FELIPE GONZÁLEZ MÁRQUEZ

Prime Minister of Spain from 1982 to 1996, Felipe González Márquez (born 1942) helped lead Spain into the European community of nations. Birth and Childhood Felipe González Márquez was born on March 5, 1942, in Seville, the largest city in western Andalusia in the south of Spain. His father, Felipe González Helguera, bought and sold cattle and owned a small dairy in a lower-middle-class district of Seville. His mother, Juana Márquez, was, in her son's words, "the driving force of the family." The particular period of Spanish history in which González grew up had a decisive influence on what were later to be his ideological beliefs. Between 1936 and 1939 Spain had suffered an horrific civil war, resulting from a military rising that overthrew the reformist government elected to power in February 1936. Under the ultraconservative regime established by General at the end of the war in 1939, all political parties and trade unions were banned except those organized by the state. All forms of dissent were prohibited. González was born at a time when Spanish prisons were full to overflowing with political prisoners. Thousands of people had been executed since the end of the war because of their liberal beliefs. In his neighborhood in Seville lived a number of former political prisoners who had served their sentences in a nearby Francoist labor camp. Finally, the 1940s were years of extreme hardship. The combined effects of the civil war, the subsequent world war, the Francoist policy of economic autarchy, and a long, severe drought brought shortages of even the most basic necessities of life. Spaniards refer to the 1940s as "the hungry years." During those years González attended a school run by Claretian priests, then entered the Faculty of Law at Seville University. There he was soon influenced by the highly politicized atmosphere which characterized Spanish (and other European) universities in the 1960s. In 1962 he joined the illegal and secret Socialist Youth movement and, two years later, the equally clandestine Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). It was also at Seville University that he met Carmen Romero López, whom he married in 1969. By the mid-1960s the economic and social situation in Spain had changed considerably from the hunger and scarcities of the 1940s. The Franco regime had abandoned autarchy and Spain had been reincorporated into the world capitalist system. Politically, however, the regime had not changed at all. Strikes were illegal, but became increasingly frequent in these years, as did demonstrations, go-slows, lock-outs, unfair dismissals, and numerous other manifestations of conflict between employers and workers. When González graduated from Seville University in 1966, he set up the city's first labor counseling office and, as a lawyer specializing in labor cases, acted on behalf of the employees in various parts of the country in some of the most important disputes of the time. Early Political Career While he was advancing his professional career, González was also gaining a name for himself as a member of the clandestine Socialist party. In 1939 most of the party's surviving leaders had left Spain for exile. Inside the country a minimal organizational structure managed to keep going, from which new leaders began to emerge.

Felipe González was one of this new generation of activists. In 1965 he became a member of the Seville provincial committee and, later, of the national committee. In 1970 the PSOE held its 11th congress and González was elected to the party's most important internal body, the executive commission. By then González and his contemporaries in the PSOE felt increasingly uncomfortable with an aging exiled party leadership that seemed to be divorced from the realities of contemporary Spain. In 1974 at the 13th party congress held at Suresnes near Paris, González was elected as the party's first secretary-general. His election represented the triumph of the "new" PSOE over the "historic" sector. It also constituted the recognition of González as a major figure within the Spanish socialist movement and the beginning of a new phase in his political career. As leader of the PSOE (with the nom de guerre "Isidoro") his political responsibilities and activities had already increased when, in November 1975, General Franco died, opening the way to the legalization of a multiparty system in Spain. Throughout 1976 González traveled widely in Europe discussing the political future of Spain and of the PSOE with the leaders of other European socialist parties. He established particularly strong links with the West German Social Democratic party. At home he participated in negotiations between the centrist government of Adolfo Suárez and the opposition parties which were designed to achieve consensus on the need for moderate reformist policies, rather than radical change, in order to ensure a peaceful transition to democratic rule. When the first free elections in 41 years were held in June 1977 the PSOE became the main opposition party in the Spanish Cortes (parliament). Under the leadership of González, the PSOE worked to consolidate Spain's nascent democracy and to increase its own appeal to the progressive, but moderate, sectors of Spanish society. In May 1979 at the 28th party congress, González resigned as secretary-general when the majority of the delegates rejected his motion that the word "Marxist" be dropped from the party's definition of itself. Four months later, however, at an extraordinary congress, he was reinstated and the motion was carried. Giving the party a social democratic image earned González criticism from the left wing of his party, but it paid dividends with respect to the electorate. In October 1982 the PSOE won a landslide victory at the polls and González became Spain's first Socialist prime minister since 1939. Spain's First Socialist Prime Minister González' personal charisma, his prestige as a politician, and his control of the PSOE's executive apparatus subsequently enabled him to weather a number of internal storms and to implement controversial policies. Most notably, the leader of the PSOE altered decisively the party's position on Spanish membership of NATO. The PSOE was strongly opposed when Spain joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1981. After the 1982 election, however, the González government and the majority of the PSOE advocated remaining in the alliance. In a referendum held in March 1986 the question was decided in favor of retaining NATO membership. Three months later González again led his party to victory in a general election. He won his third term in office in the elections held on October 29, 1989, although this time, unlike the two previous occasions, the PSOE did not secure an absolute majority in the Cortes. During González's mandate, Spain definitively left behind the international isolation of the Franco years, becoming a member of the European Economic Community in 1986 and of the Western European Union in 1988. Prime Minister González maintained close relations with a number of Latin American leaders and, as vice-president of the Socialist International, took a particular interest in national and international efforts to resolve the problems occasioned by economic and political instability in Central America. After serving his forth consecutive term, González announced in June 1997 that he would not seek re-election. His withdrawal followed a series of financial and political scandals. The most serious were charges against some 20 political and police officials under González, including a former Interior Minister, over organizing squads that killed Basque separatists in the 1980s Encyclopaedia of world biographies

