitude eliminated him from the game.
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Later on the same day, perhaps influenced by his conversation with López Rodó, Don Juan wrote a conciliatory letter to Franco. His backtracking was a clear recognition of the fact that Franco held all the cards: ‘I am deeply distressed that the interpretation which Your Excellency has given to the paragraph in my memorandum, in which I spoke of “the monarchy as a natural and logical evolution of the regime itself”, should differ so much from the meaning that I put into my words. Evolution, for me, means perfecting, completing the present regime, but the idea of opening a constituent period, or of any discontinuity between the present regime and the monarchy, has never entered my mind.’ He ended feebly by saying that, whenever Franco wished, he would be delighted to meet him.
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Revelling in the weakness revealed by this exchange, Franco twisted the knife further by fostering the claims to the throne of various Carlist pretenders. Accordingly, the ever-busy Pedro Sainz Rodríguez came up with a scheme to strengthen Don Juan’s position. This took the form of an orchestrated ceremony at Villa Giralda on 20 December 1957 involving a delegation of 44 of the most prominent members of the rival dynastic group, the Comunión Tradicionalista. After a solemn mass, Don Juan, wearing the red beret of the Carlists, accepted the principles of the medieval absolute monarchy dear to the Traditionalists. They, for their part, declared that they regarded him as the legitimate heir to the throne. The consequence was that a majority of the Carlists lined up behind Don Juan, although a significant minority of hardliners would continue to push the claims of Don Javier de Borbón Parma and his son Hugo.
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The prize was insufficient to justify the fact that, as the paladin of a liberal monarchy, Don Juan was making two grave errors. Not only was he committing himself to principles inimical to the interplay of political parties, but he was also confirming to Franco the debility of his position. Far from being above partisan interests, he was showing that he had to wheel and deal in order to gain support. When he wrote to inform Franco officially, the Caudillo replied with a patronizing letter of considerable cunning, picking up precisely on this point. He expressed his satisfaction that Don Juan had finally linked up with the only real monarchists (by which he meant those who rejected the liberal constitutional monarchy of his father, Alfonso XIII). He then went on to point out the contradiction of this new position with Don Juan’s previously liberal stance. ‘I refer to the repeated manifestation of your desire to be King of all Spaniards. There can be no argument that the Pretender to the throne of Spain might one day wish to feel that he could be King of all Spaniards. This is normal in monarchical situations in all countries. Everyone who accepts and respects an established order must respect its supreme authorities just as they must treat all citizens with the love given to subjects. But when there are citizens who, from abroad or inside the country, betray or combat their Fatherland, or declare themselves to be agents in the service of foreign powers, such words could well be erroneously interpreted.’ The letter concluded with the condescending advice that Don Juan not make public declarations without first seeking his approval.
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Many of Don Juan’s advisers, like Ruiseñada, believed that a rapprochement with Franco was the only route to the throne. Ruiseñada himself died in mysterious circumstances in France on 23 April 1958. His death in a sleeper compartment of a stationary train in the railway station of Tours, coming a year after the demise of his fellow conspirator Bautista Sánchez gave rise to suspicions of foul play. However, the death was almost certainly the result of natural causes.
(#litres_trial_promo) Other monarchists thought that the growing unpopularity of the regime should incline the Pretender to keep his distance. In fact, their hopes were entirely misplaced. Every time that Franco spoke to his cousin Pacón about Don Juan, it was to lament his liberal connections. He muttered that if Don Juan were to accept the postulates of the Movimiento without reservations, there would be no legal impediment. However, it was clear that Franco had no confidence in Don Juan ever doing so. In early June 1958, he said to Pacón: ‘I’m already 65 and it’s only natural that I should prepare my own succession, since something might happen to me. For this, the only possible princes are Don Juan and Don Juan Carlos who are, in that order, the legal heirs. It’s such a pity about Don Juan’s English education, which is of course so liberal.’ He would reveal his lack of trust in Don Juan even more clearly in mid-March 1959 when telling Pacón that Don Juan, ‘is entirely in the hands of the enemies of the regime who want to wipe out the Crusade and the sweeping victory that we won’.
