Chapter 7: Out of the ashes: the consolidation of democracy: 1981–2

23F: Prelude

"Suárez had every reason to fear something of the sort. If he hoped to forestall it by disappearing from the scene, he was to be disappointed. Indeed, his resignation was to set off a train of political disintegration which merely consolidated the views of many officers that their intervention was a patriotic duty."

"His replacement by Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo, the Vice-President of the Cabinet, could hardly be seen as a new dawn. Calvo Sotelo owed his selection to the fact that, although not actively supported by any particular faction, he was the most widely tolerated candidate...The críticos, however, still flying the flag of inner-party democracy, were enraged by the manner of Calvo Sotelo’s selection. He was chosen not by the entire parliamentary group but by a caucus of senior UCD leaders. 2"

"Army readiness for a political intervention could hardly have been higher. Much to the chagrin of many senior officers, Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía made an official visit to the Basque Country from 3 to 5 February 1981. Some nationalists welcomed the notion of a direct dialogue between the crown and the Basque institutions. It recalled for them the historic situation before Basque privileges were lost. That point was implicit in the ostentatious marginalization from the ceremonies of the government’s official representative in the Basque Country, Marcelino Oreja. The King and Queen were greeted warmly in some areas but the first royal visit to the area since 1929 was seriously marred by desultory anti-Spanish demonstrations at Vitoria airport and by an incident at the Basque parliament, the Casa de Juntas in Guernica.

Before he could begin his speech, the King was interrupted by the deputies of Herri Batasuna who gave an impromptu rendition of the Basque national anthem, the Eusko Gudari. When the stewards tried to evict them, noisy scuffles broke out. When order was restored, Juan Carlos declared ‘Against those who make a practice of intolerance, who are contemptuous of co-existence and who have no respect for our institutions, I proclaim my faith in democracy and my confidence in the Basque people.’ The King handled the insulting outbreak with great dignity and aplomb, gaining a standing ovation from the PNV and other members of the Basque parliament. Despite the gratuitous discourtesy of Herri Batasuna, the royal trip, coming after Queen Sofía’s visit to the site of the Ortuella disaster, could not have had a more positive impact on Basque public opinion. However, the military was appalled.3"

"The second kidnapping, of José María Ryan, the chief engineer at the Lemoniz nuclear power station, had taken place on 29 January. ETA had once favoured nuclear energy as a means towards the self-sufficiency of Euskadi, but had been quick to see the potential of popular anti-nuclear sentiment. With the same ideological confusion that permitted the co-existence of rhetorical pacificism and daily violence, progress towards the completion of the Lemoniz plant was now interpreted as further Spanish exploitation. Iberduero, the company building Lemoniz, was given seven days to destroy installations in which over 130,000,000,000 pesetas had been invested, if Ryan was not to die. There was a wave of outrage throughout Spain and the Basque Country. The workers of Lemoniz, backed by the UGT, the Comisiones Obreras and the union linked to the PNV, ELA-STV, formed a Ryan Liberation Committee. Urgent appeals for Ryan’s life came from European anti- nuclear organizations, from Amnesty International which had so often defended ETA prisoners, from the Church and, most movingly, from the Ryan family. A huge demonstration calling for his release took place in Bilbao on 5 February. It was to no avail. An absurd and truculent note from ETA-M declared that this massive expression of popular feeling was an expression of contempt for the majority will of the people’. It went on to state that Ryan had been tried and found guilty of putting into practice the plans of Iberduero. ETA-M announced that the death sentence would be shortly put into effect Unlike ETA, the democratic state had abolished the death penalty and yet was denounced by the killers of Ryan as a fascist dictatorship. 5

The news of the vicious murder of this non-political family man on 6 February 1981 aroused mass indignation. There was a general strike across the entire Basque Country. 300,000 people took part in protest demonstrations in San Sebastián, Bilbao and Vitoria. Only Herri Batasuna stood aside and some of its militants stoned the demonstrators. The cynicism of Herri Batasuna surpassed even its previously remarkable record. The strikes and demonstrations were dismissed as the consequence of maniobra patronal (employers’ tricks) and intoxication de la prensa (press distortion). As far as Herri Batasuna was concerned, the main significance of Ryan’s murder was that it allowed the press to turn the people against ETA-M and HB. The fact that he had been cold- bloodedly shot in the back of the neck was referred to in its communiqué merely as his fatal desenlace (fatal end) as if ETA-M had somehow had nothing to do with it. Indeed, as far as Herri Batasuna was concerned, Ryan had been killed by Iberduero. 6

As ETA-M seems to have hoped, Ryan’s murder sparked off ultra-rightist fury in the army. The focus for this was an inflammatory article by the retired General Fernando de Santiago y Díaz de Mendívil. Under the headline Situation Limite (roughly, This Cannot Go On), he wrote that the incident in Guernica, in which the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces (the King) had been insulted, was typical of the state of decomposition into which Spain had fallen. Of the Ryan murder, he wrote ominously that ‘We can no longer remain impassive before such chaos’; of the long list of ETA kidnappings and assassinations, that they were ‘the most obvious proof that here there is no authority and authority must be re-established’. Recent evidence of growing electoral abstention was taken by General Santiago as meaning that the population had rejected the ‘contubernio político’ (the politics of intrigue) and was looking to the army to save Spain. 7

Since mid-December 1980, El Alcázar had published three more or less open appeals for a military coup under the by-line of ‘Almendros’ (almond trees). Acute analysts assumed that the collective signature of the Colectivo Almendros was a coded message that something was being plotted for the second half of February which is when the almond normally blossoms. The idea for the collective signature had been elaborated at the El Alcázar offices on 19 November in order to help create the necessary expectation for the forthcoming golpe...The collective felt secure in publishing its three seditious articles because five hundred officers had agreed that, in the event of the newspaper being prosecuted, they would all claim to have written them"

"To make matters worse, the tide of opinion against ETA unleashed by the murder of Ryan was reversed on 13 February by the death of the Etarra, Joseba Iñaki Arregui Izaguirre, who had been captured on 4 February after a spectacular shoot-out in Madrid. His death reflected at best stupidity on the part of his jailers; at worst a deliberate provocation just when the tide was turning against ETA. He had been beaten and it was clear that he had died as a result of police torture. The authorities claimed that Arregui was also suffering from serious bronchial pneumonia as a result of crossing the Pyrenees on foot in mid-winter. There were anti-Spanish demonstrations in the Basque Country against the police, smaller but much more vehement than those against ETA the previous week. Eleven policemen, of whom at least one was a self-confessed ultra, were put at the disposal of an investigating judge. There was a wave of resignations within the forces of order. They included that of the Director-General of the Police, José Manuel Blanco, and the Comisario General de Información, Manuel Ballesteros García, who both believed that the interrogation carried out by their men had been positive because it had led to revelations that the comando of which Arregui had formed part was in Madrid to prepare an attack on a senior military figure and to kidnap a prominent banker. The death of Arregui was too convenient for the plans being hatched by the ultras not to provoke speculation that it was a deliberate attempt to maintain the ferment in the Basque Country and to make the government appear to have lost control of events.10