FRANCISCO FRANCO

Francisco Franco, the son of a naval postmaster, was born in El Ferrol, Spain, on 4th December, 1892. Franco graduated from the Toledo Military Academy in 1910. Commissioned into the 8th Regiment he was posted to in 1913. Although physically small he proved to be a courageous officer and won rapid promotion. Franco had reached the rank of major in 1917 and played a prominent role in strike-breaking in the Asturian coal fields and in 1920 Lieutenant Colonel Millán Astray appointed him second in command of the Spanish Foreign Legion (Tercio de Extranjeros). The Tercio de Extranjeros quickly developed a reputation for brutality. Astray and Franco encouraged the killing and mutilation of prisoners. Arturo Barea, who served under Franco in Morroco in 1921, later wrote: "When it attacked, the Tercio knew no limits to its vengeance. When it left a village, nothing remained but fires and the corpses of men, women and children." In 1923 Franco replaced Millán Astray as commander of the Tercio de Extranjeros and over the next few years he gained a reputation as a brilliant strategist and administrator. In October 1923 Franco married Carmen Polo, a member of a wealthy merchant family. Franco growing reputation in the armed forces was recognized when Alfonso XIII sent a representative to the wedding. In 1925 France and Spain agreed to combine forces against Abd-el- Krim in Morocco. Franco was placed in command of the Spanish troops and Henri-Philippe Petain led the French Army. In 1926 Franco was appointed Europe's youngest general. Two years later he was appointed commander of Spain's new military academy at Saragossa. This involved him visiting military schools in Germany and France. Franco supported the military dictatorship of . However, after failing to solve Spain's economic problems he was forced to resign in January 1930. In 1931 Alfonso XIII agreed to democratic elections. It was the first time for nearly sixty years that free elections had been allowed in Spain. When the Spanish people voted overwhelmingly for a republic, Alfonso was advised that the only way to avoid large-scale violence was to go into exile. Alfonso agreed and left the country on 14th April, 1931. The provisional government called a general election for June 1931. The Socialist Party (PSOE) and other left wing parties won an overwhelming victory. Niceto Alcala Zamora, a moderate Republican, became prime minister, but included in his cabinet several radical figures such as Manuel Azaña, Francisco Largo Caballero and . On 16th October 1931, Azaña replaced Niceto Alcala Zamora as prime minister. With the support of the Socialist Party (PSOE) he attempted to introduce agrarian reform and regional autonomy. However, these measures were blocked in the Cortes. Franco held right-wing, monarchist views and the republican government mistrusted him and demoted him to a minor post in Corunna. Two years later he was sent to command the in the Balearics. In October 1934 the government used Franco and Moroccan mercenary troops to suppress the Asturian miners' strike. This action caused the left-wing in Spain to identify Franco as one of their main enemies. The right-wing approved of Franco and in 1935, José Maria Gil Robles, the minister of war, appointed him as his chief of staff. In this post Franco promoted monarchists and purged the army hierarchy of Republicans. On 15th January 1936, Manuel Azaña helped to establish a coalition of parties on the political left to fight the national elections due to take place the following month. This included the Socialist Party (PSOE), Communist Party ( PCE), Esquerra Party and the Republican Union Party. The , as the coalition became known, advocated the of Catalan autonomy, amnesty for political prisoners, agrarian reform, an end to political blacklists and the payment of damages for property owners who suffered during the revolt of 1934. Right-wing groups in Spain formed the National Front. This included the CEDA and the Carlists. The Falange Española did not officially join but most of its members supported the aims of the National Front. In February 1936 Franco joined other Spanish Army officers, such as Emilio Mola, Juan Yague, Gonzalo Queipo de Llano and Sanjurjo, in talking about overthrowing the Popular Front government. Mola became leader of this group and at this stage Franco was unwilling to fully commit himself to joining the revolt. On the 10th May 1936 the conservative Niceto Alcala Zamora was ousted as president and replaced by the left-wing Manuel Azaña. As a result of the government's economic measures the wealthy took vast sums of capital out of the country. This created an economic crisis and the value of the peseta declined which damaged trade and tourism. With prices rising workers demanded higher wages. This led to a series of strikes in Spain. President Manuel Azaña appointed Diego Martinez Barrio as prime minister on 18th and asked him to negotiate with the rebels. He contacted Emilio Mola and offered him the post of Minister of War in his government. He refused and when Azaña realized that the Nationalists were unwilling to compromise, he sacked Martinez Barrio and replaced him with José Giral. To protect the Popular Front government, Giral gave orders for arms to be distributed to left-wing organizations that opposed the military uprising. General Emilio Mola issued his proclamation of revolt in on 19th July, 1936. The coup got off to a bad start with Jose Sanjurjo being killed in an air crash on 20th July. The uprising was a failure in most parts of Spain but Mola's forces were successful in the Canary Islands, Morocco, Seville and Aragon. Franco, now commander of the Army of Africa, joined the revolt and began to conquer southern Spain. By the end of September 1936, the nine other generals involved in the military uprising came to the conclusion that Franco should become commander of the Nationalist Army. He was also appointed chief of state. General Emilio Mola agreed to serve under him and was placed in charge of the Army of the North. Franco now began to remove all his main rivals for the leadership of the Nationalist forces. Some were forced into exile and nothing was done to help rescue José Antonio Primo de Rivera from captivity. However, when José Antonio was shot by the Republicans in November 1936, Franco exploited his death by making him a mythological saint of the fascist movement. On 19th April 1937, Franco forced the unification of the Falange Española and the Carlists with other small right-wing parties to form the Falange Española Tradicionalista. Franco then had himself appointed as leader of the new organisation. Imitating the tactics of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, giant posters of Franco and the dead José Antonio were displayed along with the slogan, "One State! One Country! One Chief! Franco! Franco! Franco!" all over Spain. Franco and his Nationalist Army, with the support of German and Italian troops, gradually began to take control of Spain. His troops captured Badajoz and this enabled him to join up with General Mola's army and secure the borders with Portugal. The victory at Irun sealed one frontier with France. In June 1937 the Nationalists captured Bilbao providing Franco with a major industrial base. Franco was also helped by the French government's closing the Pyrenees passes to Spain in June 1938. Another important factor in his victory was the decision by Juan Negrin, the Republican prime minister, to withdraw the International Brigades in September 1938. In February 1939 the Nationalist Army was able to close the last frontier with France. Franco now concentrated his forces on the now isolated and its defenders eventually surrendered the city on 31st March. Franco developed a reputation as a cruel and vindictive military leader. It is estimated that an estimated 200,000 political prisoners died as a result of starvation, overwork and executions. The persecution of political opponents continued until 1944 when a number of amnesties and pardons were granted. Franco joined the Anti-Comintern Pact on 7th April 1938 but declared the neutrality of Spain on the outbreak of the Second World War. Adolf Hitler tried hard to get Franco to change his mind. In their negotiations Franco demanded that in any postwar settlement he wanted control of Gibraltar, French Morocco, a portion of Algeria including Oran, and parts of Africa. Franco's main demand was that Germany had to fully compensate Spain for the cost of any British blockade of the country. Hitler was in no position to take on this burden and the negotiations came to an end. However, Franco did agree to provide logistical and intelligence support and promised to send a volunteer force, the Spanish Blue Division, to help the fight against communism in Europe. After the defeat of France in May 1940, Adolf Hitler resumed negotiations with Franco. The two men met at Hendaye on 23rd October 1940. Hitler's main request was for his troops to travel through Spain to link up with an airbourne assault in Gibraltar. Franco, who believed that Germany would not win a long war, refused. Instead, he asked for arms so that Spain could capture Gibraltar. Afterwards Hitler remarked that he would rather visit the dentist to have his teeth removed than have another meeting with Franco.