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In May 1958, while the 20-year-old Juan Carlos was still completing his course as a naval cadet, he sailed as a midshipman in the Spanish Navy’s sailing ship, the Juan Sebastián Elcano. It was to cross the Atlantic, putting in at several US ports. At the same time, Don Juan was engaged in a dangerous adventure. In an effort to put behind him the tragedy of Alfonsito, he had decided to sail the Atlantic in his yacht, the Saltillo, following the route of Christopher Columbus. When he reached Funchal in Madeira, he was awaited by Fernando María Castiella, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs. Castiella had been sent by Franco to persuade Don Juan to abandon the voyage.
(#litres_trial_promo) It is likely that this was motivated less by concerns for Don Juan’s safety than by fears that a successful journey might increase his prestige.
At the time, the Spanish Ambassador to the United States was José María de Areilza, the one-time Falangist who had only very recently become a partisan of Don Juan. As recently as 1955, Areilza had written to Franco protesting at the presence in Spain of Juan Carlos as a ‘Trojan horse’ whose presence delighted ‘all the reds and separatists’.
(#litres_trial_promo) Now, newly converted to liberalism, he informed the authorities in Washington of the fact that the Prince was aboard the training ship and alerted the American press. The Embassy was showered with invitations for the Prince in Washington, New York and elsewhere. Serious damage to the storm-battered Saltillo gave Areilza the excuse needed to arrange to have Don Juan picked up by the US coastguard and brought to the Embassy. Once Don Juan was installed there, Areilza was able to incorporate him into the various events arranged for Juan Carlos. The Ambassador requested permission from Franco to receive Don Juan and his son at the Spanish Embassy. However, to the delight of the Americans and the embarrassment of Madrid, Areilza went beyond his instructions and the presence of the two members of the Spanish royal family was converted almost into a State visit. There were much-publicized visits to the Library of Congress, the Pentagon and Arlington Cemetery, to West Point and, in New York, to Cardinal Spellman’s residence, to the Metropolitan Opera, and to the offices of the New York Times.
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While Juan Carlos and Don Juan were in the United States, López Rodó was continuing to beaver away at his plan for the post-Franco monarchy. The first fruit of his work as head of Carrero Blanco’s secretariat of the Presidencia was the Ley de Principios del Movimiento (Declaration of the Fundamental Principles of the Movimiento). The text was presented to the Cortes by Franco himself on 17 May 1958. It was clear that López Rodó had worked on the gradual reform to which he had referred in his conversations with Ruiseñada and Don Juan. The twelve principles were an innocuously vague and high-minded statement of the regime’s Catholicism and commitment to social justice, but within them could be discerned the formal decoupling of the regime from Falangism. The seventh principle stated that: ‘The political form of the Spanish State, within the immutable principles of the Movimiento Nacional and the Ley de Sucesión and the other fundamental laws, is the traditional, Catholic, social and representative monarchy.’
(#litres_trial_promo) The biggest obstacle to Don Juan, or his son, ever accepting the idea of a monarchy tied to the regime was the Falange. Now it was shifting slightly. Of the Movimiento Nacional understood as being the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS, central to schemes such as that of Arrese, there was nothing in Franco’s speech.
The text made it appear as if Franco was edging towards the idea of a monarchical restoration, and many monarchists eagerly interpreted the speech in those terms. So soon after Arrese’s aborted plans, this constituted a puzzling u-turn that can be explained largely in terms of López Rodó’s influence. Franco had left the drafting of his speech to Carrero Blanco and he in turn had left it to López Rodó. Either because he had not fully digested its implications, or else because they simply did not bother him, he had not discussed the text in cabinet before making the speech. In the Cortes, several ministers had revealed their dismay at its apparent departure from Falangism by ostentatiously failing to applaud. After a lengthy conversation with Franco in the wake of the speech, Pacón reached the conclusion that none of this mattered, since it was clear that Franco had no intention of leaving power before death or incapacity obliged him to do so. Pacón asked him if he excluded Don Juan as a possible successor in such a case. Franco replied: ‘The designation of a King is the task of the Consejo del Reino but I certainly don’t exclude him. If Don Juan accepts the principles of the Movimiento unreservedly, there is no legal reason to exclude him.’ That Pacón had got it right was revealed on 6 June 1958, when Franco made Agustín Muñoz Grandes Chief of the General Staff replacing Juan Vigón. Muñoz Grandes was to ensure that the Caudillo’s wishes would be carried out if he died or were incapacitated. The appointment made it unequivocally clear that Franco had no intention of handing over to any successor before that time.
