Quote:
Originally Posted by Marulus
What does your question refer to? What does not that bad in this context mean?
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Calm down..
What I'm trying to find out is about aspects that might help me to link a few loose ties here and there, with respect to one particular even in Spain.
The simplified version of the end of General Franco's regime is that Franco died and King Juan Carlos (or his entourage) worked out the so-called Transition (transition to a western liberal democracy).
However the truth is that the Transition has been arranged from within the Regime itself. So, basically, Francoism (or, rather,
Tardofranquismo, "late-Francoism") was responsible for post-Francoism. And there was more than just one direction.
On December 20th 1973, a bomb went off in Madrid as the official car of Admiral Carrero Blanco on his daily route to Mass. He was the President of the Government and, most important, he was Franco's man to lead the Transition under parameters of "continuism".
The terrorist group ETA was the direct responsible for this attack. However Admiral's Carrero Blanco's daily route to the Holy Mass in the same Jesuit church everyday and at the same time was invariable (which would ease the attack), the attack in itself was overdimensioned for ETA. They excavated a tunnel and used 100kg of explosives. The car literally flew over the façade of the church, to fall in the cloister (see graphic).
In the circles near Admiral Carrero a theory is that ETA acted guided by CIA. A theory which I believe that it was supported by his family too. Although ETA (and any author from the Left) denies this relation.
One speculation is that Admiral Carrero's mission was to provide a continuation to General Franco's regime and not allow the transition to democracy. However, this is not likely. Pressumably Admiral Carrero would have allowed a transition to a vigilated democracy.
In any case, whether he would have allowed a transition to democracy or not, did not pose in itself any inconvenience to America. So that wouldn't have to be a reason for CIA to carry out the magnicide through ETA. And it is here where things become most interesting.
From some good sources, I've heared that Admiral Carrero was preparing (or at least considering) a Transition through a double-sided aperturism of the regime. This double-sided aperturism meant that, although there would have been some aperturism towards the western democracies, there would also have been another aperturism towards some moderated eastern socialist regimes.
This sounds odd if you consider how anti-Communist was Franco's regime. But it doesn't mean that Spain would have joined the Socialist bloc. Only that it would have retained a self-styled neutrality and indepence in the western capitalist vs eastern socialist scene of the time. We would not have joined NATO (incidentally, or not so, the early campaigners against joining NATO, the Spanish Socialists, were the staunch campaigner in favour of NATO when they came into office and organized the referendum) or the EEC (and later EU). And this way Spain would have been kept outside the sphere of influence of the U.S. Not something small in the still going Cold War.
My believe is that the best candidate in the Eastern bloc would have been Yugoslavia.