Accordingly, when Calvo Sotelo finally addressed the Cortes on 21 February 1981, it was in an atmosphere charged with wild rumours about an imminent military coup. The death of Arregui had ruined hopes for a smooth transfer of power to the new Prime Minister. José Pedro Pérez Llorca had been negotiating with numerous small groups in the Cortes to ensure their support in the investiture votation. He had secured promises of votes from the Catalans of Convergència i Unió, from small Aragonese and Navarrese regionalist groups and even from a section of Coalición Democrática, including Alfonso Osorio and José María de Areilza. He was on the verge of a similar agreement with the PNV when news of Arregui’s death was released. Under such circumstances, the Basques felt unable to vote for the government.11 In consequence, Calvo Sotelo faced an uphill struggle. He declared that the transition from dictatorship to democracy was complete and he effectively offered a government programme of retrenchment. Although he received a simple majority of 169 votes to 158 against and 17 abstentions, his performance did not gain him the overall majority of 176 votes necessary to confirm him as President. Santiago Carrillo commented that Calvo Sotelo’s government was born dead. "

"Certainly, the failure to win the investiture vote implied a fatal weakness. That was clear from the back-stage negotiations which had accompanied his efforts to form a new cabinet. The split between the Christian Democrat críticos and other UCD factions constituted a major difficulty. Francisco Fernández Ordóñez had made it clear that social democrat co-operation in the new cabinet was dependent on a commitment to divorce reform which could only infuriate the Christian Democrats. Moreover, just as UCD was beginning to crumble in earnest, there were signs of a substantial revival of Alianza Popular. Opinion polls suggested that Alianza Popular could double its vote at the expense of UCD. To take advantage of the flood of refugees alarmed by the UCD leadership crisis, Manuel Fraga saw the need for a move to the centre. At the IV Alianza Popular Congress held in Madrid from 13 to 15 February, the more trogloditic Francoists were marginalized and prominence was given to somewhat more liberal figures like the Madrid lawyer Félix Pastor Ridruejo and the writer Carmen Llorca.13"

23F

"After the failure on 21 February, the would-be President was obliged to wait two days for a second vote of investiture for which only a simple majority was necessary. The voting had just begun on 23 February when at 6.20 p.m. a group of civil guards under Colonel Tejero arrived at the Cortes in private buses specially bought by Tejero’s wife. They burst into the chamber and held the entire political class hostage. Great personal courage was shown by General Gutiérrez Mellado, who ordered them to leave and was violently jostled, and by Adolfo Suárez who went to his assistance. Felipe González, Alfonso Guerra, Santiago Carrillo, Gutiérrez Mellado, Suárez and Agustín Rodríguez Sahagún were locked in separate rooms as super-hostages. Tejero telephoned the headquarters of the Captain-General of the Valencia Military Region, Jaime Milans del Bosch. His message was brief and incriminating: ‘Pavia here. Everything in order. Objective achieved. All quiet.’ The code-name Pavia referred to the nineteenth-century Out of the ashes: the consolidation of democracy 1981-2 145 general who put an end to the First Republic when he threatened the Cortes with artillery. Tejero then returned to the chamber and announced that a senior military personage would shortly arrive to take control.

A few minutes after Tejero’s arrival in the Cortes, Milans del Bosch declared a state of emergency in the Valencian region. Every fifteen minutes, the local radio broadcast a proclamation or bando by Milans which began with the preamble ‘in the light of events in the capital and the consequent vacuum of power, it is my duty to guarantee order in the military region under my command until I receive instructions from His Majesty the King’. The unauthorized use of his name especially offended Juan Carlos. The bando ordered the militarization of all public service personnel, imposed a nine o’clock curfew and banned all political activities. Tanks took up positions alongside important public buildings. In the offices of trade unions and political parties, frantic efforts were made to destroy membership files and documents which might have facilitated a purge by the ultra-right. From the Basque Country, cars flooded across the border into France. In Asturias, however, the local PSOE and UGT issued a denunciation of the coup and the mineworkers’ union SOMA-UGT declared a general strike. 14

Mysterious troop movements took place in different parts of Spain and in Madrid, where the streets were deserted, the radio and television broadcasting studios at Prado del Rey were taken over by a unit from the Division Acorazada de Brunete at 7.48 p.m. They insisted that the radio broadcast only military marches. At 9.20 p.m. they received orders to withdraw and did so. It later emerged that these orders had emanated from General Alfonso Armada Comyn who, as second-in-command of the General Staff, was ostensibly working to make Tejero release the Cortes deputies. In fact, Armada was playing a dangerous and ambiguous game throughout the events known as the Tejerazo. Cunningly exploiting the blindly fanatical Tejero, the aristocratic Armada was actually seeking the moment to implement his solution of a De Gaulle-style government of national salvation. As a ‘patriotic sacrifice’ and in order to end the dangerous situation in the Cortes, he would offer to form a government without ever seeming to have played any part in initiating the coup. Presumably, the more plebeian Tejero would then have been sacrificed.

Ultimately, the coup was to fail because the decisive action of the King and his close collaborators exposed the ambiguities and inadequate preparations of the plotters. The principal conspiracies simmering throughout 1980 had come together in a rashly precipitate manner. Milans and the DAC colonels planned a Turkish or Chilean-style coup to be followed by a draconian purge of the left, a ‘dirty war’ against ETA and a return to rigid centralism. Hopes that this would have the support of the King led to the link-up with Armada who fraudulently presented himself as the royal agent. Dreaming of the milder Operation De Gaulle, with himself cast in the role of the great man, Armada hoped to use the threat of the colonels to blackmail the political class into supporting his gobierno de gestión. Both sets of plans were thrown out of joint by Suárez’s early resignation. The ultimately fatal decisions were made to bring forward the date for the coup and to let the volatile and uncontrollable Tejero be its battering ram."

"At his lunch with Milans on 10 January, Armada had stressed that the King was worried about the drift of the political situation and was anxious to remove Suárez. The erroneous implication picked up by Milans was that Armada was actually the King’s emissary. Thereafter, Armada was kept informed by Colonel Diego Ibáñez Inglés, one of Milans’s aides, of the progress of the conspiracy. Milans, Torres Rojas, Tejero and the civilian ultra Juan García Carrés met in Madrid on 18 January. In fact, all three of the principal protagonists of the coup, Tejero, Milans and Armada, had differing ambitions and this was to be a significant handicap for them. Nevertheless, it is clear that throughout the entire operation both Milans and Tejero were convinced that what they were doing would meet with the King’s approval. That conviction can only have come from Armada who seems to have hoped that the Tejero-Milans del Bosch fait accompli would oblige Juan Carlos to acquiesce in his plan for an all-party government of national salvation. That he was playing a double game might have been deduced from the fact that he was always careful never to meet more than one of the conspirators at a time. The lack of witnesses would always enable him to claim to have had nothing to do with the plot and to present his ‘solution’ as a disinterested gesture."