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The promulgation of the Ley de Principios del Movimiento had taken place while Juan Carlos and his father were in New York. After their visit was over, Don Juan made the hazardous trip back across the Atlantic in the Saltillo. On reaching the Portuguese port of Cascáis on 24 June, several dozen enthusiastic Spanish monarchists were waiting to congratulate him on his remarkable maritime exploits. On the quayside, Franco’s new Ambassador to Portugal, José Ibáñez Martín, was jostled. When a Portuguese journalist asked the name of the man who had replaced Nicolás Franco in the Lisbon Embassy, several voices replied in unison ‘sinvergüenza’ (scoundrel). As Don Juan posed for photographers, the Ambassador tried to insinuate himself into the frame. Ibáñez Martín was seized and dragged to one side by an ardent young monarchist who had to be restrained from throwing him into the water. When Ibáñez Martín protested to Don Juan, he was ignored. At the reception held afterwards, there was booing when someone announced that a delegation of Procuradores from the Cortes planned to ask Don Juan to accept the Ley de Principios del Movimiento. In his speech, Don Juan declared: ‘I won’t return as Franco’s puppet. I will be King of all Spaniards.’ He told the dissident General Heli Rolando de Telia that only prudence prevented him making a full public break with Franco. Full reports on the various incidents soon reached the Caudillo.
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Even without these declarations, the Caudillo now had yet another reason for resenting Don Juan. Franco always claimed that his real vocation was in the Navy. Only ten years earlier, on 12 October 1948, at the monastery of La Rábida where Christopher Columbus kept vigil on the night before setting out from Palos de Moguer on his historic voyage, Franco had awarded himself the title of Gran Almirante de Castilla (Lord High Admiral of Castile). Considering himself to be the twentieth-century Christopher Columbus, he must have been deeply irritated by the adulation showered on Don Juan for his real maritime achievements.
(#litres_trial_promo) Franco was even more displeased when a report from the security services about Don Juan reached him. It consisted of a transcription of a lengthy conversation with a German journalist. Don Juan denounced the illegitimacy of Franco’s tenure of power and stated categorically that the next King had to be committed to national reconciliation.
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It was hardly surprising that the Caudillo’s determination not to hand over the baton for a very long time was reiterated in his end-of-the-year broadcast on New Year’s Eve 1958. Despite the fact that the Spanish economy was on the verge of collapse, with inflation soaring and working-class unrest on the increase, he dedicated the bulk of his lengthy speech (30 pages in its printed version) to a hymn of praise to the Movimiento. In particular, he presented it as the institutionalization of his victory in the Civil War. The underlying message of his obscure ramblings was that the future succession would take place only in accordance with the principles of the Movimiento. Denouncing the failures of the Borbón monarchy in terms of ‘frivolity, lack of foresight, neglect, clumsiness and blindness’, he claimed that anyone who did not recognize the legitimacy of his regime was suffering from ‘personal egoism and mental debility’. After these unmistakable allusions to his person, Don Juan could hardly feel secure about his position in the Caudillo’s plans for the future.
