Franco and Spain

I read Victor Ragonesi's letter (March 13) and found myself in agreement with him except where Franco and Spain are concerned.

Detesting dictators of all shades and hues as I do, I could never buy the oft-boasted claim of the franquistas that Franco saved Spain and the Mediterranean from Communism. He saved them for himself and his regime. It is true that the extreme left had committed atrocities during the Second Republic and into the Civil War but neither were Franco and his henchmen blameless paragons of virtue... whether during or after the civil war. Unfortunately, that is what dreadful internecine strife brings in its wake. Had the Left won there would have been a detestable dictatorship in Spain, no more and no less than the one established by Franco.

It is also a favourite line of Franco's apologists to claim that he resisted Hitler's blandishments to enter the war on the side of the Axis. This was the line deliberately followed by Franco's propaganda machine. What was to emerge many years later is that during that famous meeting with Hitler in 1940 at Hendaye, on the Franco-Spanish border, Franco did want to enter the war on the side of the Axis.

Despite the prostrate state of Spain after the civil war, he wanted to join the fray but also demanded all French North Africa from the equally prostrate France. Hitler refused... and the little man returned to Spain in a huff, but put a good face to it and his propaganda machine churned out the rest.

I am surprised that some still assert, in all good faith knowing Dr Ragonesi, that "...Franco prepared his country to follow eventually a democratic system under monarchical constitutional rule". No Sir! Not at all. What Franco did was, yes, groom Prince Juan Carlos de Borbon y Borbon as his successor and head of state. By "catching him young" he hoped that the prince, nurtured on Franco's system, would carry on with it.

In fact, the legitimate heir to the Spanish throne, Juan, Count of Barcelona and Juan Carlos's father, was bypassed because he was of too liberal tendencies.

Just in case, in order to make sure that Juan Carlos would keep toeing the line, Franco always dangled the threat of nominating the former's cousin Alfonso Duke of Cadiz, (morganatic) son of Jaime, Duke of Segovia. The marriage between Franco's own granddaughter to Cadiz strengthened this possibility.

Had Franco really prepared the way for a democratic system, his most extreme supporters would not have tried to stage a coup d'etat against the democratically-elected government in 1981. Had they succeeded they would have done away with the infant and truly democratic constitutional monarchy and re-establish the despicable regime for which they yearned and about which they were so nostalgic. Fortunately, the decisive part played by King Juan Carlos in that crucial period, and the maturity of Spain's mainstream political parties, earned the king the support and respect of all of them, even hitherto anti-monarchist elements.