"he was using his contact with the politicians to convince himself and his fellow conspirators of his suitability as the head of a government of national salvation. This is the most plausible conclusion to be drawn from a dinner held at his home on 16 February. The guests included the Captain-General of Catalonia, Antonio Pascual Calmés, the Chief of the General Staff, José Gabeiras Montero, the head of the Royal Household, the Marqués de Mondéjar, Nicolás Cotoner y Cotoner, and the Catalan Communist deputy, Jordi Solé-Tura. The reason for the dinner was to discuss preparations for the forthcoming royal visit to Barcelona. The King was to preside at a parade on the Armed Forces Day which was being held outside Madrid for the first time. It was obviously a subject of concern to all the guests and almost certainly the raison d’être of the dinner. In the eyes of Armada’s fellow plotters, such a gathering could only mean that he was getting support for his plans from the King, from the highest echelons of the army and from politicians. Whatever the conspirators may have thought about his Out of the ashes: the consolidation of democracy 1981-2 147 projected cabinet—and for Tejero, it was to be unacceptably liberal—such meetings permitted them to go into 23 February confident that Armada had surrounded the coup with an aura of legitimacy.15"

"The job of dismantling the coup was undertaken by a triumvirate of the King himself, the Secretary-General of the Royal Household, General Sabino Fernández Campos, and the new Director-General of Security, Francisco Laína García. They were backed by the Chief of the Army General Staff, General José Gabeiras Montero, and the Captain- General of Madrid, Guillermo Quintana Lacaci. A provisional government consisting of the under-secretaries of each ministry was established under the direction of Laína in the Ministry of the Interior. In the Hotel Palace opposite the Cortes, the Inspector-General of the Police, General José Sáenz de Santamaría and the Director-General of the Civil Guard, General José Aramburu Topete, directed local operations. At one point, Aramburu entered the Cortes and tried single-handedly to make Tejero desist. Tejero’s response was to threaten to kill both General Aramburu and himself. Sáenz de Santamaría surrounded the Cortes with police units to prevent further subversives joining those inside. It is significant that the police, despite well-founded doubts about their loyalty over the previous four years, made an important contribution to blocking the coup."

"Aided by General Gabeiras Montero, the King and his aides engaged in a battle by telephone to secure the loyalty of the Captains-General of the other military regions. It was feared that Milans might have already gained crucial support by convincing them that there was royal backing for the Armada solution. There was much dithering and some of the Captains-General kept in frequent contact throughout the night with Milans as well as with the Zarzuela Palace. If the King had been prepared to abandon the Constitution, there is little doubt that the Captains-General would happily have brought their troops out into the streets. In that sense, only he stood between Spanish democracy and its destruction. The task of his emergency committee was rendered somewhat easier by the rapid declarations of loyalty and support from Antonio Pascual Galmés, the Captain-General of the Fourth Region, Catalonia, and of Jesús González del Yerro, Captain-General of the Canary Islands. That González del Yerro, reputed to be a hard- line reactionary, stood by his oath of loyalty to the King and the Constitution was a tribute to the role played by Juan Carlos both on the night of 23 February and throughout the entire transition period."

"The coup’s greatest strength and its fatal weakness were the ambiguity of General Armada. This was made clear by the role played by the Brunete Armoured Division or DAC, which was to have been one of the crucial elements of the coup. Dominating Madrid, the DAC came within an inch of intervening decisively. When the coup started, the DAC’s commanding officer, General José Juste Fernández, was en route to Zaragoza to inspect some DAC units which were on manoeuvres there. The previous commander and an important member of the conspiracy, General Torres Rojas, was present at DAC headquarters ready to take over in the absence of Juste. Military governor of La Coruña since his dismissal from the DAC in January 1980, Torres Rojas had used a pretext to gain permission to be in Madrid from the Captain-General of La Coruña, General Manuel Fernández Posse. The DAC’s Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-Colonel San Martín, one-time head of Carrero Blanco’s intelligence service, was also one of the main conspirators behind the coup. Accompanying Juste, he telephoned the DAC and then informed Juste that they must return to Brunete.

On arrival at his headquarters, General Juste was informed, if he did not already know, of the intentions of Milans del Bosch. He rang up the Zarzuela Palace expecting to find Armada directing operations under the King’s aegis. On being told that Armada was neither there nor expected (ni está, ni se le espera), he apparently said ‘that changes everything’ (‘eso cambia todo’). He then telephoned the headquarters of the Captain- General. Under the close vigilance of General Quintana Lacaci, Juste imposed his command on the bulk of the Division and Torres Rojas was obliged to return to La Coruña. It was thus possible to prevent the mobilization of most of the units which were to have occupied Madrid, except for some military policemen under Major Ricardo Pardo Zancada who had already joined Tejero. Juste’s phone call raised serious doubts about his own position. Tejero was to claim later that Juste knew before leaving for Zaragoza about the coup and about Torres Rojas but was not prepared to be involved directly. On the other hand, Juste’s stance later in the course of the night of 23 February helped to save the situation. More importantly, his phone call to the Zarzuela alerted the King and his staff to the fact that Armada was somehow involved and therefore not to be trusted."

"It finally emerged that Armada was in fact the ‘senior military personality’ that Tejero had been waiting for. Suspicions raised by General Juste’s telephone call to the Zarzuela were confirmed when Tejero refused any other mediator but Armada or the King himself. Armada entered the Cortes at 12.30 a.m. on the morning of the 24th and spoke to Tejero for about three quarters of an hour. He proposed offering to the hijacked deputies the idea of a government of national salvation under his own presidency. Within this ‘constitutional solution’, the Cortes would then put the proposal to the King. It was an idea which, if successful, would have left Armada both clear of suspicion and head of government. Unfortunately for him, Tejero rejected out of hand the idea of a government containing Socialists and possibly even a token Communist. He wanted a Pinochet-style junta to crush the left and revoke regional autonomies not a bland compromise acceptable to the majority in parliament. In any case, Armada’s duplicity was already suspected both at the Zarzuela and at the Ministry of the Interior."

"The decisive broadcast announced that the Crown would not tolerate actions which aimed to interrupt by force the democratic process determined by the popularly ratified Constitution. Milans was telephoned by the King who made it clear that he opposed the coup, that he would not abdicate nor leave Spain and that in order to prevail the rebels would have to shoot him. A telex sent an hour later confirmed the message of the phone call and warned Milans that he and his fellow conspirators were risking civil war. Realizing that the pretence of enjoying royal support could no longer be sustained, and that the other Captains-General had not backed him, Milans withdrew his troops from the streets at 4 a.m. Tired and abandoned, Tejero finally negotiated his surrender with the ubiquitous General Armada. Armada was himself arrested on the following day.