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Franco’s words made it clear that he was keen to dampen the ardour of those monarchists who had taken the Ley de Principiosdel Movimiento as implying that a handover of power to Don Juan was imminent. Their optimism was exposed at a monarchist gathering in Madrid on 29 January 1959. Progressive supporters of Don Juan held a dinner at the Hotel Menfis to launch an association known as Unión Española. The days of aristocratic courtiers like Danvila or Ruiseñada were now giving way to something altogether more modern. Unión Española was the brainchild of the liberal monarchist lawyer and industrialist, Joaquín Satrústegui. Although Gil Robles was present, he did not make a speech. Those who did – including the Socialist intellectual from the University of Salamanca, Professor Enrique Tierno Galván – made it clear that the monarchy, to survive, could not be installed by a dictator but had to be re-established with the popular support of a majority of Spaniards. The hawk-like Satrústegui directly contradicted Franco’s end-of-year declaration that the Crusade was the fount of the regime’s legitimacy.
To the outrage of the Caudillo, Satrústegui, who had fought on the Nationalist side in 1936, argued that the tragedy of a civil war could not be the basis for the future. He specifically confronted Franco’s oft-repeated demand that Don Juan swear loyalty to the ideals of the uprising of 18 July 1936, saying ‘a civil war is something horrible in which compatriots kill one another … the monarchy cannot rest on such a basis.’ He brushed aside the idea of an ‘installed’ monarchy enshrined in the Ley de Sucesión, declaring openly that ‘Today, the legitimate King of Spain is Don Juan de Borbón y Battenberg. He is so as the son of his father, the grandson of his grandfather and heir to an entire dynasty. These, and no others, are his titles to the throne.’ Franco was livid when he read the texts of the Hotel Menfis after-dinner speeches and fined Satrústegui the not inconsiderable sum of 50,000 pesetas. That the penalties were not more severe, comparable for instance to those meted out to left-wing opponents, derived from the fact that Franco did not want to be seen to be persecuting the followers of Don Juan.
(#litres_trial_promo) Given that victory in the Civil War, as he repeatedly stated, was the basis of his own ‘legitimacy’, Franco could not help but be appalled by what had been said and by the fact that Don Juan refused to disown Satrústegui. He told his cousin Pacón that the monarchy of either Don Juan or Juan Carlos, if not based on the principles of the Movimiento, would be the first step to a Communist takeover.
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If the Menfis dinner annoyed Franco, his outrage at a report from his secret service can be imagined. On the day before the Menfis event, Don Juan had received a group of Spanish students in Estoril. If the report written by one of the students was accurate, it presented either a misplaced attempt at humour or the indiscretions of someone who had had too much to drink at lunch. Allegedly, Don Juan had outlined his conviction that, in the event of Franco’s death, all he had to do was head for the Palacio de Oriente in Madrid. Streams of monarchist generals would ensure that he was not challenged. He would abolish the Falange by decree and allow political parties, including the Socialists.
(#litres_trial_promo) The report goes some way to explaining the contemptuous manner in which Franco referred to Don Juan in private.
The emergence of Unión Española was merely one symptom of unrest within the Francoist coalition. That Satrústegui could get away with such sweeping criticism of the regime suggested that Franco was losing his grip. Certainly, his inability to deal with the economic crisis other than by relinquishing control to his new team of technocrats suggested that his mind was elsewhere.
(#litres_trial_promo)To dampen the speculation about his future, Franco permitted Carrero Blanco and López Rodó to continue their work on the elaboration of a constitutional scheme for the post-Franco succession. It would be called the Ley Orgánica del Estado and would outline the powers of the future King. The first draft was given to Franco by Carrero Blanco on 7 March 1959 together with a sycophantic note urging the completion of the ‘constitutional process’: ‘If the King were to inherit the powers which Your Excellency has, we would find it alarming since he will change everything. We must ratify the lifetime character of the magistracy of Your Excellency who is Caudillo which is greater than King because you are founding a monarchy.’ Once the law was drafted, Carrero Blanco proposed calling a referendum. Once this was won – ‘people will vote according to the propaganda that they are fed’ – ‘we could ask Don Juan: do you accept unreservedly? If he says no, problem solved, we turn to the son. If he also says no, we seek a regent.’
