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PARTISAN REVIEW
dom"). When an ETA commando "executed" Carrero Blanco, the initials of
this organization became magic words for most people. ' 'ETA had dared." A
long history offear and hate began to be rationalized . The" quiet maturity of
the Spanish people," which the Regime heralded at that moment, was only
the passivity brought by momentary shock.
It
belies the officials' own
certainty that someday everything is going to change overnight after a sign is
written on the wall.
They simply couldn't believe that Carrero had been blown over a church
wall and their own heads were still on their shoulders. Arias, after all, in 1939
was the ''jackal of Malaga." Mayalde, vice president of the puppet
Parliament, was the man who travelled to Nazi-occupied France to get the
President of the Republican autonomous Government of Catalonia, Lluis
Companys, and bring him to Barcelona to have him executed. And so on.
Salvador Puig Antich' s execution is only one of the most recent on a long
list. It took place after those at the top were unable even to explain who the
executors of Carrero Blanco were, and it was meant to make clear that it
was
they
who had decided "to go democratic." Their names, the execution
was meant to signify, were
not
on the wall.
Yet democratization is simply too late.
It
could have worked in 1945. It
could also have worked in 1957-59, when the Opus Dei, speaking a
technocratic, Europeanized language, began to give the cabinet a "new
look. " It could even have worked a couple of years ago, when the crisis of the
West did not seem as plain as it does today, when Caetano and Papadopoulos
were still in power and post-Gaullism reigned in France. Not today. This is
what the ousted Opus Dei and the collaborationist Christian Democrats
whisper in Franco's ear. Today an "opening" means a "break," and the only
way to stop ETA is to give in to democratic pressures more than is safe for the
regIme.
And in fact, there are few chances of "opening" without "breaking"
the regime. But there is also no clear way of reassuring the executioners ,
tracked and trapped by ETA commandos, denounced by a freer press and
despised by everybody. That is, there is no way to continue to balance political
punishment with a show of democratization that does not include opening
wide enough to bring in the moderates for such a policy mix. In sum, the
political equations have no straightforward solution so long as the figures in
the regime remain tied to an evermore burdensome and decrepit Franco.
It has yet to be seen whom the military will support. An attempt on the
part of the more fascist generals to block any democratization could tip the
balance in favor of the Democratic Junta among the more liberal military
men . Confrontations have already taken place between the army's political
extremes. Middle-of-the-road military men , it is assumed, will back Juan
,