The Cortes deputies left the chamber at midday on 24 February. Several hours later, after a prolonged and heartfelt ovation for the King, they gave their approbation to Calvo Sotelo’s investiture by 186 votes to 158. Felipe González offered to take part in a coalition government. The extent to which the King had interpreted the wishes of his people was graphically shown on 27 February when three million people demonstrated in favour of democracy in Madrid and other cities. However, because of disagreements provoked by Herri Batasuna, such unity was not possible in the Basque Country. Indeed, the defeat of the coup did not resolve the democratic regime’s outstanding difficulties. This point was made by Juan Carlos to Adolfo Suárez, Felipe González, Agustín Rodríguez Sahagún, Santiago Carrillo and Manuel Fraga when he received them on the evening of 24 February. The very fact that the King had been obliged to place his personal prestige and safety at risk suggested that Spain’s political class in general and the leadership of UCD in particular had severely miscalculated the mood of the army during the transition period. It was true that the plotters had miscalculated their potential support. However, both their original hopes and their ultimate dis-appointment hinged on the stance taken by Juan Carlos."

23F: Aftermath

"Indeed, as 1981 progressed, there was to be a growing conviction that in a sense Armada’s golpe blando had succeeded, that policies were being radio-controlled by the military authorities who became a kind of government in the shadows. This feeling was based in the first instance on the King’s statement to the leaders of the parliamentary groups when he had received them on 24 February. In it he had said that an open and tough reaction by the political parties against those who committed acts of subversion in the last few hours would be most unadvisable and it would be even more counter- productive to extend such a reaction to the entire Armed Forces’. He had called on them to reconsider their positions in order to foster the highest possible level of unity and concord in Spain and pointed out that he could not do again what he had just done. "

"None the less, out of the ashes of the 23-F, the phoenix of Spanish democracy was to rise again. The demonstrations of 27 February marked the end of the desencanto. Tejero had the inadvertent effect of making the population as a whole revalue their democratic institutions. Calvo Sotelo quickly showed a readiness to break with the more negative aspects of Suárez’s rule. He expressed a wish—quickly blocked by his security team—to leave the Moncloa Palace and move the President’s office back into central Madrid in order to be less isolated. It was made clear that he would appear more frequently in parliament and before the press. He quickly showed that he meant what he said. Regular consultations were started with the leaders of the other parties and with senior generals. In general, there was a new sense of gravity at the Moncloa Palace. Within three months, Calvo Sotelo’s personal opinion poll ratings began to reflect public satisfaction with the new approach. 18

The change of mood was evident too in the offers made by Felipe González, Manuel Fraga and Santiago Carrillo to support the government in the Cortes. Even ETA-PM made a contribution. On 21 February, the organization had kidnapped three foreign consuls in a bizarre protest against the death of Arregui. The three were now released and an indefinite ceasefire announced. Coming in the wake of a Basque peace initiative launched by Mario Onaindía of Euskadiko Eskerra on 22 February, it marked the beginning of the gradual, albeit troubled, disappearance of ETA-PM. It was interpreted by the bunker press as proof that the Tejerazo had been a positive and patriotic initiative. 19 Fear of the blood-bath likely to be unleashed by Tejero and reflection on the absurdity of the military attempting to resolve Spain’s massive economic problems contributed in equal measure to Spanish democracy having a second chance. Stripped now of the elements of euphoria which accompanied the change of regime in 1977, democracy was now seen as a deadly serious business, a matter of life and death for the entire nation. Had it not been for the divisions in his own party, it is possible that Calvo Sotelo might have been able to make more of the new spirit of national co-operation."

"Both the government and the opposition agreed that the anti-terrorist campaign should be intensified. There was also a consensus that the relatively rapid progress towards regional autonomy, which had so incensed the military, should be slowed down. Declarations that the regions must not make exaggerated demands eventually led to the elaboration of the notorious Ley Orgánica de Armonización del Proceso Autonómico (LOAPA). The LOAPA, born of an agreement between UCD and the PSOE, was presented to the Cortes on 29 September 1981, and was an attempt to emasculate concessions to the regions. It was not surprising then that journalists commented that it was as if the military, far from suffering the consequences of the coup’s defeat, were enjoying the successful achievement of some of its ends. In fact, appeals made to the supreme court by the Basque and Catalan regional governments in 1982 managed in their turn to emasculate or at least freeze the LOAPA. None the less, at the time the LOAPA was the most visible symbol that during 1981 Spain was a democracy under hostile surveillance.

This impression was confirmed when many of the minor participants in the 23-F were released throughout March and April. The publication of an article by Tejero defending the coup brought home to public opinion the extent of the privileges being enjoyed by the imprisoned conspirators. The golpistas were awaiting trial in conditions of considerable physical comfort and received virtually unlimited visits from their sympathizers. 20 The apparent military tutelage of the government seemed to be confirmed in April when liberal officers of the UMD were yet again refused re-admission to the ranks. In the light of UCD’s eagerness to appease the armed forces at every turn, the indecent haste with which the government pressed for entry into NATO was seen as another attempt to curry military favour. It is almost certainly the case that the cabinet believed that the integration of the Spanish armed forces into the Western defence system would divert them from their unhealthy readiness to interfere in domestic politics. When the PSOE opposed entry, it was accused of rocking the boat. Paradoxically, the PSOE’s position did it little but good in army eyes. Even officers who relished the access to modern weaponry implicit in NATO entry agreed with the Socialist stance because they regarded UCD’s failure to negotiate more concessions in return for integration as tantamount to a national humiliation. It was felt in military circles that more should be made of the fact that Spain was offering NATO more than she was receiving in return. 21"

"In general, however, the prevailing atmosphere in 1981 was one of trepidation. Regular articles in El Alcázar in defence of Tejero suggested that there was little repentance in ultra circles. 22 Fear of what the army might do was fuelled by the continuing terrorist activities of both ETA-M and GRAPO. The ceasefire offered by ETA-PM was not emulated by the ‘Milis’. On 1 March, an attempt to blow up two police cars on the road between Sestao and Portugalete near Bilbao having failed, a machine-gun attack was launched in which an innocent woman passer-by was wounded. On 5 March, a senior police inspector, José Luis de Raymundo Moya, was assassinated in Bilbao. True to the new presidential style, Calvo Sotelo attended the funeral. The Basque PSOE leader, Txiki Benegas, declared that ETA-M was objectively lined up with the golpistas. Indeed, the continuing terrorism of ETA-M—with one army colonel murdered in Bilbao on 19 March and another in Pamplona on the 21st—proved the point beyond any doubt. 23 ETA- M refused to acknowledge either the existence of democracy or the popular support that it enjoyed. To justify itself, ETA-M needed the establishment of a cruel military dictatorship and was prepared to go on killing in order to pursue its own lunatic logic. Benegas’s point was to be tragically proved in 1984 when ETA-M murdered General Guillermo Quintana Lacaci, the Captain-General of Madrid who had done so much to block the Tejerazo.

