Juan Carlos: Steering Spain from Dictatorship to Democracy. Paul Preston
Читать онлайн книгу.
conclusions. Pabón wrote: ‘The Prince is naturally shy and, like all shy people, he over-compensates for his shyness by reacting with a certain vehemence and even violence in his expressions, his gestures or his words.’ Pabón saw the Prince’s younger brother Alfonsito as being altogether more uninhibited and spontaneous, partly because of his great natural intelligence and also because he did not live weighed down by responsibilities. For Pabón, the cure for Juan Carlos lay in the acquisition of greater self-confidence. That, of course, was something in which his father could play a part, but Don Juan had a tendency to be critical and off-hand with his son.
For Fontanar, the problems with the Prince lay elsewhere. He had had far greater opportunity to observe the boy in his own home alongside his own son Jaime, who was academically outstanding. Like other observers of the schoolboy in Fribourg and at Las Jarillas, Fontanar perceived a degree of indiscipline – which may well have reflected a natural strength of character or a minor rebellion against the constant separations from his family. Contrary to the pious reflections of his teachers (made when Juan Carlos was King), Fontanar noted that the Prince had no interest in culture and read little, not even the press. At times, he complained, the boy seemed thoughtless, selfish and superficial. Accordingly, for Fontanar, what was required was to imbue him with a greater sense of duty.38 Time and the boy’s circumstances would take care of that.
The completion of the Prince’s secondary education raised the question of where he would be sent next, since both Don Juan and Franco saw the decision as a weapon in their ongoing trial of strength. Already in the spring, Don Juan had discussed with Gil Robles the possibility of sending Juan Carlos to the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. Convinced that he had to differentiate the line of the monarchy from that of the Franco regime, Don Juan sent Gil Robles to Louvain in May to prepare the way.39 Nevertheless, as Pedro Sainz Rodríguez pointed out, and Don Juan knew only too well, if acceptable terms could be negotiated, it made more sense for the Prince to be educated in Spain. Sainz Rodríguez advised Don Juan that Franco needed the Prince in Spain and could be manoeuvred into paying a price – a publicly acknowledged interview that would strengthen the image of the crown inside Spain. Thus advised, Don Juan threw down the gauntlet in a note sent to Franco on 16 June 1954. In it, he informed the Caudillo of his decision to send his son to Louvain. Juan Carlos later told his authorized biographer, the monarchist playboy José Luis de Vilallonga, that Don Juan was also toying with the idea of sending him to the University of Bologna.40
Coincidentally, when Don Juan’s letter reached him, Franco was already engaged in composing a memorandum in which he outlined an elaborate scheme for the Prince’s future education. Through the pompous language and cynical remarks could be discerned elements of common ground. Ignoring the fact that he was secretly encouraging the claim to the throne of Don Jaime and his son, Franco wrote that Juan Carlos: ‘must prepare himself to be able, when the time comes, to deal with the duties and responsibilities involved in the leadership of a nation’. He claimed to be offering Don Juan a recipe for success based on ‘thoughtful reflection on the conditions in which a Prince should be educated and the baggage of knowledge that is required today by the ruler of a nation if he is to awaken the respect, the trust and the love of the people that must sustain him’. His letter left no doubt that, if Juan Carlos were not educated in Spain and within the ambience of the Movimiento, he would never be allowed to ascend the throne. Moreover, various cruel asides about those who would probably never reign and about the ‘shipwreck of the monarchy’ made it clear that Don Juan did not figure in Franco’s plans.
The Caudillo’s scheme for the Prince’s education was expressed in his inimitably grandiloquent and florid style. First, his philosophic and moral education would be assured by ensuring that he had at his side ‘a pious, prudent person devoid of ambition’. Then, the Caudillo announced that for discipline and the moulding of his character, there could be ‘nothing more patriotic, pedagogic and exemplary than his formation as a soldier in a military establishment’. This would mean a two-year period at the Zaragoza military academy, followed by shorter six-month periods in the Air Force and Navy academies. Then there would be two years at university studying politics and economics followed by three months each at the Schools of Agronomy, Industrial Engineering and Mining. This lengthy programme was to be adorned by regular contact with the Caudillo himself. Interestingly, he stated that: ‘I consider it important that the people get used to seeing the Prince next to the Caudillo.’ The letter was followed by a detailed – and revealing – summary of those aspects of the curriculum that Franco considered crucial. Needless to say, there was considerable stress on Franco’s own interpretation of Spanish history and on the principles of the Movimiento.41
Don Juan’s letter of 16 June arrived before this lengthy missive was sent and Franco therefore added a substantial postscript. Hurried and repetitive, its hectoring and threatening tone suggested that Don Juan’s dart had hit its target. The constantly reiterated themes were that sending Juan Carlos abroad was not ‘convenient’ – presumably for Franco – and would cause a bad effect (for Don Juan). It was increasingly obvious in Franco’s communications with Don Juan that, in the Caudillo’s mind, what was at stake was not whether Don Juan should come to the throne but only whether Juan Carlos might do so. The unmistakable threat was directed against Juan Carlos. By implication, Don Juan had no future: ‘You don’t seem to appreciate the national mood and the damage that will be done to the political future of the Prince if he is removed from being educated within the thinking of the Movimiento.’42
While this correspondence was wending its way between Portugal and Spain, Juan Carlos and his brother Alfonso had gone to Madrid for the end-of-year examinations which led to Pabón’s report. With the permission of Don Juan, they made a courtesy visit to El Pardo on 22 June to thank Franco for facilitating their time in Spain. The Caudillo ordered that the occasion be given massive publicity in the press. According to a French journalist, at the next cabinet meeting, Franco announced that: ‘The two most important events in the history of Spain since 1939 are the signature of the agreements with the United States and the visit that the Infantes made me on 22 June.’ He went on to comment that, ‘One day Juan Carlos will be called upon to assume high responsibilities in the life of Spain.’43
Although urged by Gil Robles to send his son to Louvain, Don Juan was reluctant to see him educated outside Spain. However, he needed a bargaining chip in order to ensure that, if it was to be in Spain, it would be more on his terms than those of the Caudillo. Despite the outrageous way in which it simply brushed aside Don Juan’s rights as father of Juan Carlos, much of what Franco suggested made good sense for the education of a future King of Spain. The danger was, as Sainz Rodríguez pointed out, that, ‘the Prince will be definitively distanced from Your Majesty and will end up having a Franco-Falangist education.’ However, the emphasis on the principles of the Movimiento aside, much of Franco’s plan accorded with what Don Juan had in mind. In any case, as Pabón commented, ‘to fight the bull, you have to stay in Spain.’44 Nevertheless, Don Juan took his time replying, letting it be known that Franco’s proposals were being submitted to the members of his Privy Council – a body containing several individuals whom Franco loathed. Most of those consulted realized that Franco’s plan for the Prince signified the end of Don Juan’s hopes of ever gaining the throne. Some, including Gil Robles and General Antonio Aranda, voted in favour of rejecting Franco’s proposal, but the majority were in favour. This process was completed by the end of July. However, Don Juan waited until 23 September 1954 before responding to Franco. He used the excuse that he had been on a cruise of the Greek Islands organized by Queen Frederica of Greece. As a publicity stunt to foster tourism in Greece, she had arranged to bring together the younger generation of several European royal families. Don Juan’s letter was sent from Tangier where Juan Carlos had just had an emergency appendectomy.
It was during the cruise, while on board a Greek destroyer, that Juan Carlos met