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In the wake of the Hotel Menfis affair, Franco was hesitant. He reiterated to Pacón one week later that Don Juan and Prince Juan Carlos must accept that the monarchy could be re-established only within the Movimiento, because a liberal constitutional monarchy ‘would not last a year and would cause chaos in Spain, rendering the Crusade useless. In that way, the way would be open for a Kerensky and shortly thereafter for Communism or chaos in our Fatherland.’
(#litres_trial_promo) Unwilling to do anything that might hasten his own departure, he did nothing with the constitutional draft for another eight years.
To increase his freedom of action and to put pressure on Don Juan, Franco continued quietly to cultivate Alfonso de Borbón y Dampierre, the son of Don Juan’s brother Don Jaime. Through the deputy chief of his household, General Fernando Fuertes de Villavicencio, an audience was arranged. Franco liked both Alfonso and his brother Gonzalo and discussed the succession question with them. After asking Alfonso if he was familiar with the Ley de Sucesión, he said, ‘I have made no decision whatsoever regarding who will be called in the future to replace me as Head of State.’ Hearing that Alfonso had been received at El Pardo, José Solís Ruiz, Secretary-General of the Movimiento and other Falangists began to promote the idea of meeting the conditions of the Ley de Sucesión with a príncipe azul (a Falangist prince).
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On 15 September 1958, Juan Carlos would move to the Air Force academy of San Javier in Murcia. He was delighted to be learning to fly and endeared himself to his fellow cadets with his pranks, ably assisted by his pet monkey, Fito, who wore Air Force uniform. Juan Carlos had taught him to salute and shake hands. The relationship with the monkey would see the Prince confined to barracks. Eventually Don Juan obliged him to part company with Fito.
(#litres_trial_promo) In the course of the year, the Prince made a number of gestures aimed at consolidating his links with the regime. In the spring of 1959, while still a cadet at the academy, he took part in Franco’s annual victory parade, to celebrate the end of the Civil War. That he was not treated exactly like all the other cadets may be deduced from the fact that, while in Madrid, he stayed at the Ritz where he received many visitors. At some points of the parade, Juan Carlos was applauded. However, at the Plaza de Colón, a group of Falangists and supporters of the Carlist pretender Don Javier, having arrived from the nearby headquarters of the Falange in the Calle Alcalá, began to insult the Prince and shout ‘We don’t want idiot kings.’ The police stood by without interfering. In order to diminish the hostility of the Falange, in late May 1959, Juan Carlos laid a laurel wreath in Alicante on the spot where José Antonio Primo de Rivera had been executed on 20 November 1936. It was to no avail. The Movimiento daily, Pueblo, criticized him for not visiting the historic sites of Francoism with greater frequency.
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On 12 December 1959, Juan Carlos’s military training came to an end and he was given the rank of Lieutenant in all three armed services. At the official ceremony at the Zaragoza military academy, the new Minister for the Army, Lieutenant-General Antonio Barroso, in a speech that he had previously submitted for Franco’s approval, paid a special tribute to Juan Carlos and to Queen Victoria Eugenia. Underlining the importance of the occasion for Juan Carlos’s future, Barroso significantly spoke of how ‘your fidelity, patriotism, sacrifice and hard work will compensate you for other sorrows and troubles’.
(#litres_trial_promo) It is not clear whether this was a specific reference to the death of his brother or a more general comment on the situation of a young man separated from his family.
Juan Carlos was now 22 and he had matured during his time in the academies although his tastes were exactly what might have been expected in any young man of his age, particularly an aristocrat – girls, dancing, jazz and sports cars. One of his instructors told Benjamin Welles, a correspondent of the New York Times, ‘He is no older than his actual age.’