The determination of Calvo Sotelo to deal energetically with threats to democracy was quickly revealed by the presentation in the Cortes of a law for the defence of the Constitution which permitted action to be taken against the press networks of both the bunker and ETA-M. This was followed by the announcement on 23 March of new measures to combat ETA. The army was to be brought in to seal the Franco-Spanish frontier. A single anti-terrorist command (Mando Unico Antiterrorista) was established in the Ministry of the Interior to co-ordinate police, civil guards and the army. The tough Manuel Ballesteros, once chief of police in Bilbao, was put in command. Frontier posts were to be more tightly controlled and the forces of order in Euskadi and Navarre were to be better equipped. There were some fears that this might be playing into the hands of ETA-M. However, the weight of popular hostility against the terrorists gave Calvo Sotelo and his Minister of the Interior, Juan José Rosón, the confidence to take energetic steps without fear of being accused of heavy-handed authoritarianism. 24

Three months after assuming power, Calvo Sotelo could note with satisfaction that public opinion approved of his style of government and that the post-Tejerazo spirit of co-operation still prevailed among the political parties. However, there were dark clouds on the horizon and they began to gather in earnest in early May. Having had its offers of coalition government rejected, the PSOE became increasingly resentful of the speed and secretiveness of the government’s dealings with NATO. There was talk of breaking the consensus and a return to the outright hostility that had marked Suárez’s last days. 25 In the event, the politics of co-operation (concertación) prevailed for the moment. Nevertheless, Calvo Sotelo was soon to find himself, like Suárez before him, caught in a cross-fire between terrorism and subversion at the same time as his party dedicated its efforts to internal squabbling.

Difficulties began on 4 May when a suspiciously resuscitated GRAPO burst on to the scene. In Madrid, one gang murdered the liberal artillery General, Andrés González de Suso. Almost simultaneously, more GRAPO killers shot dead two civil guards in Barcelona. Throughout its history, GRAPO’s leftist veneer had been belied by the fact that its actions consistently favoured the objectives of the extreme right. The strange coincidence of interest between terrorism and golpismo was shockingly illustrated a mere seventy-two hours later. An ETA-M comando bombed the car of General Joaquín María de Valenzuela, the new head of the King’s Household, killing outright his chauffeur, an aide and a sergeant and leaving him on the brink of death. Ultra-rightists were quickly out on the streets calling for military intervention. More crucial, however, was a remarkable action of mass solidarity in favour of democracy, recalling the demonstrations of 27 February."

"Tension was screwed even tighter over the weekend of 23–24 May when a group of armed men, rumoured to be civil guards, seized the Banco Central in Barcelona and held everyone in it hostage. They demanded the release from custody of Colonel Tejero, Colonel San Martín, General Torres Rojas and Milans’s ADC, Colonel Pedro Mas Oliver. The bank was finally liberated after the intervention of the special forces of the GOE. 27 A frequent series of ultra gatherings kept up the pressure. The fact that only thirty of the nearly three hundred officers involved in the 23-F coup were to be tried contributed to the general impression that the democratic regime was again failing to show the strength and determination necessary to defend itself."

UCD divisions

"The increasingly bad press suffered by Jesús Sancho Rof was not the only problem suffered by Calvo Sotelo’s government in the spring and summer of 1981. Rumours of military conspiracies were apparently endless. However, Calvo Sotelo was to find, like Suárez before him, that the internal squabblings of his party were to be one of his greatest handicaps. There were two major areas of conflict. On the one hand, there was the hostility between the anti-divorce Christian Democrats and the Minister of Justice, Francisco Fernández Ordóñez. Then, on the other, there was a power struggle against the caretaker party leadership left behind by Suárez. The Christian Democrats of UCD were moving ever closer to Alfonso Osorio and Coalición Democrática. Both Miguel Herrero and Oscar Alzaga were talking of the need to establish a great right-wing coalition (la gran derecha) including Alianza Popular. Such a development was likely to push Francisco Fernández Ordóñez out of the UCD. Indeed, when a liberal section of the party voted with the PSOE on 22 June in a vote on divorce, the Christian Democrat críticos were loud in their accusations that Fernández Ordóñez was likely to leave the party and join the Socialists. At the same time, what seemed like an attempt by Suárez to run the party by radio control through Rodríguez Sahagún and Calvo Ortega was provoking discontent. There were now attempts to persuade Rodolfo Martín Villa to take over the leadership. 31 In a sense, what was happening was a long overdue clarification of the ideological ambiguities of UCD. However, with elections due in two years, there was an element of panic about the process.

The impression given by UCD’s permanent internal crisis was that the party of government was fiddling while Rome burnt. This sensation was particularly acute after the arrests of 21 June. Military intelligence and a new police department called the Brigada anti-golpe (anti-coup brigade) had uncovered an ambitious ultra plot. Its ramifications emerged in the weeks following the arrest of two colonels, Ricardo Garchitorena Zalba and Antonio Sicre Canut, and Tejero’s crony, Major Ricardo Sáenz de Ynestrillas. The idea behind the conspiracy was that a strategy of tension would be created by an escalating bombing campaign to be carried out by groups of well-armed ultra-rightist militants. Its culmination would have come in Barcelona on 23 June at the Nou Camp football stadium where a huge Catalanist rally was scheduled. Simultaneously, the King would be seized and forced to abdicate. A military junta would be established. Blacklists of democrats to be liquidated had been drawn up. 32 Confined to extreme ultra circles and with only limited impact within the army itself, the projected coup nevertheless provoked considerable apprehension in the country at large."

"Calvo Sotelo’s attempts to combat the consequent uncertainty were dramatically undermined by the rumblings within his party. On 24 July 1981, a group of thirty-nine UCD parliamentary deputies, led by Oscar Alzaga and Miguel Herrero Rodríguez de Miñón, announced the creation of a so-called Plataforma Moderada (moderate platform). Their aim was to expose what they saw as the false unity and hybrid nature of UCD imposed by Adolfo Suárez. They wanted to eliminate its social democrat pretensions and make it an unequivocally conservative party. For this reason, they were anxious to turn the clock back to the time before Suárez’s 1977 landing in Centro Democrático. They hoped to incorporate Alfonso Osorio and José María de Areilza. Manuel Fraga was quick to see the potential of this division and began to talk of the need for UCD and Alianza Popular to make an alliance in search of what he called the ‘natural majority’. The liberal tendency within UCD, mute since the death of Joaquín Garrigues Walker, was also reviving under his brother Antonio but in a rather more conservative guise.

