Juan Carlos: Steering Spain from Dictatorship to Democracy. Paul Preston
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in the course of the manoeuvres and confronted Bautista Sánchez with the news that he was being relieved of the command of Captain-General of Barcelona. On the following day, 29 January 1957, Bautista Sánchez was found dead in his room in a hotel in Puigcerdá.49 Wild rumours proliferated that he had been murdered – possibly even shot by another general, perhaps given a fatal injection by Falangist agents.50 A long-term sufferer of angina pectoris, it is more likely that Bautista Sánchez had died of a heart attack after the shock of his painful interview with Muñoz Grandes.51
Meanwhile, Juan Carlos was undergoing the process of getting over the tragedy of Alfonsito’s death. He seems to have adopted a forced gaiety and, understandably for a young man of nearly 19, spent as much time as his studies permitted in the company of girls. There were many of them and he had a readiness to think himself in love. He oscillated between being infatuated with, and just being very fond of, his childhood friend, Princess María Gabriella di Savoia. Neither Franco nor Don Juan approved of the relationship, among other reasons because she was the daughter of the exiled King Umberto of Italy, who had little prospect of recovering his throne.52 However, in December 1956, during the Christmas holidays at Estoril, Juan Carlos met Contessa Olghina Nicolis di Robilant, an extremely beautiful Italian aristocrat and minor film actress, who was friendly with María Gabriella and her sister Pia. She was four years older than him. His infatuation was instant and, before the night was over, he had told her that he loved her. They began a sporadic affair that lasted until 1960. She found him passionate and impulsive, not at all what she expected after what she had heard about the tragedy of Alfonsito. ‘Juanito,’ she later recalled, ‘did not show any signs of the slightest complex. He wore a black tie and a little black ribbon as a sign of mourning. That was all. I asked myself if it was a lack of feeling or if his behaviour was forced. Whatever the case, it seemed a little soon to be going to parties, dancing and necking.’ After responding to his advances, she asked about his relationship with María Gabriella. He allegedly replied, ‘I don’t have much freedom of choice, try to understand. And she’s the one I prefer out of the so-called eligible ones.’53
In 1988, the 47 love letters that Juan Carlos wrote to Olghina between 1956 and 1959 were published in the Italian magazine Oggi and later in the Spanish magazine Interviú. One of the letters was extraordinarily revealing both of the situation in which the 19-year-old Prince found himself and of his relative maturity and sense of dynastic responsibility. He wrote: ‘At the moment, I love you more than anyone else, but I understand, because it is my obligation, that I cannot marry you and so I have to think of someone else. The only girl that I have seen so far that attracts me physically and morally, indeed in every way, is Gabriella, and she does, a lot. I hope, or rather I think it would be wise, for the moment, not to say anything about getting serious or even having an understanding with her. But I want her to know something about how I see things, but nothing more because we are both very young.’ He repeated the message in another letter to Olghina in which he pointed out that his duties to his father and to Spain would prevent him ever marrying her.54
In her memoirs and in interviews following the publication of the letters, Olghina claimed that Don Juan had done everything possible to put obstacles in the way of the relationship. As she herself realized, Don Juan’s opposition put her in the same position as Verdi’s La Traviata, the courtesan abandoned because of the needs of her suitor’s family. In view of the innumerable lovers whose names tumble through the pages of her memoirs, Don Juan’s concern was entirely comprehensible. At one point, he stopped her being invited to the coming-out celebration in Portofino for Juan Carlos’s cousin, María Teresa Marone-Cinzano. According to Olghina, this provoked a ferocious row between Don Juan and his son, who threatened not to go to the ball. Juan Carlos eventually agreed to attend, but when he left early to go to see Olghina, there was a scuffle with his father.55
Olghina provides an interesting testimony of the Prince’s personality and convictions as he entered his twenties. She knew a passionate young man, who liked fast cars, motorboats and girls, although he never forgot his position. He was, she said, ‘very serious albeit no saint’. She declared that ‘he wasn’t at all shy, but was rather puritanical’ and that ‘he was always very honest with me’. He disliked women whom he considered too calculating or ‘of less than stringent morals’. His puritanical streak was perhaps typical of a Spanish young man of his generation – it did not prevent him ardently pressing on her his ‘hot, dry and wise lips’ nor spending nights in hotels with her. He was also very generous, even though he didn’t have much money at the time. Interestingly, Olghina claims that Juan Carlos disliked hunting – one of Franco’s favoured pastimes – because he had no desire to kill animals.56
When the interviewer suggested to Olghina that Juan Carlos’s letters gave the impression that he had been more attached to her than she to him, she replied that this wasn’t the case. The problem was, rather, that she was aware that he would never marry her. As a result, she tried to keep her distance from him. Juan Carlos, she said, ‘was very clear on the fact that his destiny was to give himself to Spain and that, in order to achieve this, he needed to marry into a reigning dynasty … Juan Carlos was convinced that he would be King of Spain.’57 It was later suggested that Olghina di Robilant blackmailed Juan Carlos. She was allegedly paid ten million pesetas by Juan Carlos for the letters, at which point she sent the originals to him but kept copies, which she then sold for publication.58
Despite his close relationship with Olghina, Juan Carlos had María Gabriella di Savoia’s photograph in his room in the Zaragoza academy. He was ordered to remove it from his bedside table on the grounds that: ‘General Franco might be annoyed if he visited the academy.’ This ridiculous intrusion of the Prince’s privacy may have been an initiative of the director of the academy rather than of Franco himself. However, Franco knew about it. That there was no respect for Juan Carlos’s privacy would be seen again in 1958. When the Prince visited the United States as a naval cadet on a Spanish training ship, he took a fancy to a beautiful Brazilian girl at one of the dances organized for the crew members. He wrote to her, only to discover later that all his letters had ended up on Franco’s desk. Again, in late January 1960, having been informed that Juan Carlos still had María Gabriella’s photograph on his bedside table, the Caudillo would call in one of the Prince’s closest aides, Major Emilio García Conde, to discuss the matter. Clearly preoccupied by the significance of the photograph, Franco said, ‘We’ve got to find a Princess for the Prince.’ He then went on to list a series of names whose unsuitability was pointed out by García Conde. When the latter suggested the daughters of the King of Greece, Franco replied categorically, ‘Don Juan Carlos will never marry a Greek princess!’ He had two objections – the fact that they were not Roman Catholics and his belief that King Paul was a freemason.59
The Caudillo felt that he had a right to interfere in the Prince’s romantic affairs. He told Pacón that he regarded María Gabriella di Savoia as altogether too free and with ‘ideas altogether too modern’. Newspaper speculation abounded about the Prince’s relationship with María Gabriella, and Juan Carlos remained keen on her for some time. It was rumoured that their engagement would be announced on 12 October 1960 at the silver wedding celebrations of Don Juan and Doña María de las Mercedes. The Prince’s choice of bride had enormous significance both for the royal family and the possible succession to Franco. The chosen candidate, irrespective of her human qualities, would have to be a royal princess, preferably of a ruling dynasty, financially comfortable and acceptable to General Franco. Sentiment would always take second place to political considerations. Some days before the anniversary party, the matter was discussed at a session of Don Juan’s Privy Council. On the basis of