Skeletons let out of Franco’s cupboard

Press, 27 October 1976, Page 5

Skeletons let out of Franco’s cupboard

By NZPA correspondent TOM BURNS Madrid The private world of General Francisco Franco has been laid bare in a best-seller that shatters many of the myths about the late Spanish leader. A book by his first cousin and long-time secretary, General Francisco Franco Salgado Araujo, also quotes General Franco as saying that British Intelligence bugged the office of the late French President, Charles de Gaulle, in the post-War period.

The author, who died before General Franco, said the latter told him about the bugging in 1958, though it had occurred earlier. General Franco then said that “England had a recording device in his (De Gaulle’s) office which took down everything he said and this was later reservice agent. moved by an Intelligence “We were informed from London and kept abreast of all the French President’s thoughts and plans.” The period referred to is evidently 1944-46 when General de Gaulle was head of the Provisional Government in France. General Franco Salgado Araujo, whose book is called "My Private Conversations With General Franco,” records in diary form the years 1954 to 1971, when he was in constant attendance at the Pardo Palace of the Spanish head of State. He says his cousin had a low opinion of General de Gaulle, both as a statesman and as a military leader. He could never forgive the French leader for having had a Communist as Defence Minister in the 1944-46 Provisional Government. General Franco is pictured as a distant, cold figure whose passion for shooting and fishing was matched only by his hatred of Communism, Freemasonry and Liberalism. His regime’s main motivation was to “protect” Spain from any return to democracy and political pluralism, which he equated with anarchy and revolution. General Franco. it appears from the diaries, never really knew what his enemies were saying. For this his Ministers, branded by the author as toadies, were really to blame. “The Caudillo (as General Franco was known), never asks about anything. He apparently lives perfectly happily, ignoring public opinion and believing only what his ministers tell him . . . “Some Ministers have been years at their posts and do exactly what they like — among other reasons because they cannot be publicly criticised.” General Franco, according to his cousin, boasted a great deal about his exploits, particularly in fishing and shooting. He indulged his passion for these at times to the point of virtually abandoning affairs of State. He told his cousin he had killed 5000 partridges in one day and had landed

60 salmon fishing the rivers of Asturias. Franco Salgado Araujo dryly attributed the fishing success to the dexterity of the local authorities in laying down salmon beds. During one month, General Franco spent 17 days shooting. The author records a successful day’s tuna fishing off the coast of San Sebastian and then comments: “Every tuna fish costs the nation many thousands of pesetas. If I, who support the regime and admire the Caudillo in many ways, reflect on this, what on earth must his enemies be saying?” General Franco dismissed the late President John Kennedy as a man who was “surrounded by several Left-wingers and enemies of the Spanish regime.” In 1956, a full 20 years before General Franco died, the author noted: "The regime is losing goodwill, firstly because it has been with us so long and there is no preparation for the future, and, secondly, because the lack of criticism makes all rulers into dictators, and in this case the Ministers are more dictatorial than the Caudillo, who is weak with them instead of firm.” Already by that date the succession question was becoming an obsession in political circles, as was General Franco’s determination that the future king should be loyal to the Movimiento, the national movement he created and which became the ftate party. Franco was determined there should be no return to the constitutional monarchy that existed sefore the Republic of the 19305. He opposed the very existence of political parties. “My wish is that the monarchy should be founded on the principals of the Falange (the Spanish Fascist party that formed the core of the Movimiento),” Frnaco told the author. In another conversation, the Caudillo declzred that in opting for a king, “we are planning an installation, never a restoration which would bring chaos

to the Monarchy.” He would, in effect, be succeeded by a ‘‘new monarchy.” The legitimate heir to the throne was Don Juan, Count of Barcelona, son of Spain’s last King, Alfonso XIII. But Don Juan earned the Caudillo’s opprobrium with a manifesto to his supporters in 1945 which opposed Franco’s regime and called for a constitutional monarchy. Again and again, Franco vented his anger on the exiled court of Don Juan in Estoril, near Lisbon, where the pretender was constantly visited by opponents of the regime.

Don Juan’s liberal ideas and friends were his undoing. “It is such a pity that Don Juan is so ill-advised and that he believes so deeply in a liberal monarchy,” Franco tolff his cousin. The solution to the succession question was to choose Don Juan’s son, the present King Juan Carlos — a matter which was arranged in a series of meetings between Don Juan and the Caudillo. Franco Salgado Araujo describes in his diaries the extreme care the Head of State took in educating the young Prince, the close monitoring of his friendships and the almost fatherly pre-occupation in Juan Carlos’s progress through military academies and university courses. Reading between the lines, it is evident that Juan Carlos was submitted to enormous strains, being torn between his father’s Liberalism and General Franco’s unyielding defence of the system he created. On one occasion General Franco tells the author: “I am not happy that Princess (now Queen) Sofia is friendly with certain aristocrats who could turn her against the regime that was born out of the Crusade.” To insure himself against any deviation from the Movimiento, General Franco did not formally name Juan Carlos his successor util 1969 — 14 years after the Prince arrived in Span from Estoril to begin his higher education.