The various schemes of the Christian Democrat críticos who had joined in the Plataforma Moderada could only provoke the hostility of Adolfo Suárez. Together with Abril Martorell, Rodríguez Sahagún, Arias Salgado and Calvo Ortega, the ex-President still had considerable power within the party. Suárez gave interviews during the summer which suggested that he was considering leaving UCD, in electoral terms a not inconsiderable threat. The potential division in UCD was thus increasingly likely to be fatal. The beginning of the end came in late August. The obvious signs of a swing to the right made it clear to Francisco Fernández Ordóñez and his social democrat followers that their days within the party were numbered. Anticipating events, he resigned as Minister of Justice on 31 August. He was replaced by Pío Cabanillas. Two months later, together with seventeen social democrat senators and Cortes deputies, the eternally restless Fernández Ordóñez left UCD and founded a new party called Action Democrática. 33

The UCD’s parliamentary strength was now within thirty seats of that of the PSOE. The extent to which the internal crisis of UCD was having an external effect was made brutally clear on 20 October in the elections for the regional parliament in Galicia. In a crushing victory for Alianza Popular, UCD lost nearly three quarters of the votes which had been cast for it in the general elections of 1979. The usual excuses that regional elections see votes for regional parties would not do since Alianza Popular with twenty- six seats, UCD with twenty-four and the PSOE with seventeen won the first three places. The Socialists came second in all big towns, except Pontevedra, being knocked into third place overall by the rural vote. It was a major humiliation for the government.34 Increasing numbers of desertions from UCD would not be long in becoming the norm."

PSOE surge

"The crumbling unity of UCD was in dramatic contrast to the seemingly inexorable surge of strength being enjoyed by the PSOE. The disintegration of the PCE, which was breaking apart in rebellion against Carrillo’s rigidly authoritarian leadership, had also helped the PSOE by leaving it as the only plausible party on the left. Circumstances were spotlighting the PSOE as the inevitable alternative party of government. Felipe González consistently topped opinion polls as the nation’s most popular leader. His image neatly combined freshness and common sense. It was quite unlike the lugubrious note consistently struck by Calvo Sotelo. The Socialists’ appearance of unity and efficacy was greatly enhanced by the unveiling in June 1981 of a plan of action for the consolidation of democracy. Its objective of the ‘effective but democratic fight against terrorism’, the thoroughgoing investigation of 23-F and a moderate economic programme eschewing nationalizations suggested that the PSOE had a clearer vision of how to confront the nation’s problems than did a UCD obsessed with its own internal haemorrhaging. In the autumn, both Alfonso Guerra and Felipe González launched attacks on the UCD’s desgobierno or failure to govern. 35

The capacity of the PSOE to project an image of reliability was greatly enhanced by its XXIX Party Congress held in the third week of October 1981. The main danger of internal dissent arose from the fact that, with the PCE in disarray, many unattached leftists had made the PSOE their home. They had united to form the Izquierda Socialista (socialist left). However, neither they, nor the more veteran sector crítico led by Luis Gómez Llorente and Pablo Castellano which had been defeated in 1979, were able to make any impact at the Congress. This was because the winner-take-all system of election of provincial delegates virtually wiped them out beforehand. At the Congress itself, the left’s few surviving representatives were swamped in the procedure whereby delegations voted as a block, according either to the majority view or the judgement of the delegation chief. Thus, the outgoing Executive Committee’s report was approved by 96.6 per cent of the delegates, thereby justifying its pre-Congress decision not to admit proportional representation or individual votes for delegates. Felipe González was unanimously re-elected Secretary-General. After his victory, he was able to re-affirm more strongly than ever that the PSOE, with its moderate programme, could undertake the democratic transformation of Spain in a way that the UCD, with its Francoist origins, never could.36

With the UCD on the ropes, the Socialists pressed their advantage throughout the autumn of 1981. The government was badly shaken by its inept handling of the rape-seed oil (aceite de colza) scandal in which the death toll had reached over 130. Led by its health spokesman, Ciriaco de Vicente, the PSOE acted as a firm and responsible opposition, pressing for the resignation of those ministers whose dereliction of duty had put thousands of lives at risk. The clear impression was given that only the Socialists truly represented the interests of ordinary Spaniards. This was also the effect of the PSOE’s anti-NATO campaign. Not only was the party able to capitalize on the emergent peace movement in Spain, but it also drew strength from the fact that, having had no experience of Nazi occupation, Spaniards were less prone to scaremongering about the dangers of take-over by a totalitarian superpower.

UCD’s internal collapse, the colza outcry and the NATO debate were pushing hundreds of thousands of one-time centre-left UCD voters into the orbit of the PSOE. At the same time, the collapse of the Communist Party was of considerable electoral benefit to the PSOE in that its voters were likely to cast a vote for the only feasible left-wing option. In addition, the PCE’s obsession with its own collapse removed a source of potentially damaging criticism of the PSOE’s ever more moderate line. The PCE had long been smouldering at the imposition of the aged exiled leadership team brought by Santiago Carrillo from Paris in 1977. His heavy bureaucratic style had led to considerable internecine dispute, the consequences of which had been a steady loss of militants throughout the late 1970s. Part of the conflict arose from the party’s participation in the Pacto de la Moncloa in October 1977 risking the slur of helping to make the working class pay the costs of the economic crisis. Debate over whether to adopt more revolutionary or more moderate policies had surfaced at the IX Congress in April 1978 when Carrillo forced through the abandonment of Leninism against substantial opposition. 37"

UCD trouble continue

"Against the advice of Rodolfo Martín Villa, Juan Antonio García Díez and Pío Cabanillas, Calvo Sotelo immediately proceeded to the creation of a new cabinet. They believed that he should call early elections before the galloping weakness of UCD was exposed further in the Cortes. For a variety of reasons, Calvo Sotelo chose not to heed their warnings. Above all, he had hopes of a revival of the party and he also believed that his government should be in power to oversee the trial of the 23-F plotters. His new team, announced on 1 December, did little to suggest that he made the right decision. It was the same old story, a compromise team with little new talent. "

"Indeed, the most disappointing feature of the cabinet was the continued presence at the Ministry of Defence of Alberto Oliart. A number of incidents had led to accusations that Oliart was behaving like the tail of the military dog. On 25 July the Captain-General of La Coruña, Manuel Fernández Posse, had made a speech attacking the liberalism of Spanish politics and society in terms which suggested outright nostalgia for Franco. Then on 20 August, General Luis Caruana y Gómez de Barreda, who had been military governor in Valencia on the night of 23 February and acted then in a rather ambiguous manner, was made Captain-General of Zaragoza. Further astonishment had been generated by the award of a medal for ‘sufferings for the Fatherland’ to General Milans del Bosch. Outrage greeted the imposition of a period of only one month’s detention for his son, Captain Milans del Bosch, for offensively insulting remarks made about his Commander-in-Chief, the King, to whom he referred as a ‘pig’. "

"The most disturbing were the reappearance of an ultra organization called the Union Militar Española and the publication of an anti- Constitutional manifesto signed by one hundred army offers, the bulk of them from the DAC. It was part of an ultra scheme to stimulate support for the 23-F plotters prior to their trial but it was also linked to the endlessly bubbling colonels’ coup. The authors of the manifiesto de los cien hoped that it would be signed by 90 per cent of the officer corps. Only the determined reaction of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Junta de Jefes de Estado Mayor or JUJEM) under General Ignacio Alfaro Arregui prevented the spread of revolt throughout the ranks. The signatories were put under detention and all units were warned of the total prohibition on political statements by officers. El Alcázar was the first newspaper able to publish the complete text. Accordingly, it was rumoured that the manifesto had been drawn up by the same group of ultras that had made up the Colectivo Almendros which had helped to prepare the way for the 23-F. Two days before its publication, José Antonio Girón de Velasco apparently lunched with some of the more prominent signatories including Colonel Jesús Crespo Cuspineda of the DAC. In fact one of the principal authors, Crespo would later be arrested as the key man behind the revival of the colonels’ coup planned to destroy the elections of October 1982. Oliart’s declarations about the manifesto to the effect that there was nothing to worry about provoked Manuel Fraga into remarking that the Ministry of Defence existed only on paper. 43"