(#litres_trial_promo) Nevertheless, Franco was happy with the progress made by Juan Carlos but ever more distrustful of his father. He told Pacón in early 1960: ‘Don Juan is beyond redemption and with every passing day he’s more untrustworthy.’ When Pacón tried to explain that the Pretender’s objective was a monarchy that would unite all Spaniards, Franco exploded. ‘Don Juan ought to understand that for things to stay as they were during the Second Republic, there was no need for the bloody Civil War … It’s a pity that Don Juan is so badly advised and is still set on the idea of a liberal monarchy. He is a very pleasant person but politically he goes along with the last person to offer him advice … In the event of Don Juan not being able to govern because of his liberalism or for some other reason, much effort has gone into the education of his son, Prince Juan Carlos, who by dint of his effort and commitment has achieved the three stars of an officer in the three services and now is ready to go to university.’
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It is curious that while in public, Franco seemed to favour the cause of other pretenders, such as Don Jaime and his son, and the Carlists; in private, he had reduced the choice essentially to one between Don Juan and Juan Carlos. Although he harboured no hope of Don Juan accepting the principles of the Movimiento, he had little doubt in the case of Juan Carlos. The other candidates served both as reserves but also as a way of exerting pressure on Don Juan and his son. Franco’s growing fondness for Juan Carlos was leading him to assume that he could rely on Don Juan to abdicate in favour of his son. It was a vain expectation. Don Juan wrote to Franco on 16 October 1959, reporting on an interview with General de Gaulle, in which they had discussed the future of Spain. He wrote: ‘I believe that if one day, this situation were to be addressed using the present legal arrangements, it is to be hoped that a conflict will not be provoked by a rash attempt arbitrarily to alter the natural order of the succession which both the Príncipe de Asturias and myself are determined to uphold.’
(#litres_trial_promo) The issue of Juan Carlos’s university education was now about to bedevil even more the relationship between his father and the Caudillo.
Don Juan had originally planned for Juan Carlos to go to the prestigious University of Salamanca. This project apparently enjoyed the approval of Franco. For more than a year, the Prince’s tutor, General Martínez Campos, had been making preparations to this end. He had discussed it with the Minister of Education, Jesús Rubio García-Mina, and the Secretary-General of the Movimiento, José Solís Ruiz. He had also been to Salamanca, for talks with the rector of the university, José Bertrán de Heredia. He had found suitable accommodation and had vetted possible teachers. Then, suddenly, without warning, Don Juan began to have doubts about his Salamanca project in late 1959. On 17 December, General Martínez Campos had travelled to Estoril to make the final arrangements. On the following day, there ensued a tense interview at Villa Giralda. The general began with a report on Juan Carlos’s visit to El Pardo on 15 December. Apparently, after Franco had chatted to the Prince about what awaited him in Salamanca, he had told him that, once he was established at the university, he hoped to see him more often. Don Juan reacted by saying that he was thinking of changing his mind about sending his son to Salamanca. A furious Martínez Campos expostulated that any change in the arrangements at this late stage – after Juan Carlos had received his commissions in the three services – would be infinitely damaging for the prestige of Don Juan and of the monarchist cause. He was appalled that it might now look that he had lied in order to ensure that Juan Carlos received his commissions. He insisted that he would not leave Estoril until the issue was settled one way or the other.
On 19 December, the day after this disagreeable encounter, there was an informal meeting of several of Don Juan’s Privy Council. One after another, the Marqués Juan Ignacio de Luca de Tena, Pedro Sainz Rodríguez and others spoke against the idea of the Prince being educated at Salamanca, implying that it was a dangerous place, full of foreign students and left-wing professors.
(#litres_trial_promo) This was most vehemently the view of the Opus Dei members, Gonzalo Fernández de la Mora and Florentino Pérez Embid. Fernández de la Mora and Sainz Rodríguez proposed that Juan Carlos be tutored at the palace of Miramar, in San Sebastián, by teachers drawn from several universities. Martínez Campos pointed out that Salamanca had been chosen for its historic traditions and for its position midway between Madrid and Estoril. He explained that his meticulous preparations – including the nomination of military aides to accompany the Prince – obviated all of the problems now being anticipated. He was mortified when, with a silent Don Juan looking on, the others furiously dismissed his arguments. At this humiliating evidence of his declining influence over Don Juan, he resigned. This occasioned considerable distress for Juan Carlos, who had become increasingly attached to his severe tutor. Over the next three days, the Prince made great efforts to persuade him to withdraw his resignation, as did his father. However, the fiercely proud Martínez Campos was not prepared to accept an improvised scheme dreamed up by Sainz Rodríguez, Pérez Embid and Fernández de la Mora.
