ABSTRACT
The thirty months from the death of Carrero Blanco to the resignation of Arias Navarro had witnessed cataclysmic changes in Spain. In 1973, despite the impact of economic modernization, despite the rising tides of labour, student and regionalist militancy, the stark outline of Franco’s Spain remained as discernible as it had been thirty years before. The divisions among the Francoist families were beginning to rumble beneath the surface but were still far from suggesting that the fortress might one day be betrayed. The besieging army of Communists and Socialists, workers and students, Basques and Catalans still seemed a long way from victory. The death of Carrero Blanco smashed the myth of Francoist invulnerability, ignited the squabbles within the walls and roused the opposition to seek the unity which had always eluded it. Two and a half years later, the opposition was making the pace; many of the regime’s brightest and best had gone over to the democratic enemy and the ultras were being reduced to a narrow, resentful, albeit still powerful, minority. Yet formally, Spain was no nearer to being a democratic country than she had been on 12 February 1974. For all that the Arias years had paved the way, for all the growing confidence of the opposition, the ostensible power of the Francoist establishment and, above all, of the armed forces remained undiminished. If a catastrophic clash between the irresistible force of the left and the immovable object of the right was to be avoided, it was essential that rapid progress be made to the introduction of democracy and in such a way as to meet with the approval of the armed forces and the bulk of the old guard.