"The PSOE made frequent declarations of its readiness to join in a coalition to deal with the crisis. Calvo Sotelo, however, preferred to go on alone despite the self-evident weakness of UCD. Alfonso Guerra commented that ‘this is like Venice; every day we sink another centimetre’. He accused Calvo Sotelo of the arrogance of not bothering to look out of the window. It was hardly surprising, since the Prime Minister had enough to occupy him in trying to keep his own house in order. In the first week of February, three UCD deputies abandoned the sinking ship. Miguel Herrero Rodríguez de Miñón, a social democrat, Francisco Soler Valero, and the voluble Francoist historian Ricardo de la Cierva all joined Coalición Democrática.

After the major destabilizing operation that Herrero had organized within UCD, forming the Plataforma Moderada, forcing out Fernández Ordóñez and then breaking the power of Adolfo Suárez, his was an astonishing and opportunistic desertion. Having pushed hard for the UCD to make an electoral alliance with Coalición Democrática/Alianza Popular and failed, Herrero had been sacrificed as the UCD parliamentary spokesman and seems to have feared that his career in the party was finished. His transfer to Fraga’s team was made the more attractive by the damage that he left behind him. The presence of the rightist La Cierva in UCD had long puzzled observers. UCD’s difficulties were making many of its Cortes deputies wonder seriously if they would get a seat at the next elections. La Cierva was no exception. Inevitably, rumours abounded that these early departures were merely the first trickle before the dam burst. The position of Calvo Sotelo was weakening by the day. 45"

ETA

"The situation in UCD and the consequent crisis of authority was exacerbated by a revival of ETA activity in the new year. A massive extortion campaign had been mounted by ETA-M with thousands of Basque businessmen and professionals receiving death threats and demands for payment of the ‘revolutionary tax’. Many of those threatened were of modest means, many were PNV members and some of them had even fought with the Basque forces during the Civil War. The threats were backed up by the kidnapping on 5 January of the industrial magnate José Lipperhiede. The consequent wave of outrage recalled the demonstrations after the murder of José María Ryan. The Basque autonomous government and the PNV through its leader, Javier Arzallus, declared war on ETA. There were spontaneous demonstrations throughout the Basque Country and in rural areas for the first time villagers began to stand up to the covert threats of Herri Batasuna. This was a hopeful sign but hardly one for which Calvo Sotelo’s government could take credit. Moreover, Lipperhiede was released only after his family and friends had raised a ransom of 100 million pesetas (approximately £500,000).

At the same time as the renewed ETA-M activities, a crisis broke out within ETA-PM. Since the post 23-F ceasefire, many within the organization had been attracted by the efforts of Mario Onaindía and Juan María Bandrés of Euskadiko Eskerra to secure their reintegration into civil society. The Onaindía/Bandrés plans were a major contribution to the pacification of Euskadi. However, just as six years earlier the political initiatives of ‘Pertur’ had led to the breakaway of the Comandos Bereziak, now a militant section of ETA-PM rejected the peace initiative and moved closer to ETA-M. As a demonstration of their methods, at the beginning of January 1982 they kidnapped the father of the singer Julio Iglesias. He was released by an intervention of the special services of the GOE. At the same time, the Mando Unico Antiterrorista under Manuel Ballesteros scored a substantial triumph when it captured ETA-PM’s entire arsenal. 46 However, the threat of ETA-M remained and public opinion began to wonder if perhaps the Socialists deserved a chance to try where UCD had failed"

23F: Trial

"Curiously, despite and perhaps even because of the constant rumours and realities of military subversion and ETA terrorism, the popular mood was changing. Confidence in the King and in the country’s democratic institutions was paradoxically boosted by the golpistas themselves during the course of their trial. The proceedings began on 19 February and dominated Spanish politics until well into the spring. 47 They took place in a febrile atmosphere in which the ultra press was permitted to express open support for the defendants. Walls were not daubed but professionally stencilled with the slogan Libertad Militares Patriotas Detenidos (freedom for the jailed patriotic officers). In court, the defendants revealed themselves to be ill-mannered bullies. The extent of their arrogance, disloyalty—even to one another—petty-mindedness and moral bank-ruptcy was to have an enormous and unexpected impact on civil-military relations. There was public dismay at the behaviour of the self-regarding defendants. The golpistas talked of nothing but patriotism and their self-appointed role as guardians of the nation’s values, yet they were blind to the extent to which their actions had done nothing but bring international ridicule and shame on Spain. Despite the efforts of El Alcázar to present the proceedings as a trial of the entire army, many officers were shocked and repudiated the defendants. Their disquiet was summed up by José Sáenz de Santamaría, now Captain-General of Valladolid, who declared that ‘the Army has begun to be feared by its own people, ceases to be respected by its enemies and has begun its own self-destruction’ (‘el Ejército empieza a ser temido por su propio pueblo, deja de ser respetado por sus enemigos y a comenzado su autodestrucción’).48

The trial had provided the stimulus for debate in officers’ messes about the rights and wrongs of golpismo. Previously, the Francoist values of the old guard had been taken for granted. Now, there could be seen the appalling spectacle of officers who had always projected themselves as the embodiment of honour and discipline behaving in a boastful and undignified fashion. Their loutish attitudes in the courtroom and evidence of their disobedience of orders from superior officers undermined the certainties of the more thoughtful officers. The fact that the accused were tried by court martial rather than by a civilian court was originally a concession to military sensibilities. Yet, in a civilian court, the golpistas would have been able to claim that the entire military estate was being tried by civil society. As it was, the armed forces were forced to purge themselves. After the trial, defence of the Constitution, if not exactly fashionable, was less frowned upon within the ranks of the armed forces. Anti-democratic declarations which previously had enjoyed silent approbation if not open admiration were now more likely to draw severe rebukes from the military authorities.

Constitutionalist officers even began to appear on television and write articles in the press. The pro-Constitucionalistas began to come out of their shells and the golpistas to withdraw into the shadows, where needless to say they continued to plot the resuscitation of their never fully implemented ‘coup of the colonels’. The bulk of the officer corps had become what was known as the sector prudente, concerned above all to safeguard their careers. El Alcázar began gradually to be replaced by moderate conservative newspapers like ABC and Ya. The beginning of a change of attitudes was also a response to the continuation in a slightly watered-down form of the promotions policy originally initiated by General Gutiérrez Mellado. Helped by the passage of time, the strategy of hastening the transfer to the reserve list of Francoist generals, putting key units in the hands of loyal Constitucionalistas and using criteria other than mere seniority when it came to Out of the ashes: the consolidation of democracy 1981-2 163 appointments and promotions was gradually bearing fruit."