Martínez Campos pointed out the dangers inherent in what Don Juan was doing – after all, Juan Carlos was an officer in the Spanish forces and Franco could post him wherever he liked, including Salamanca. Don Juan responded by asking him to accept the formal nomination of head of the Prince’s household, effectively the job that he had done for the previous five years. Concerned above all for his own dignity, Martínez Campos categorically refused to overturn his own plan and then supervise the implementation of the scheme of three men for whom he had little or no respect. He claimed that Don Juan’s vacillations would constitute irreparable damage to the image of the monarchy within the Army and in Spain in general. Furthermore, he argued that Franco would see this as evidence that Don Juan was ‘easily swayed by outside influences and pressures’. Don Juan ignored these warnings and gave him an envelope sealed with wax to take to El Pardo. It contained a letter to Franco explaining his change of mind. On the evening of 23 December 1959, General Martínez Campos took the overnight train to Madrid. On the following morning, he went directly from the station to El Pardo. Franco received him cordially and commented only that he was not surprised, ‘bearing in mind those who were always in Estoril. But, if he received the news with a shrug, his closest collaborators were in no doubt that he was mightily displeased.
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The entire episode provided further proof that Juan Carlos was little more than a shuttlecock in a game being played by Don Juan and Franco. In 1948, he had been unfeelingly separated from Eugenio Vegas Latapié, the tutor of whom he was deeply fond. Having come to like, respect and rely on Martínez Campos during their six years together, the process was now repeated. Once more to lose his mentor and to be reminded that his interests were entirely subordinate to political considerations carried considerable emotional costs for Juan Carlos. He said later ‘The Duque’s [Martínez Campos’s] departure distressed me considerably, but there was nothing I could do for him. Nobody had asked for my opinion. It was as if I was on a football pitch. The ball was in the air and I had no idea where it was going to fall.’ It is indicative of the Prince’s relationship with his mentor that he made a point of spending time with him in the final days of his fatal illness in April 1975.
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There can be no doubt that the clash between Don Juan and Martínez Campos had enormous significance for the future of both the Prince and his father. Major Alfonso Armada Cornyn, who had worked for Martínez Campos in overseeing the Prince’s secondary education, wrote later that this episode was the definitive cause of Don Juan’s elimination from Franco’s plans for the succession. Luis María Anson, a declared admirer of Don Juan’s senior adviser, claimed that the clash at Estoril had been deliberately planned by Sainz Rodríguez in order to provoke Martínez Campos’s resignation, ‘one of his most audacious and farsighted political masterstrokes’. In Anson’s interpretation, Sainz Rodríguez believed that, in tandem with Martínez Campos, Juan Carlos would be highly vulnerable to the machinations of hostile elements of the Movimiento. By engineering the departure of the general, Sainz Rodríguez was manoeuvring Juan Carlos into the orbit of Carrero Blanco and López Rodó.
(#litres_trial_promo) In fact, the efforts of Don Juan and Juan Carlos himself to get Martínez Campos to withdraw his resignation make this difficult to believe. Moreover, López Rodó had already begun to throw his efforts behind the candidacy of Juan Carlos as successor. Rather than a farsighted and cunning plan on behalf of Juan Carlos, the manoeuvres of Sainz Rodríguez, Fernández de la Mora and Pérez Embid suggest a desperate attempt at preventing the Prince from eclipsing Don Juan as Franco’s successor. Sainz Rodríguez was concerned that, under the guardianship of Martínez Campos, Juan Carlos was being too smoothly integrated into Francoist plans for the future. In any case, whatever the aims of the choreographed ambush of Martínez Campos at Estoril, it merely consolidated Franco’s conviction that Don Juan was too easily influenced by advisers.