Franco did consider invading Gibraltar while Britain was involved in the war with Nazi Germany. However, he decided against this move when he was informed that if this happened, British forces would take the Canary Islands. In October 1943, Franco recalled the Spanish Blue Division from the Soviet Union. Convinced that the Axis powers would be defeated, Franco now began to openly support the Allies in the war with Germany. After the war Franco came under considerable pressure to restore the monarchy. In 1947 Franco announced a referendum to establish his position. The vote confirmed him as lifetime regent. The following year, Juan Carlos, the future king, began his education at the age of ten under Franco's supervision. Franco's strong anti-Communism made him popular with the United States and in 1950 Spain was allowed to join the United Nations. In 1953 Franco signed an agreement that enabled the United States to establish four air and naval bases in Spain. In return the National Atlantic Treaty Organization protected Franco's regime from foreign invasion. In 1953 the Vatican confirmed the Church's recognition of Franco's power by granting him the right to the final choice of a bishop from a list of several candidates proposed by the pope. Franco's main foreign policy was to recover Gibraltar and to maintain Spain's colonies in Africa. He was unsuccessful in persuading Britain to give up Gibraltar and in 1956 he was forced to come to terms with the sultan of Morocco. Franco announced in 1969 that on his death he would be replaced by Juan Carlos, the grandson of Spain's last ruling king. Francisco Franco died on 20th November 1975 and within two years almost every vestige of his dictatorship had disappeared.