"Although Tejero and Milans del Bosch received the maximum possible thirty years, Armada was sentenced to only six. Twenty-two of the thirty-two defendants were given less than three years which permitted them to return to the ranks after they had served their sentences. The government would eventually appeal to the Supreme Court (Tribunal Supremo) and the sentences would be substantially increased, most notably in the case of Armada. However, in the meanwhile, the sentences were received by a stunned political class. It seemed, briefly at least, as if nothing had changed. 50"

1982 Election

"Like a film running backwards, UCD returned to its fragmented origins. The more conservative Christian Democrats had only ever reconciled themselves to existence under Suárez because they were beguiled by the prospect of power. Now, under Oscar Alzaga, they followed the trail blazed by Miguel Herrero and formed the Partido Demócrata Popular and announced their electoral coalition with Fraga. The liberals, restless since the death of their leader, Joaquín Garrigues, were now reformed under his brother Antonio as Out of the ashes: the consolidation of democracy 1981-2 165 the Partido Demócrata Liberal. The social democrats had already gone. Now Suárez, angry at being offered only the third place on the party’s electoral list for Madrid, decided to leave and form a new party, to be called Centro Democrático y Social. 52 The electoral boost that this implied for the PSOE was magnified when Suárez refused categorically to co-operate with UCD and declared that, after the poll, his party would support a Socialist government. The departure of its first leader signified the granting of UCD’s death certificate. Calvo Sotelo and Landelino Lavilla recognized the fact. On 27 August, the President called general elections to be held within the legal minimum period of two months. It was a final act of defiance aimed at preventing Suárez and the other defectors consolidating their new parties and thus even more taking votes away from UCD.53"

"The CEOE tried to put a brake on the accelerating popularity of the Socialists by launching accusations that the PSOE aimed to impose a Soviet economic model on Spain. In fact, the PSOE’s programme could not have been more moderate. Long-term ambitions for the creation of a just and egalitarian society were subordinated to immediate practical tasks like the restructuring of Spanish industry, the stimulation of employment, the reform of Spain’s cumbersome civil service and the elaboration of a more positive and independent foreign policy. Most public attention focused on a promise to create 800,000 new jobs. Public investment was to be the key, backed by agreement with private enterprise. Immediate measures would include the reduction of the working day and the lowering of the retirement age. The quest for social justice was to be satisfied by increased spending on the social security system, the health service, education and housing. In foreign policy, an idealistic programme was elaborated which envisaged Spain remaining non-nuclear, adopting a more decisive role in Latin America, seeking an independent position between the two major alliance systems, freezing NATO integration and calling a referendum on membership, successfully concluding negotiations for entry into the EEC and advancing claims to sovereignty of Gibraltar. 55

After the self-destruction of the centre, the substantial challenge to the PSOE came from Alianza Popular. Fraga’s programme was unequivocally conservative, its catchwords efficiency and solutions. Law and order, freedom of education, the reduction of public spending, the maintenance of the free market economy, the defence of the family and national unity were the key points which managed to combine modern monetarism with traditional Spanish nationalist values. The creation of jobs was given less priority in the programme than the provision of what was called ‘labour flexibility and mobility’ which effectively meant an end to restrictions on lay-offs and redundancies. The Alianza Popular campaign was aimed at the middle classes and was rather less brash than had been expected from the energetic Fraga.

The election campaign was carried out with a high degree of civic spirit. This was not unconnected with the fact that on 3 October news broke of a projected coup. Scheduled for 27 October, the day before the polling was to take place, it was a more thoroughgoing version of the long simmering ‘coup of the colonels’. Military intelligence services and the Brigada Anti-golpe had discovered that three ultra-rightist colonels, closely connected with Fuerza Nueva, were involved in a conspiracy whose ramifications led back to Milans del Bosch. Arrests in the early hours of the morning of 2 October had been followed by the interrogation and imprisonment of Colonel Luis Muñoz Gutiérrez, whose wife was a Fuerza Nueva candidate for the Senate, Colonel Jesús Crespo Cuspineda of the DAC, one of the plotters behind the manifesto of one hundred published in December 1981, and his brother, Colonel José Crespo Cuspineda. At the home of Muñoz Gutiérrez were found immensely detailed plans for the coup. The Zarzuela and Moncloa Palaces, the headquarters of the JUJEM, various ministries and key public buildings were to be taken over by commandos in helicopters. Railway stations, airports, radio and television transmitters and newspaper offices were to be seized. The political élite was to be ‘neutralized’ in their homes. The King was to be deposed for having betrayed his oath of loyalty to the Movimiento. 56

The plotters had clearly learned the lessons of 23-F. El Alcázar tried to dismiss the coup as a government invention, referring to it as a golpe de risa (a pun on ‘laughable coup’ and ‘fit of laughing’). The nation’s politicians and the majority of the public were appalled. Fraga curiously stated during the Cortes debate on the coup that he understood the conspirators. Alfonso Guerra commented mordantly that ‘Fraga has turned himself into the psychiatrist of the golpistas, which is dangerous because some psychiatrists end up getting their patients’ illnesses.’ 57 There were, however, some grounds for cautious optimism. The Centro Superior de la Información de la Defensa (CESID), the central military intelligence co-ordinating authority, had acted swiftly and efficiently, in dramatic contrast to February 1981. Moreover, the indignation produced by the plans for the physical elimination of the Chiefs of Staff contributed to the isolation of the golpistas. On the other hand, only the three main protagonists were arrested despite the discovery of documents implicating at least 200 more. Nine more officers thought to be involved were posted away from Madrid, including Major Ricardo Sáenz de Ynestrillas and Colonel Antonio Sicre Canut, who apparently remained as committed as ever to holding back the tide of democracy. 58"

"The annihilation of UCD was the greatest electoral defeat suffered by a governing party in Europe since the Second World War. It recalled the disappearance of the Radical Party in Spain in 1936. That too had been a party short of ideals and ideas. It was ironic that Adolfo Suárez, having played the historic role of helping to dismantle Francoism and opening the way to the establishment of democracy under UCD, should go on to play the equally historic role of helping to dismantle UCD and opening the way to substantial change under the PSOE.

The PSOE’s gains were well-distributed throughout the country, substantiating Socialist claims that it was a more truly national party than UCD had ever been. That alone would have guaranteed Felipe González a degree of military benevolence. The decisiveness of the popular vote in favour of the slogan ‘Vote PSOE for change’ had considerable impact in military circles. The scale of the popular commitment to the democratic regime definitively put an end to the claim that the army could interpret the national will better than could elected politicians. The moderation of the PSOE guaranteed considerable good will. The tasks awaiting Felipe González were enormous. The linked problems of ETA terrorism and military subversion required skill and authority. With good relations with both the PNV and Euskadiko Eskerra, the PSOE had perhaps a better chance of success against ETA than UCD ever did. "