By early 1974 it was more than clear that General Franco was approaching the end of his life. He was approaching what some called, with euphemistic language, “the biological fact.” The previous year, the assassination of Admiral Carrero Blanco, head of Government, had left the regime shaken. “The earth trembles under our feet,” said the dictator. In theory, nothing was supposed to happen. For official Spain, Francoism did not depend on people, but on institutions, and these functioned correctly. Reality, however, belied this excess of optimism at every step.
Apparently, Franco was inclined to place another sailor, his friend Pedro Nieto Antúnez, at the head of the ministerial cabinet. The influence of the “Caudillo” environment ended up frustrating this idea in favor of Carlos Arias Navarro (1908-1989), regardless of his failure to prevent the ETA attack against Carrero. That was supposed to be his job as Minister of the Interior, although it is also true that the victim of the assassination had not wanted to take protective measures. As Alfonso Pinilla points out in Arias Navarro and the impossible reform (Catarata, 2023), the change of opinion of the head of state, unthinkable in another time, demonstrated his “decreased capabilities.”
According to historian Javier Tusell (1945-2002), the best thing about Arias was “his appearance as a gravedigger, which gave us a complete image of the decomposition of the regime.” On February 12, 1974, before the Cortes, the new president gave a speech that seemed, at first, innovative. Above all because he promised, for the future, to open new channels of political participation. The time when Franco did everything by himself had to be left behind.
“The Spaniards, and the Government first, have to get used to understanding that it is not legal for us, as we have been doing until now; It is no longer legal for us, I say, to continue unconsciously transferring the responsibility of political innovation onto the noble shoulders of the Head of State” (Pueblo, February 13, 1974).
The apparent good intentions were not going to correspond to the facts. During his time in power, Arias was characterized by a vacillating policy, in which he applied a very timid openness with a view to implementing a restricted democracy from which the left, that is, the sectors defeated during the Civil War, would be excluded. Meanwhile, he practiced the old authoritarianism and responded to social mobilizations with brutal repression. The execution of the anarchist Salvador Puig Antich did not allow the theoretical will for change to be taken too seriously.
Due to its continuous contradictions, Arias' government was to be known as the “Yenka government,” in reference to a popular summer song whose chorus said: “Left, left, right, right, forward, behind, one, two, three.” .
The Catholic Church, which had distanced itself from the regime under the leadership of Cardinal Tarancón, did not take long to test the hypothetical reformist will. The bishop of Bilbao, Antonio Añoveros, commented with some of his colleagues in the ecclesiastical hierarchy that they would soon know whether Arias' opening was sincere or not: "I have put a red cloth on him to see if he attacks."
Añoveros made public a homily in defense of the right of the Basque people to preserve their identity. For the government, it was an attack on the unity of Spain. Arias was hurt by the Church because he considered that it, after enjoying long years of State protection, was paying for former favors with betrayal.
Determined not to tolerate an initiative that he considered separatist, he tried to have the dissident bishop expelled from Spain. The Episcopal Conference reacted immediately. Its president, Tarancón, threatened with excommunication for all those who prevented a member of the hierarchy, directly or indirectly, from exercising his functions.
The confrontation between the State and the Church had gotten out of hand. Franco, out of caution, ordered to turn back. Fear then spread within the “bunker”, that is, within the group of recalcitrant immobilists opposed to the slightest reform. For them, even Arias's policy, which did not translate into much, represented a dangerous distortion of the principles of July 18.
José Antonio Girón de Velasco, a well-known Falangist leader, published a forceful article in the newspaper Arriba in which he denounced the attempts to update the regime, no matter how timid they were in practice. He was bothered, for example, that foreign newspapers criticizing the head of state could be found on newsstands. In his opinion, the Spaniards were intended to lose their faith in Franco. He tried to distort his work to offer, in exchange, a “falsely liberal trinket.”
In the face of modernization, Girón de Velasco continued, it was necessary to maintain the old essences based on the memory of the Civil War: “What is intended, in the name of I don't know what strange freedom, is to forget the sacred commitment that we made with the people Spaniards who one day found ourselves in the inexcusable duty of taking up arms and saw our best comrades die so that Spain could continue living.”
The so-called “gyronazo” was a mortal blow to the “Spirit of February 12”. Arias felt indignant with that incendiary text that mowed the grass under his feet. Girón, instead of helping him, dedicated himself to making things difficult for him: “He doesn't realize that Spain has changed and that either we make the change, or they do it to us.”
When push came to shove, the then president did not dare to make any revolution from above. He limited himself to explaining that February 12 did not mean anything different "from the permanent and unwavering spirit of the Franco regime since its founding hour." He feared too much that Girón could influence the dictator and that he would end up removing him from power.
The situation was very uncertain when Franco died on November 20, 1975. Prince Juan Carlos, king from then on, wanted to progress towards a regime of freedoms within a climate of harmony, but without breaking directly with the past. He did not want the Francoists, winners of the Civil War, to end up being the losers of democracy.
It is true that he supported the most difficult democratizing decisions, although he also felt doubts along the way. He was aware that he had to do an exercise in political tightrope walking to reconcile what at first seemed irreconcilable. As he told the French ambassador, his mission was to satisfy at the same time “those who will not want to give up anything and those who will want to obtain everything.”
The relationship between the king and Arias Navarro was always very difficult. The first believed that his president was “stubborn as a mule,” while Arias thought that the monarch was nothing more than a “little boy.” Juan Carlos finally managed to force the resignation of the chief executive while granting him, as a consolation prize, a noble title. “His Highness has given me a dirty trick,” commented Arias with obvious resentment. A new stage was opening in which his successor, Adolfo Suárez, a younger man with new ideas, would become the protagonist of change.