Indeed, one of the first consequences of the break with Martínez Campos was that General Alfredo Kindelán would resign as president of Don Juan’s Privy Council. A man of great dignity and prestige, Kindelán was replaced in early 1960 by the altogether more pliant and sinuous José María Pemán. The Opus Dei members Rafael Calvo Serer and Florentino Pérez Embid assumed key roles.
(#litres_trial_promo) In the meantime, there ensued a lengthy correspondence that would give an entirely different tone to the contest between the Caudillo and Don Juan regarding Juan Carlos. If there had previously been any doubt, the interchange would make it unmistakably obvious that Franco was viewing the Prince as a direct heir while his father saw him as a pawn in his own strategy to reach the throne. The letter entrusted by Don Juan to Martínez Campos began with an expression of gratitude for Juan Carlos’s passage through the three military academies and for General Barroso’s generous speech in Zaragoza. Don Juan went on to refer to his deepening anxieties about the next stage of the Prince’s education. He repeated most of the arguments that had been put to Martínez Campos over the previous few days. What he was saying echoed the advice received from Sainz Rodríguez, Fernández de la Mora, Pérez Embid and others, including Rafael Calvo Serer. He referred to this group as ‘many people of great intellectual standing and healthy patriotism’. Alleging that Martínez Campos had hurried him into accepting the Salamanca scheme, he expressed the view that it would be better for the Prince to receive private classes from professors of many universities. Accordingly, he would prefer his son to be established in a royal residence with total independence.
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On the following day, Don Juan sent the Caudillo an explanatory note together with a new plan of studies. In it, Don Juan stated somewhat implausibly, ‘I want to emphasize that the delay in making the final decision that the Prince should not follow his civilian studies in Salamanca is not in any way a sudden improvisation nor mere caprice on my part.’ In justification of this statement, he alleged that Martínez Campos had gone ahead and made concrete plans despite his orders to the contrary. The plan itself, disparaging the University of Salamanca and its professors, was covered in the fingerprints of the same men who had confronted General Martínez Campos in Estoril.
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Franco’s reply in mid-January was only mildly reproachful. He began by saying that he respected the Pretender’s decision while pointing out that the grounds on which it was based were highly dubious. He went on to say that further delay would be damaging to the Prince since it would break the habit of study, ‘to which I understand he is little inclined, preferring as he does practical activities and sport’. He then suggested that the Miramar palace in San Sebastián was totally unsuitable since it was too far removed from the great university centres and its damp climate would discourage hunting. Instead he proposed a location nearer Madrid, preferably the Casa de los Peces in El Escorial. ‘This would allow me, at the same time, to be able to see the Prince more often and to keep an eye on his education, which, as far as possible, I want to look after personally.’ He then announced that he had commissioned the Minister of Education, Jesús Rubio García-Mina, to draw up a full educational plan for the Prince and a team of professors from Madrid University to undertake the task.
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Don Juan discussed this letter with Pemán, who saw Franco’s desire to see the Prince frequently as ‘rather alarming’. Before talking to Pemán, Don Juan had already replied promptly at the beginning of February, accepting the idea of residence in El Escorial, suggesting a group of professors from all over Spain who might take charge of his son’s education and naming the Duque de Frías, a non-political aristocrat who was best known as president of the Madrid golf club, as head of the Prince’s household.
(#litres_trial_promo) Franco was quick to point out that the proposed teachers were likely to provide something approaching a liberal education. While that might be fine for ‘just any Spaniard’, something altogether more specific was required for the Prince. ‘It is necessary to complete the education of the Prince in those civilian subjects that are basic to his future decisions.’ He went on to explain that the coldly abstract education provided by a group of unworldly scholars would be entirely unsuitable. What was necessary, he declared, was a plan based on the principles of the Movimiento. From this he went on to say that he had noted that Don Juan had advisers who seemed to harbour the absurd idea that the monarchy could change the nature of the regime. As far as Franco was concerned, the contrary was self-evidently the case. The Caudillo had chosen the monarchy to succeed him precisely in order to prolong, not alter, his regime.
