[Marcus Marulus]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Calm down..

I wasn't uncalm...

Originally Posted by Mynydd

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).

I also heard and read about the uncertainties about the real organizers of the assassination of Luis Carrero Blanco. Did ETA actually immediately claim the responsability, as such organizations usually do?

This graphic of what happened seems to me almost surreal. I would never think something like that was possible at all. I am no expert in explosives though.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

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.

That would make it very similar to the assassination of the Italian Christian Democrat Aldo Moro in 1978., carried out by the Red Brigades, but there are those who allege that CIA or NATO might have been involved. Moro was not too fond of America...

Originally Posted by Mynydd

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.

Interesting. Have some sources?

Originally Posted by Mynydd

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

...and one of most outspoken of those campaigners, Javier Solana, later became the General Secretary of NATO? It is usually so with European leftists. Sometimes I get the impression that they are part of the American scheme as well: the system needs some internal, politically correct, "critics", who point out at the shortcomings of the system, perfecting it thus. But they are always part of the system, never genuinely against it. That may be true of the most of apparently anti-American left of Europe, with their ridiculous rhetoric and pro-American "anti-Americanism". Once in office the first thing they do is to shake Uncle Sam's hand during some visit.

Originally Posted by Mynydd

My believe is that the best candidate in the Eastern bloc would have been Yugoslavia.

Sorry, I am not sure I understood what you meant. You mean: Yugoslavia would have been the best candidate among the eastern European Communist countries, as a country with which this supposed neutral Spain would establish ties, in defiance to both East and West?

However, Yugoslavia was financially upheld by America, since 1948. First by direct aid, then by loans. Not only that, but America sold (or donated in some cases) weapons to Yugoslavia, American experts built many military installations (some of them it was easy to bomb in 1999, because the US Army had all the contruction plans of those installations handed down to them by the American firms that built them). Politically-formally Yugoslavia was tied to USSR (following its moves in exterior and world politics, for example, in the Middle Eastern conflict), but it was tied to America in many other ways, maybe even closer.